Cruisers Forum
 


Reply
  This discussion is proudly sponsored by:
Please support our sponsors and let them know you heard about their products on Cruisers Forums. Advertise Here
 
Thread Tools Search this Thread Rate Thread Display Modes
Old 13-01-2013, 11:30   #31
Registered User
 
GrowleyMonster's Avatar

Join Date: Dec 2012
Location: New Orleans
Boat: Bruce Roberts 44 Ofshore
Posts: 2,841
Re: Advice Request; Which Sextant To Buy??

www.celestaire.com is your friend. They have the Astra IIIb and also the Professional. Both are outstanding values. I would not even consider a Tamaya, Plath, Frieberger, etc for their insignificant increase in accuracy at 3x to 4x the price. If you are a professional and just want a tax writeoff well maybe but for the rest of us, get an Astra.

The plastic Davis sextants are okay... marginal is more the word. They will do for an emergency backup. And mostly that is what Celestial Navigation is, these days, with the ease and accuracy of GPS available for the cost of a case of beer. If you want a real challenge, make your own sextant! Plastic will work but you have to respect its limitations.

Some will say the Davis is good for learning but I disagree simply because the accuracy of the instrument is not good enough to expose a lot of common mistakes. Go for something that you can count on to give you professional accuracy in good conditions.

My experience with bubble sextants and bubble artificial horizon attachments is unless it is perfectly calm, getting a good Hs is problematic because any motion at all sends the bubble all over the place. With perfect conditions yeah it is a nice thing to have IF you need to shoot something when it happens to be nice and flat. But when you have those conditions you can just as well use a bowl of motor oil as an artificial horizon.

The plastic sextants want an index check every time you use them. Of course the prudent navigator always checks index before every round of sights, anyway, even with a $2k Plath. The adjustment screws do wear in their holes so rather than adjust your index to zero all the time, just live with it, rather than accelerating the wear. You should get in the habit of always adding or subtracting an index error anyway. Some old school guys adjust for 1" of error so that they know that they always have an error to add or subtract and they know whether it is on or off because they set it that way. Careful handling will help keep any parallelism error from creeping in for a while. Keep your plastic sextant out of direct sunlight.

A used sextant can be a good deal or not. It is not just a question of whether or not the index is zero or the glasses are parallel... you can have a warped limb and adjust out the index error and the instrument will be perfectly accurate at 0 degrees 0.0" but be off several minutes at 50 degrees. My advice is leave the used sextants to someone else and get a new Astra. Even a pull from a scrapped ship can have a warped limb or bent telescope bracket.

The old Navy sextants are thankfully getting hard to find. The skinny little telescope and tiny round mirrors look very old school and nautical but they suck compared to a modern sextant. There is an aftermarket scope and mirror upgrade available for these, but remember most of them have been in the butterfingered hands of several generations of navy midshipmen and they are all at least 70 years old.

I suggest redundant sight reduction methods. My favorite is a scientific calculator but a good backup, teh BEST backup is the relevant volume for your latitude of HO 229 along with your trusty pencil and paper for arithmeticking. Your almanac data can be on computer but in keeping with the philosophy that a backup should rely on as little technology as possible, you should have a regular paper almanac as well. It doesn't need electricity.

You will want a way to check your time, too. If you have a SSB rig then you are good to go. If not, get a shortwave receiver so you can listen to the WWV adn WWVH time ticks on 5, 10, and 15 MHz. Also probably trustworthy is the top of the hour mark on all of the BBC SW frequencies. There are other coast stations that transmit time ticks, too. A second of time error can equal a quarter mile so even a second counts. You must have an accurate time reference. Yes, you can get a fairly accurate time from your GPS, but then you have a weak link in your backup plan, don't you? If you have no GPS for whatever reason, then you will wish you had not relied on your GPS for a time check. Plus, the GPS updates only every second or so, and not at the top of the second but every second by its own internal clock. Also there can be other inaccuracies relative to proper GMT time. The time ticks are more accurate.

