Celestial Navigation? Forget it!

[sailaway21]

Originally Posted by hphoen

A friend of mine said, "forget the sextant, if your GPS fails, just follow the airliner contrails or the cruise liners, and you'll make it to port."

What do you think of that philosophy?

The first thought that crossed my mind was that Icelandic Air has alot of flights and I believe they all go through Reykjavik. (g)

My second thought was that, if you're seeing that many contrails, so as to navigate by them, you're probably already in Sheepshead Bay.

I'm going to quit thinking about this because I know it's only a matter of time before somebody posts that their dog can always find his way home and advocate dropping him over the side every morning to see which way he swims. (g)

[Boasun]

That was how the hippies got to Hawaii from San Franciso. Unfortunately they couldn't find their way back to S.F.

[pbanderson]

I am more of a "techie" and think that redundant GPS is adequate. But I remember my dad taking star shots as a kid and sextants are part of the heritage of sailors. Practically I agree with you but look forward to learning to use the sextant that my dad left me. If it were only about being practical, we would take a flight to get there.

[Boasun]

I know of one mate who had to Dead Reckon from California to Japan because it was overcasted the entire trip. This was the route for that ship and they used their navigation logs for the time & speed on each course.
This was before the days of GPS, SatNav and Loran. Yes they made it safely.
So plotting your DR is a good thing. In fact the DR might just save your A$$ if your GPS goes out. Then you will be doing Celestial and Plotting your DR as you sail merrily along.

Gee!! Not only Celestial, But also Dead Reckoning, and Coast Piloting are included in the need to know navigation skills

Oh! International & Inland Rules of the Road also are included with the above

[tjaldur]

The precision of the plot obtained with a sextant will be better if the Dead Reckoning is done scrupously. Anyway, even if overcast one can keep an approximate track of the latitude by recording sunsets and sunrises.