Celestial Navigation? Forget it!

[NaughtyCat]

...just make sure the antenna on that AM radio is not ferrite and causing varying deviation of the compass as you turn it.
Celestial navigation is tedious, the equipment is as expensive as a backup GPS (or two), and only available in good weather and at certain times of the day. After all that, the fixes are usually accurate only to within a few miles. It''s really only useful on offshore passages, but it is fun. (When I was in high school, the Jesuits told me Latin and Greek are fun too!)

[928frenzy]

I paid about $300 for my aluminum (Russian made) sextant. It''s accurate to a tenth of a mile, depending on the user''s abilities. It never needs batteries nor is it affected by the Military when (not if) they ''tweek'' the GPS signals. Using it occasionally keeps my mental skills up to date, particularly on long voyages.

I also have a Garmin 76S hand-held GPS. It''s great for coastal cruising. I don''t go offshore without either of the units mentioned.

BTW, I think the Jesuits were correct. I find Greek and Latin to be quite useful and I dare say, "fun". ;^)

~ Happy sails to you ~ _/) ~

[gstraub]

This whole issue is kind of ridiculous. We all sail to have fun. Sailing is not the most modern mode of transportation around. If you want to get somewhere, hey get on a cruise ship or airplane. Likewise, celestial navigation, for some of us, adds to the enjoyment even if it is not the most modern form of navigation. It is mastering an ancient art that still has usefulness. I think that the odds are that your life will never depend on knowing celestial navigation (probably about like winning the lottery, but a lot of people still buy lottery tickets).

You don''t have to learn about sailing ships and techniques if you don''t want. There are plenty of people just muddling by on the water, but those that are really interested, enjoy all the little details. So it is with CN, and it just might come in handy sometime.

Gerhard

[mishnish]

Ha! Good theory about the "presidential error factor"!! heres what happened to me... I sail in and around the west coast of Scotland... its a very plesant place to cruise. We recently had a chartplotter installed that is linked to the autopilot, all Cetrek stuff. I had read the manual and plotted a set of waypoints that would steer us round the head of Arran. I wouldn''t really trust any piece of electronics for inshore pilotage like this, but i felt it would be good to learn how to do this incase it came in handy. As it was the first time it had done this I was on high alert, with my finger hovering over the kill button ready to react if anyone came too close or anything went wrong. Everything seemed to be going great! the GPS was happily feeding the autopilot, and I had that feeling that I had totally scussed something out. All of a sudden, the autoilot slammed the helm hard over, completely catching me off guard. i hit the kill switch, and brought the boat back on course, and after everything was safe, tried to figure out what happened. I checked and it wasn''t anything mechanical, and the waypoints seemed fine. I then notice the GPS. It was giving very erracic readouts, thinking I was near japan doing 200 knots!! no wonder the radical course correction!!

It was only when i got back ashore that I realised that it was the weekend they reset the GPS system to make sure the Millenium bug didn''t affect it. Considering I didn''t know about it, i could''nt help thinking that others might not have known about the outage, and may have been steering by autopilot. I wonder if there were any real accidents?

Either way I am always slightly more streesed or nervous whilst the boat is steering herself, because the systems are never foolproof. Its so much more relaxing steering by hand!!

[jcmannone]

Celestial Navigation (CN) encompasses a great deal more than just sextant use. As you all know, this only gives you a latitude fix. A good timepiece is necessary for a longitude fix.

As a pilot, I recognize the utility of GPS. I agree with the overwhelming majority on this post to be proficient with several means of navigation to provide back up. I believe CN at least it is a worthwhile mental exercise.

I don''t mean to lecture. Its just that CN can provide additional enjoyment and appreciation of the challenges faced by ancient sailors. Just a simple appreciation of astronomy (at least celestial geography) can result from this.

Imagine the complex star charts used by the Polynesians. And the Greeks, the rising and setting times of then known 43 constellations were put in poetic form so they could be better memorized (Phaenomena by Aratus 3rd century BC). Homer''s work on the Iliad and the Odyssey (8th century BC or earlier) has some interesting celestial navigation, especially when you consider there was no North star then due to precession (our spin axis points to Polaris now).

For example, in The Odyssey, Book V, Ulysses is trying to get back home to Greece some 400 nm miles away and his sailing directions from Ogygia (Malta) are given in celestial terms. (Due to mitigating circumstances, he ends up in Phaecia (Corfu) somewhat NW of his destination, Ithaca). Listen to the poetry:

"Moreover, she made the wind fair and warm for him, and gladly did Ulysses spread his sail before it, while he sat and guided the raft skillfully by means of the rudder. He never closed his eyes, but kept them fixed on the Pleiads, on late-setting Bootes, and on the Bear- which men also call the wain, and which turns round and round where it is, facing Orion, and alone never dipping into the stream of Oceanus- for Calypso had told him to keep this to his left. Days seven and ten did he sail over the sea, and on the eighteenth the dim outlines of the mountains on the nearest part of the Phaeacian coast appeared, rising like a shield on the horizon."

If one considers learning CN as boring, inaccurate, an expensive mental exercise or whatever else, then at least consider it for its historical and literary value. It might get you to look at the stars and enjoy them on a clear night of sailing.

Starry nights and fair winds,
John

[sadie14]

We have GPS, of course. But we also have a sextant. At this point, sextants are still useful and valuable tools. I can see they might become obsolete in the future.

We learned CN as a craft that is useful. The same as we learned knots and splicing, as a craft that is useful.

There are no right or wrong answers. Just different ways of doing the same thing.

The most important thing is knowing how to navigate and how to plot a D.R. After that, what tool you use is a personal decision.

[cap10ed]

I sail professionally and work as a pilot moving foreign vessels through the Welland Canal. In an adhoc poll I found less than 80% of the crews used CN to move there vessels around the globe. The reliability and all weather capability of GPS have put CN in the same realm as Decca, radio fixes,Loran A.Modern convenience is hard to ignore.Knowning CN is now more a badge of honour and reality is you check your P/L against your GPS fix to see how close you put yourself to your known position.But by gosh as Irving Johnson said it sure makes you look like Merlin the magician when you delve into your plots.(It also gives you a reason for a chart table.)

[BigRed56]

Ahoy me mateys, de Pirate of Pine Island has helt is toungue on this thread causing some might be accusing me of being to hard on those wit opinions of an incorrect nature, lack of conviction,and dose of you wot got no brains at all. But youse see what happens when you captain lets dis ere crew ramble on? One of dem tom clancys book dat one dim wit mentioned would be shorter than dis thread. Okay listen up ye fine pack of sea dogs I gives ye the short course in dis ere proverbnial question, NO NO NO NO NO NO Why ye''s at it buy ye some latin books and outfit yer dingys wit platforms for yer mules.LET it go will ye. CN is dead dead dead.Curious study material or something to play wit on a long long cruise, OK. Sextant and resource books only for the serious cases of paranoid ,delusional and insane amoungst youse. End of story PPI

[feprice]

I wonder what would be the liability of a skipper who ran on the rocks with injury/death to crew after several days of dead reckoning because his GPS had crapped out and he had elected to leave his sextant (with which he was proficient) at home?

Just wondering.

Cheers, Frank

[Dzedzej]

Apply common sense

I carry several head sails
I carry several anchors
I generate power 3 ways
I have 2 engines
Comms VHF SSB and cell email
Common sense says don''t depend on once source for navigation.
CN is no good if you make math errors
GPS we know it short comming
Combine and use all information that you feel good about, if you have multiple sources you will not be screwed if one goes away

Rich