Don't get all worked up if your first fix is a triangle several miles long. In fact, don't worry too much if any subsequent result is a triangle a couple miles long. It is still probably more accurate than your DR so take it and use it when you are out of pilotage waters. You are seldom going to get a nice pinwheel on a small boat, no matter how good you are. Especially if you don't cheat by using your GPS for your DR speed and course over ground.

Lastly, remember the most basic law of navigation... to find out where you are, you first need to know where you are at. Your assumed position and your DR track between shots are keystones in your celestial fix. You must keep a good DR track. This is even more important than skill in taking a sight or reducing to an azimuth and intercept. The DR is EVERYTHING in traditional navigation. In the North Atlantic you could easily go a week without even getting a usable sun line. A careful DR will be a tremendously useful and important tool. I simply cannot stress this enough. Learn to measure your speed with a chip log and record course and speed through the water and apply expected set and drift. Your leeway you can find by taking a bearing back down your wake. Your compass heading is usually NOT close to your course through the water or your course over ground unless you are running downwind or nearly so. Good watchkeeping means you record speed and course every hour and update your DR. Doing it on a paper chart or plot sheet is a good backup for your chart plotter or laptop used for chart navigation. You can make your own plot sheet. I believe Bowditch has a page or so on that. If not then post the question on how to make one and I or someone else will explain in detail.

And one more last thing... you can download Bowditch in PDF format FREE from the NOAA site. You should have it in hard copy but at least have it on your puter if not on your book shelf. It is pretty boring but everything you need to learn to become a fairly good navigator is right there in that one book.
GrowleyMonster is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 13-01-2013, 18:16   #32
Registered User
 
Alecadi's Avatar

Cruisers Forum Supporter

Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: Marathon FL
Boat: Endeavour 35, 1984,
Posts: 937
Quote:
Originally Posted by GrowleyMonster View Post
www.celestaire.com is your friend. They have the Astra IIIb and also the Professional. Both are outstanding values. I would not even consider a Tamaya, Plath, Frieberger, etc for their insignificant increase in accuracy at 3x to 4x the price. If you are a professional and just want a tax writeoff well maybe but for the rest of us, get an Astra.

The plastic Davis sextants are okay... marginal is more the word. They will do for an emergency backup. And mostly that is what Celestial Navigation is, these days, with the ease and accuracy of GPS available for the cost of a case of beer. If you want a real challenge, make your own sextant! Plastic will work but you have to respect its limitations.

Some will say the Davis is good for learning but I disagree simply because the accuracy of the instrument is not good enough to expose a lot of common mistakes. Go for something that you can count on to give you professional accuracy in good conditions.

My experience with bubble sextants and bubble artificial horizon attachments is unless it is perfectly calm, getting a good Hs is problematic because any motion at all sends the bubble all over the place. With perfect conditions yeah it is a nice thing to have IF you need to shoot something when it happens to be nice and flat. But when you have those conditions you can just as well use a bowl of motor oil as an artificial horizon.

The plastic sextants want an index check every time you use them. Of course the prudent navigator always checks index before every round of sights, anyway, even with a $2k Plath. The adjustment screws do wear in their holes so rather than adjust your index to zero all the time, just live with it, rather than accelerating the wear. You should get in the habit of always adding or subtracting an index error anyway. Some old school guys adjust for 1" of error so that they know that they always have an error to add or subtract and they know whether it is on or off because they set it that way. Careful handling will help keep any parallelism error from creeping in for a while. Keep your plastic sextant out of direct sunlight.

A used sextant can be a good deal or not. It is not just a question of whether or not the index is zero or the glasses are parallel... you can have a warped limb and adjust out the index error and the instrument will be perfectly accurate at 0 degrees 0.0" but be off several minutes at 50 degrees. My advice is leave the used sextants to someone else and get a new Astra. Even a pull from a scrapped ship can have a warped limb or bent telescope bracket.

The old Navy sextants are thankfully getting hard to find. The skinny little telescope and tiny round mirrors look very old school and nautical but they suck compared to a modern sextant. There is an aftermarket scope and mirror upgrade available for these, but remember most of them have been in the butterfingered hands of several generations of navy midshipmen and they are all at least 70 years old.

