Considering ditching electronics and navigating the "old" way

[barnakiel]

There is also this small sextant as described here:


https://www.yrvind.com/bris-mini-sextant/


Only one inch large and accurate too. Good emergency and good learning tool.


Can be built onboard during a rainy weekend ... waiting for the Sun.



barnakiel

[RaymondR]

Originally Posted by rslifkin

With electronics, sometimes it's easy to get lost in the "ooh, that's cool" and "that would be nice to have". In reality, if you put some thought into it, you can probably come up with a fairly basic, inexpensive, easy to maintain setup that'll meet your needs (and be far more practical than not having it).

I use a cheap Lenova tablet with OpenCPN and CM93 charts for anchor watch purposes. Total about $200 and I have used the same software on a cheap 10" to navigate the 4,000 nm Australian coastal passage from the Great Sandy Straits to Exmouth and back. I already have the paper charts to do this but to buy them again now would cost in excess of $1,000.

[edwinb]

Anyone know where there is an iphone app that gives sextant tables for the day including mer pass for sun at greenwich,cant seem to find one?

[TeddyDiver]

If you go old fashioned why not have an old book to guide you to celestial (and more). Get Bowditch "American Practical Navigator", it was the bible of the US navy back in the days when they didn't bump into other vessels.

[barnakiel]

Originally Posted by edwinb

Anyone know where there is an iphone app that gives sextant tables for the day including mer pass for sun at greenwich,cant seem to find one?

There is an Android App. Find it on Google ten cross reference to Apple shop.


barnakiel

[barnakiel]

Except that using digital crutches like Apps to get your almanac negates the point.


The same applies to Tamaya calculators as well as Casio ones.



You can get a printed almanac by printing pages of online alamanacs though.


It is a sextant, a clock, an almanac and a pencil exercise.



b.

[edwinb]

thanks for the advice- taken it

https://thenauticalalmanac.com/2020%...%20Almanac.pdf

[TeddyDiver]

Originally Posted by barnakiel

Except that using digital crutches like Apps to get your almanac negates the point.


The same applies to Tamaya calculators as well as Casio ones.



You can get a printed almanac by printing pages of online alamanacs though.


It is a sextant, a clock, an almanac and a pencil exercise.



b.

Actually a clock and almanac suffice (well a pencil and a chart too). Except twice a year and polar areas during mid summer..

[Ken Z]

Its not that hard. I was taught at 9 . My dad had a swordfish harpoon boat, charter too and he would have me plot between two dots on the chart. one where we were and one where to go. I would draw a pencil line between the dots , then with parallel rules transfer the line back to the compass rose on the chart to get the degrees to travel. Then use the dividers to measure the distance and measure that on the mileage scale on the chart. Granted not perfect, waves, tides, currents, wind all add factors, but consider them. I have traveled the gulf and the islands that way for years, still do. I was out fishing with a few friends last yr. . on his boat He had 3fish, chart plotters etc. and they were real nice. While going out I checked or asked what was our heading and got puzzled looks from him , no comment. On the return all electronics went out, no fire but burnt wire smell. The capt. filled with panic as clouds crept in was lost. I said reverse our outbound heading, which was 149-152. degrees, I opted for 304-307 degrees to return due to increased wind and waves. A hour and a half later we lined up on the entrance markers. Sitting in the bar , pouring rain, my boat drink glass was never empty. A day in the life... 😁

[barnakiel]

Originally Posted by TeddyDiver

Actually a clock and almanac suffice (well a pencil and a chart too). Except twice a year and polar areas during mid summer..

You got me interested :



How do we skip the sextant thing?


I understand the chart can be skipped too when we know how to make a plotting sheet.



barnakiel

[barnakiel]

Yes. DR is simple, until it gets difficult (I mean areas with strong tidal currents).


Celestial nav, in its simple form, is also a matter of understanding things much more than 'learning' them. It IS simple when you understand what you are doing.



Although I was taught astro nav that called for star sights, moon sights, etc. I will admit all I ever do at sea is either a noon sight or else (more frequently) a morning + afternoon sight. I move the first line by the distance sailed, in the direction sailed. Dead simple. VERY VERY simple.


In fact, in case of our boat (only 26' long and quite narrow) I would say that sight taking is far more difficult than making the calculation and then the plot.


People tend to think one pops up on the deck with a sextant and hay-ho they get a clean, well timed sight. In fact, on a small boat that rolls and pitches, this can be quite an exercise.


barnakiel

[Bycrick]

Universal Plotting Sheets are great. If the passage is long enough to require careful plotting, its easier to do all the nav work on the plotting sheet, then periodically transfer a position to the real chart.

[barnakiel]

I can recommend the book by George G.Bennett "The Complete On-Board Celestial Navigator".


Too bad its almanac part expired (you can roll it forward loosing some accuracy in the process though). There is no new edition I think.



But the reduction tables there are still way simpler than the classic reduction tables. Also the theory coming on the early pages is quite lucid and easy to grasp for anybody, I believe.


Somehow, though I have dropped and gave away all other astro nav books I had, I still have here the Bennett's one.


barnakiel

[redneckrob]

Originally Posted by TeddyDiver

If you go old fashioned why not have an old book to guide you to celestial (and more). Get Bowditch "American Practical Navigator", it was the bible of the US navy back in the days when they didn't bump into other vessels.

They did run aground with what we would now consider shocking frequency though. Turns out celestial navigation does nothing to help you avoid collisions with other ships (unless I missed that part of nautical science class at the Academy?) and does a passable but not great job of telling you where you are.

[dwedeking2]

When I bought my first sailboat I wrote into my budget to do a full B&G electronic system. Close to $10k if I remember correctly. I'd be able to walk around the deck controlling the boat via wireless and oh so cool. I did one small movement across town and a day sail before that boat was damaged by another boat and sold.

I bought my next boat on the other side of Florida. I used a tablet for wider view navigation, a old fashioned gps device with a small screen and an inreach device which transfered information to my phone (still a small screen). I made it from Port Charlotte to Jacksonville and realized that's all I "needed" to get somewhere.

I like old fashioned. I like non-electronic back up systems. I have paper charts and find them good for "big picture" planning. But for a $100 tablet w/ gps and $40 navionics I have all the details of the US east coast, Caribbean and some of South America. That detail of that area would be way expensive in paper charts.
In fighting corporations and "sticking it to the man" I find you can screw yourself by being too pure. Sometimes trying to hold to an ideal can cost more than just using what is best.