From the San Diego Union-Tribune: In this era of GPS finger-tip navigation, it's hard to believe there are "old-schoolers" out there capable of navigating by instruments much less the stars. But Coronado is home to one of the more talented throwbacks. Garry Adalian has won the North American Cruiser Association national predicted log high points championship for the 2006 season. Predicted log racing is the nautical equivalent to a car rally with the additional twists of tidal flows, wave action and windage thrown in. The idea of predicted log racing is to estimate the exact time it will take your cruiser to navigate various legs of a 16-mile course - then run the course without the aid of computers, watches and other navigational aids. Adalian had the highest average score among the thousands of predicted loggers who race around the country. He is the first San Diegan to win the national championship since Dr. Paul Pettit in 1994. A former Pan Am pilot, Adalian credits some of his success to his boat - a 32-foot Grand Banks trawler named Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Upon learning the course for the next race, Adalian and his rivals predict how long it will take them to complete each of the eight legs. Then they try to match their prediction without the use of electronic aids. The total time of an eight-leg predicted log race is around two hours. And at the end of each leg of the course, an observer on each boat will determine the degree of error. In one race earlier this season, Adalian's error for the first four legs was one second, one second, zero and two seconds. Adalian last year lost the national Barusch Bowl championship race by ... one second. "It's that intricate," says Adalian, who measures his speed by the tachometer and heading with a compass. All electronic aids are shut off or removed. How precise is Adalian? "You want less than a half-percent error," he said. For the complete story, go http://www.signonsandiego.com/sports/20061219-9999-lz1s19sail.html