I suggest redundant sight reduction methods. My favorite is a scientific calculator but a good backup, teh BEST backup is the relevant volume for your latitude of HO 229 along with your trusty pencil and paper for arithmeticking. Your almanac data can be on computer but in keeping with the philosophy that a backup should rely on as little technology as possible, you should have a regular paper almanac as well. It doesn't need electricity.

You will want a way to check your time, too. If you have a SSB rig then you are good to go. If not, get a shortwave receiver so you can listen to the WWV adn WWVH time ticks on 5, 10, and 15 MHz. Also probably trustworthy is the top of the hour mark on all of the BBC SW frequencies. There are other coast stations that transmit time ticks, too. A second of time error can equal a quarter mile so even a second counts. You must have an accurate time reference. Yes, you can get a fairly accurate time from your GPS, but then you have a weak link in your backup plan, don't you? If you have no GPS for whatever reason, then you will wish you had not relied on your GPS for a time check. Plus, the GPS updates only every second or so, and not at the top of the second but every second by its own internal clock. Also there can be other inaccuracies relative to proper GMT time. The time ticks are more accurate.

Don't get all worked up if your first fix is a triangle several miles long. In fact, don't worry too much if any subsequent result is a triangle a couple miles long. It is still probably more accurate than your DR so take it and use it when you are out of pilotage waters. You are seldom going to get a nice pinwheel on a small boat, no matter how good you are. Especially if you don't cheat by using your GPS for your DR speed and course over ground.

Lastly, remember the most basic law of navigation... to find out where you are, you first need to know where you are at. Your assumed position and your DR track between shots are keystones in your celestial fix. You must keep a good DR track. This is even more important than skill in taking a sight or reducing to an azimuth and intercept. The DR is EVERYTHING in traditional navigation. In the North Atlantic you could easily go a week without even getting a usable sun line. A careful DR will be a tremendously useful and important tool. I simply cannot stress this enough. Learn to measure your speed with a chip log and record course and speed through the water and apply expected set and drift. Your leeway you can find by taking a bearing back down your wake. Your compass heading is usually NOT close to your course through the water or your course over ground unless you are running downwind or nearly so. Good watchkeeping means you record speed and course every hour and update your DR. Doing it on a paper chart or plot sheet is a good backup for your chart plotter or laptop used for chart navigation. You can make your own plot sheet. I believe Bowditch has a page or so on that. If not then post the question on how to make one and I or someone else will explain in detail.

And one more last thing... you can download Bowditch in PDF format FREE from the NOAA site. You should have it in hard copy but at least have it on your puter if not on your book shelf. It is pretty boring but everything you need to learn to become a fairly good navigator is right there in that one book.
IMPRESSIVE!! REALY!!
__________________
People spend time putting little boats in bottles, me I put bottles in my little boat...
Alecadi is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-02-2013, 12:18   #33
Marine Service Provider

Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: Halifax,Nova Scotia
Boat: Hunter 36-80-82 Wanderer
Posts: 71
Re: Advice Request; Which Sextant To Buy??

Plastic is the best to buy ,it`s not affected by temperature variance
wanderer1 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-02-2013, 12:31   #34
Registered User
 
Teknav's Avatar

Join Date: Jul 2012
Location: Texas - USA
Boat: Twin Otter de Havilland Floatplane
Posts: 1,838
Re: Advice Request; Which Sextant To Buy??

Are you really going to take sights and determine where you are, twice a day? A sextant would never be on my boat. A portable GPS should suffice, as a backup to your fixed one! (Make sure you have a lot of batteries for the portable GPS.) Mauritz
Teknav is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-02-2013, 16:06   #35
Registered User
 
GrowleyMonster's Avatar

Join Date: Dec 2012
Location: New Orleans
Boat: Bruce Roberts 44 Ofshore
Posts: 2,841
Re: Advice Request; Which Sextant To Buy??

