[SOLD] Sextant - Aluminum or Brass

[mnh]

I have a Davis Aluminum sextant in virtually mint condition. Comes with all the bells and whistles. Also has practice (land based) horizon additions. Nice wooden box too.

My sextant days are over. This sextant got me to Bermuda VERY accurately aboard the old schooner "Ocean Star" as part of a training course.

Email me at hatton@buffalo.edu if you are interested
mnh

[endeavour55]

I have a Brass one, of course never used. will sell for $325. not sure what kind it is. text me at 58-400-3614 if interested.
Glen

[rbrazil]

Maybe hold off a few days to see what other offers you get. I’ve reached out to our Yacht Club to see if anyone has a metal one lying around collecting dust.

[Santiano]

Originally Posted by rbrazil

Maybe hold off a few days to see what other offers you get. I’ve reached out to our Yacht Club to see if anyone has a metal one lying around collecting dust.

Sound, man. I'm right in your neighborhood as well! Could swing up North and pick it up - would love to explore the river by boat!

[tkeithlu]

Do be very careful on ebay, or for this, forget it. When I went looking there were lots of fakes (Tamaya does not put the word "Sextant" on the beam) and lots of barely mentioned that they were decorative replicas, and... And, as the Astra people will tell you, a sextant that has been around awhile and is now on ebay likely has been dropped. Then the index error is a couple of degrees and no one can fix it for you.

I got lucky, and was handed a 1946 unused pretty good basic sextant. If that had not happened, I would have gone with a $600-700 Astra, maybe used with return priviledges.

You can learn celestial, or you can store a spare GPS in the oven away from lightning, or both. I like lots of separate GPS, an up to date paper plot, and celestial for the fun of it.

[Santiano]

Press release:

I've made a deal with mnh for his Astra. Thanks to everyone else, especially rbrazil, for their offers and input. Sorry as well, rbrazil, I was too impulsive to wait and see what you found in Petaluma.
Cheers!

[Benz]

Originally Posted by slug

Sextant work on a small craft is 99 percent sun observations

I rarely ever shoot dawn and dusk

Too much hassle, boat bouncing around, sails in the way ...

Also Remember..sights on a passage are not only performed by you ...your crew are also responsible for keeping up the DR plus making and recording observations.

It’s pretty easy to teach a crew how to perform reliable sun shots.
Not so easy for stars.

Complex, heavy , fragile sextants are not needed

Your experience does not reflect mine. Perhaps we do things differently.
Also the OP intends to singlehand, so all sights will be performed by him.
Anyhoo, the thread has served its purpose for the OP, so I wish him all the best, and hope he will post updates from time to time.

[pcmm]

Originally Posted by Santiano

Hey all,

11 months of boat projects should be coming to a close in March, culminating in a sail out the Golden Gate and southwards - likely single-handed. These next two months will be intense. I've put in notice at the job, and will be into boat work full-time come February.

I've been studying celestial navigation as I've found time throughout the year, and I've bowed to the experts who all insist that a sextant is an essential element in the endeavor. Scouring the e-Bays and all of Craig's lists hasn't turned up much, and I'm a bit wary of making a purchase that has lost its calibration. I figured there may be a sailor on here who has no further use for his/her instrument, and would prefer to see it sold to someone who will make active use of it, rather than some antique collector or dabbler.

I've made a few deals with folks on here, and found them always to be honest and genuine. I'll have much more confidence in the accuracy of an instrument purchased through this forum.

The upper limit on the budget is $400, so I'm not expecting a mint Weems and Plath unit.

Cheers,

Adnaan

Check Ebay again. There are lots of nice sextants in the sub$400 range right now

[Santiano]

Excluding the Indian shipbreakers' pieces? One or two I found tempting.
Nothing against the scavengers of the Subcontinent, but then there's all the issues Cthulhu the Frog referred to in post #20.
I'm happy to have come here instead.

[IslandHopper]

Originally Posted by Santiano

Excluding the Indian shipbreakers' pieces? One or two I found tempting.
Nothing against the scavengers of the Subcontinent, but then there's all the issues Cthulhu the Frog referred to in post #20.
I'm happy to have come here instead.

Fact is most of those from the ship breakers these days have had little or no use, maybe when they have had a cadet or an enthusiastic 2/0 onboard but most will still be like brand new. Most of the ships i sail on these days you would be lucky to find a fingerprint on them, and then that would only be from the 3 monthly Sextant check when due in the ships preventive maintenance
program Lol.........

Good choice with the Astra

[Santiano]

Originally Posted by IslandHopper

Fact is most of those from the ship breakers these days have had little or no use, maybe when they have had a cadet or an enthusiastic 2/0 onboard but most will still be like brand new. Most of the ships i sail on these days you would be lucky to find a fingerprint on them, and then that would only be from the 3 monthly Sextant check when due in the ships preventive maintenance
program Lol.........

Good choice with the Astra

Thanks, mate.

Fact is, my brother works on a few of those ships, and reports that the crew strip the thing bare on its last voyage. Moving vans at the port to abscond with anything they can carry. Why do they leave all these perfectly good sextants for the breakers?

[IslandHopper]

Originally Posted by Santiano

Thanks, mate.

Fact is, my brother works on a few of those ships, and reports that the crew strip the thing bare on its last voyage. Moving vans at the port to abscond with anything they can carry. Why do they leave all these perfectly good sextants for the breakers?

Because for the most part a sextant is still classed as essential ships navigational equipment, and whether it's used or not it is still a class requirement to be carried when at sea, so as with most ships essential equipment it stays with the ship until it goes up the beach at the breakers and is decommissioned, only then can essential equipment be removed....

Some (very few) Classification societies have dropped the requirement for vessels to carry a sextant but most still require it, all the ships in the company i work for have to and do carry them.....

[Santiano]

Good to know, thank you! Must be locked away in the wheelhouse somewheres.

[peter57]

Originally Posted by Santiano

Rbrazil, you just click the "quote" button at the bottom of Bill's post, and it'll do it for you automatically. It shows you the HTML code, as well. I chatted to Bill and he told me that he only has the one metal sextant that he uses on his sailboat. The rest are plastic or aviation sextants.

It's not that I don't appreciate everyone's opinions, but I am set on getting a metal sextant. I'll use it for years and years to come, and plastic won't cut it. I do have several GPSs on board. I want a sextant for the durability, the extra security, the enjoyment, and the challenge. I did ask this in the "buy and sell" section, after all.

An EMP may not be likely, but a knockdown, water damage, lightning strike, dead house bank... all of these could kill my current nav options. Plus all those things I haven't thought of.

Like all your paper charts getting water damaged and becoming useless with the knockdown that took out the electronic nav. Negative I know but I had many charts in a 4" plumber pipe, glue sealed one end and rubber seal screw on the other they got wet through the rubber end without me noticing and the lot got ruined. A lot of those charts I had owned since the Eighties.

[glakesjim]

Hello Adnaan,
I have a Davis Mark 25 I purchased in the mid-90's while taking the PS celestial nav course. It is just taking up space in my office. I paid over $200 for it (have original Boat U.S. receipt). I would sell it for a fraction of original cost if you would be interested in having as a handy backup when heavy brass sextant may be difficult to use.
glakesjim