Phil writes:

<<(SNIP) Requiring celestial!! Now there's a way to get the riff raff off the
water!!

I finally gave my Sextant away.  The instrument was in fine shape but the
operator had "rusted".  The interesting intellectual problem is rate at
which new technology is absorbed.

------- It ain't a technology problem, it's
a people problem...

Excuse me while I put on my asbestos shirt....>>

Not to worry. I wholeheartedly agree with your position. I taught celestial
navigation to NROTC cadets 30 years ago but after the advent of affordable GPS
receivers put my trusty Heath "Hezzanth" sextant back in its padded box and
havn't taken it out in years.

"But what if the batteries die?" the mossbacks exclaim. They obviously have
forgotten how much paraphernalia it takes to navigate with a sextant. You need
20 lbs. of current books and tables, a chronometer, and a very sharp pencil
and pad of paper or calculating sheets. You also need the sky to be clear and a
steady hand. I considered it a good day if I got within 5 miles of my true
position when navigating in a bobbing boat. Today we quibble over feet and inches
in position plotting.

And a spare GPS and a handful of batteries cost a lot less than the periodic
recalibrations and mirror resilverings that my sextants required.

Larry Z

Larry Z writes:
"But what if the batteries die?" the mossbacks exclaim. They obviously have
forgotten how much paraphernalia it takes to navigate with a sextant. You need
20 lbs. of current books and tables, a chronometer, and a very sharp pencil
and pad of paper or calculating sheets. You also need the sky to be clear and a
steady hand. I considered it a good day if I got within 5 miles

REPLY

Not to mention which every Celestial instructor I know of, stresses the
importance of getting accurate time ticks from the radio broadcasts.

How do they figure on getting the radio working without electricity < grin >

I'm with Larry, the Sextant  or any celestial approach belongs with life
boat/raft navigation as the last ditch  backup effort.

Mind you; if you are so inclined, there are any number of non electric
alternatives available. < grin >
Among them are the  Kamal and the Viking Sun stones.
The Polynesians  used  wave pattern maps  constructed from twigs and sea shell.

Anyone who saw the movie  "Search for Longitude"  an account dealing with the
development of  the Harrison chronometer.
Don't forget that one of James Cook's  early Pacific voyages was to  establish
an observation station to observer a lunar  eclipse for the purposes of  testing
the accuracy of the best chronometer available at the time.

The idea was that by making simultaneous  observations of the eclipse at
opposite  sides of the planet and referencing it to their local chronometer  it
could be determined how accurate the two  clocks were.
Both time pieces were started and synchronized before Cook started his voyage.
The accumulated error at the instant of the eclipse would be the measure of  the
chronometer accuracy.

Cheers

Arild

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