Quote:
Originally Posted by wanderer1 View Post
Plastic is the best to buy ,it`s not affected by temperature variance
ROTDLMAO! Where in the world did you read that? Temperature variance can easily put a plastic sextant 5' to 8' off. So says Celestaire on their site, and they are probably the single biggest volume dealer in the U.S. for the Davis brand plastic sextants. Still usable, after a fashion, but nowhere near the accuracy of a proper metal instrument. There is only one advantage to a plastic sextant, and that is purchase price. www.celestaire.com.
__________________
GrowleyMonster
1979 Bruce Roberts Offshore 44, BRUTE FORCE
GrowleyMonster is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-02-2013, 16:24   #36
Registered User
 
GrowleyMonster's Avatar

Join Date: Dec 2012
Location: New Orleans
Boat: Bruce Roberts 44 Ofshore
Posts: 2,841
Re: Advice Request; Which Sextant To Buy??

Quote:
Originally Posted by Teknav View Post
Are you really going to take sights and determine where you are, twice a day? A sextant would never be on my boat. A portable GPS should suffice, as a backup to your fixed one! (Make sure you have a lot of batteries for the portable GPS.) Mauritz
Why not? I do, even when I don't need to, just to keep my hand in. A morning sun line, advanced to an LAN, then usually a late afternoon sun line with the LAN advanced to it. An amplitude either morning or evening, for the all important compass check. In the morning or evening twilight, one or the other, 3 or 4 stars or toss in a planet. When I got a nice moon visible with a decent cut with the sun, I will go for a sun/moon fix. Latitude by Polaris, sure, if conditions are good. I mix it up but every day I do something with one or usually more than one celestial observation. It is NOT hard and it is a very practical skill that should be maintained. Yes, a portable GPS is a really good idea. Mine is my iphone, which is handy for otehr stuff, too, and a second backup portable GPS is my Samsung Galaxy Tab2 7" tablet. Cool gadgets, both, but I am more comfortable keeping a low tech method at my disposal, for the ultimate backup.

Sometimes there is just too much cloud cover for an observation. No biggie... that's where the DR comes in really really handy.
__________________
GrowleyMonster
1979 Bruce Roberts Offshore 44, BRUTE FORCE
GrowleyMonster is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-02-2013, 18:13   #37
֍֎֍֎֍֎֍֎֍֎

Join Date: Apr 2006
Posts: 15,136
Re: Advice Request; Which Sextant To Buy??

"Plastic is the best to buy ,it`s not affected by temperature variance "

Quickly! Someone call Davis and alert them to the fact that their greatest shortcoming doesn't exist!
hellosailor is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-02-2013, 18:36   #38
Registered User
 
Teknav's Avatar

Join Date: Jul 2012
Location: Texas - USA
Boat: Twin Otter de Havilland Floatplane
Posts: 1,838
Re: Advice Request; Which Sextant To Buy??

Hat's off to all celestial navigators! I used to use a sextant. I also used to use a slide rule for my HS Chemistry calculations. Both my sextant and my slide rule have been placed on permanent retirement for a few decades now; I have been embracing the newer technology for a long time. I do add a dimension to my sailing...Pilots flying IFR (using Instrument Flight Rules), are required to confirm positions (fixes) on their routes. Commercial airliners have established time tables on when they will cross these mandatory fixes; data not available to the general public. Identifying a Qantas flight over a fix, requires some aviation knowledge. This knowledge can be very helpful when supplementing a GPS fix. As you can see, there's more than one way to skin a grouper; my favorite fish! Mauritz
Teknav is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-02-2013, 19:30   #39
Registered User

Join Date: May 2011
Location: Lake Ont
Posts: 8,547
Re: Advice Request; Which Sextant To Buy??

As planned, I got my Davis Mk 15 sextant last week. I'm not exactly blown away by its construction, but it seems adequate for my purposes...to learn celestial navigation, to be more familiar with the night sky, to impress my sailing buddies, etc.

I do confess that some of the used 'pro' sextants being offered by the Indian ship-breakers look tempting. I have a weakness for Russian ones. But at around $400+ its more money than I'm willing to risk, for something I won't be using regularly. Heck I've paid less than half that for all 3 of our GPS units.

(growleymonster, thanks much for the detailed post and the tip about Bowditch. Downloading now)
Lake-Effect is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-02-2013, 19:58   #40
CF Adviser
 
Bash's Avatar

Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: sausalito
Boat: 14 meter sloop
Posts: 7,260
Re: Advice Request; Which Sextant To Buy??

