I will initially make a course change to go directly at the noise and then ask the sonarman for another reading. I will then zoom time for about 5 minutes and ask for another reading. This gives you a basic N, S, E, W heading. Then, I'll make another course correction to try to intercept the ship(s). Every 5 or 10 minutes I'll ask for another sound reading and make corrections as necessary. When I make maximum visual contact, I try to match course (based on an AOB guess) and do an end-around. If I think that there aren't any escorts, sometimes I will use the sonar ping to get a rough estimate of range. Although, my experience is that it's not very accurate unless it's under 10,000 yards, which is usually in visual range, but handy in poor visibility weather and/or rough seas.
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