The best sextants are the ones that weigh the most. That way they can double as nutcrackers, dink anchors, and/or weapons.

Might as well get some use out of them.
__________________
cruising is entirely about showing up--in boat shoes.
Bash is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-02-2013, 21:30   #41
Registered User

Join Date: Oct 2011
Posts: 2,687
Re: Advice Request; Which Sextant To Buy??

The cheapest plastic sextant will get you across an ocean , and if you learn how to do upper and lower limbs of the moon, it can be done with reasonable accuracy. I am referring to only daylight shots. Yes you can shoot the moon in the daylight, in about 1/3 of the month, so it gives you a fix rather than a line of position. The cheapest sextants are no good at all for star sights or planets, but the better plastic ones with a scope are mostly OK for star sights/planets/moon. If at every round of sights you do an index error check, you will end up with enough accuracy to get to your destination with safety. Yes , the heat can affect a plastic sextant. If you lay it in the sun on deck, or bring it from a warm cabin onto a very cold cockpit to do celestial, you will have problems. I think the biggest mistake that new navigators make is to learn how to do a noon site. People that do that first seem to never get beyond that level of skill. I did my first 13 or 14 thousand miles with an English made plastic sextant(dont remember the brand) with a scope and micrometer drum, and a Davis MK15 back up. The book I used was SELF TAUGHT NAVIGATION, by Robert Kitteredge. I must admit that it took a few hours with an ex navy quartermaster to get over the original learning curve, but the stars/planets/moon came easy after that. DONT STOP AT THE NOON SIGHT.______Grant.
gjordan is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-02-2013, 23:39   #42
Registered User
 
GrowleyMonster's Avatar

Join Date: Dec 2012
Location: New Orleans
Boat: Bruce Roberts 44 Ofshore
Posts: 2,841
Re: Advice Request; Which Sextant To Buy??

I don't know about all that... my first baby steps into celestial navigation were all about sun lines. Latitude at LAN was the first thing I learned. I was 13 and learning out of Bowditch with no advice from anyone else. This was pre-internet. I learned LAN and then struggled through the azimuth/intercept sun line using the concise tables because I didn't have HO-229. From there I learned to do stars and planets and moon. When I saw my first full function scientific calculator somewhere around 1980 I really found my niche and those formulae in Bowditch started to make sense and become practical and useful. But my introduction to celestial was LAN and sun lines. When I teach someone else, I teach them LAN first, then ex or pre LAN sun lines and go from there. The fact of the matter is, one can if pressed navigate solely with the Sun, and it is the easiest part to learn. You can take Sun observations at any time during the day. You are forced to advance and retard lines for a running fix, an essential skill. Yes, you can even grab a moon line and cross it for a two body fix when it is available and when there is a decent cut between Sun and Moon. Latitude by LAN observation is the simplest thing you can do and makes a fine introduction to celestial. Plus, you can roughly estimate your longitude by the actual time of observed LAN, a useful verification of your DR Longitude. It took me maybe a half hour to figure out how to do it myself at 13, and takes only minutes to teach someone else.

Also be aware that simply zeroing out the index error does NOT fully correct the sextant limb! You could have zero index error or know your index error and apply it, and still be off by 5' or more at a high altitude sight. You need to be aware of that. Keeping the temperature stable helps, though. For daylight use, try to limit solar exposure to the minimum necessary to get an observation.
__________________
GrowleyMonster
1979 Bruce Roberts Offshore 44, BRUTE FORCE
GrowleyMonster is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 04-02-2013, 08:35   #43
Registered User

Join Date: Oct 2011
Posts: 2,687
Re: Advice Request; Which Sextant To Buy??

GrowlyMonster, I agree with most of what you say, but it is obvious that you were a more determined youth than the average youth (or adults) of today. I equate teaching the noon site first with teaching a kid how to drive on an automatic transmission, and then wondering why he doesnt think it is necessary to learn to drive a stick. Most cars now have auto transmission, so why bother. Most boats have GPS so why bother with the hard stuff. As this thread shows, many people dont even think celestial is needed. Many people pray to the lord of the electrons, and if the electrons go kaput they will be in deep trouble. If you teach a person how to do a LOP first, then the slightly simpler noon sight will be a piece of cake, but when that noon sight is not available and the person has stopped at that level of education, the trouble begins. I was amazed at the number of sailors that I met in the South Pacific in the 70s that only knew how to do a noon site. It was good enough for the clipper ships and Slocum, so why not for cruisers? That was the justification. Since many on this forum dream of cruising in the tropics, it must be noted that when the sun is almost directly overhead, it is very difficult to bring it down to the horizon without large errors. If the sun is 20 or 30 degrees north or south of you(or better yet,20 or 30 degrees east or west) it is much easier. I am not trying to start an argument(this isnt an anchor thread) with you, I am only trying to point out that human nature being what it is, will move to the easy solution. I hope my rambling opinion helps someone.______Grant.
gjordan is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 04-02-2013, 08:53   #44
Registered User
 
captain58sailin's Avatar

Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: Homer, AK is my home port
Boat: Skookum 53'
Posts: 4,042
Images: 5
Re: Advice Request; Which Sextant To Buy??

I wonder how easy the gps is if you lose power and or your portable gps dies? I don't understand the aversion to using the "tools of the trade" , yes the sextant is antiqudated, but there are many other things it can be used for including determining your distance offshore if you can see land, what your speed is if you can see land, and many other handy things, it can be very usefull for teaching math, geomtry, trig, etc..., while bowditch was not the most exciting of writers, there are many things to learn in those books, if on a long crossing one might even find it interesting, if the video games break down.
__________________
" Wisdom; is your reward for surviving your mistakes"
captain58sailin is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 04-02-2013, 09:31   #45
Registered User
 
GrowleyMonster's Avatar

Join Date: Dec 2012
Location: New Orleans
Boat: Bruce Roberts 44 Ofshore
Posts: 2,841
Re: Advice Request; Which Sextant To Buy??

Bowditch is FREE for the PDF version. Google it.

No, I don't think I have ever seen anyone satisfied to just know their latitude. My take on it is to feed them some instant gratification, the LAN observation, and then, teased with the secret of finding Latitude, the prize of a proper fix is very tempting. This is the age of the video bite. Most folks, you can't hold their attention more than a few minutes, so you got to get them lusting after more knowledge in that length of time. An LOP looks intimidating to anyone not familiar with spherical trigonometry or a knowledge of at least what celestial navigation is all about. I understand your point, but I just dont see anyone satisfied to know only latitude and no more than that. You can demonstrate the relationship between declination, latitude, Local Apparent Noon, True North/South, and the height of the sun with a basketball, an orange, and a magic marker. A child can grasp the basics of latitude by LAN if you explain it well. And some adults are pretty child-like. If you start out with an LOP, you will lose many of them before they run out of attention span. LAN is a good hook for reeling in new adherents to the art.
__________________
GrowleyMonster
1979 Bruce Roberts Offshore 44, BRUTE FORCE
GrowleyMonster is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Tags
sextant

Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search
Display Modes Rate This Thread
Rate This Thread:

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Trackbacks are Off
Pingbacks are Off
Refbacks are Off


Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Warning - DOCUMENT YOUR BOAT! and request for advice SeattleSailNPow Rules of the Road, Regulations & Red Tape 49 08-04-2013 21:45
Buy or Deliver a Yacht Across the Atlantic: Advice Please simeon.michaels Monohull Sailboats 40 28-10-2012 05:27
380: Wanting to Buy a Lagoon 380 monte Lagoon Catamarans 3 05-08-2011 06:14
Sailing Sept. 1 from BVI (Tortola) to Panama - Advice, Please Panamajames Atlantic & the Caribbean 12 17-07-2011 10:00
Low-end Audio Installation Advice Sought pmatejcek Marine Electronics 5 01-07-2011 20:44

Advertise Here


All times are GMT -7. The time now is 00:50.


Google+
Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.8 Beta 1
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.
Social Knowledge Networks
Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.8 Beta 1
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.

ShowCase vBulletin Plugins by Drive Thru Online, Inc.