# Where's Your Sextant?



## sww914 (Oct 25, 2008)

Talking to some cruisers today, he mentioned that they bought a decent sextant along with all the books and cool stuff when they started cruising. He hadn't touched it since the first week when they bought it. He thought that maybe it's deep down in the bilge but he wasn't sure. They had planned to learn celestial navigation after they started cruising, but that was 10 years ago.
Do you know where your sextant is?


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## celenoglu (Dec 13, 2008)

Mine is burried in somewhere in the warehouse. I never need it, even a compass is not very much used in the area I cruise. Aegean sea is full of land pieces and you navigate directly by sight. I know how to use the sextant but I think I need to study again if I ever need it again.


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## thedrages (May 22, 2012)

In my bookcase waiting for a boat to call home


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## Minnewaska (Feb 21, 2010)

While I've learned to use one, I've never bought one of my own. I've often thought that it would be a good use of time on a long passage. However, on 90% of passages in real life, I'm not really looking for more to do.


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## jimjazzdad (Jul 15, 2008)

Its in the boat closet, at the house. I would need to get a new almanac part of the H.O.249 too, since I haven't looked at this stuff in 15 years or more. I guess I would pull it out and find a place for it on the boat if I was crossing an ocean, but for the kind of coastal cruising I do now...nah


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## bloodhunter (May 5, 2009)

In a specially built case over my chart table


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## dacap06 (Feb 2, 2008)

I learned to use a Sextant in the Navy 35 years ago and did use it a few times at sea. I never bought one for myself even though I taught navigation for two years. They're delicate, expensive and you have to practice with them constantly if you want a reasonably accurate fix. Here in the Chesapeake Bay all you need is piloting and dead reckoning because so much stuff is in plain sight all the time. Coastal cruising isn't much different. You are not out of sight of land long enough for dead reckoning with compass, set, drift, and leeway corrections to become all that inaccurate. If you lack confidence, add a fix once a day from GPS and work on your correcting and skills (assuming you have built your leeway tables already).

If you really want to buy a little used, old, expensive piece of equipment, I should think a Stadimeter would be much more useful than a sextant for the kinds sailing most of us do. When piloting, the Stadimeter would provide a nice supplement to the data gathered by taking bearings. But even that would prove difficult when sailing short handed.


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## svHyLyte (Nov 13, 2008)

sww914 said:


> Talking to some cruisers today, he mentioned that they bought a decent sextant along with all the books and cool stuff when they started cruising. He hadn't touched it since the first week when they bought it. He thought that maybe it's deep down in the bilge but he wasn't sure. They had planned to learn celestial navigation after they started cruising, but that was 10 years ago.
> Do you know where your sextant is?


On the shelf under my Nav Table together with needed copies of HO249.


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## travlin-easy (Dec 24, 2010)

Sold it on Ebay.

Gary


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## sneuman (Jan 28, 2003)

In the back seat of my car. I can't get a horizon easily on the Chesapeake, so I go out to an old ferry pier and take noon sights, occasionally.

I took it along on a recent Annapolis-Newport sail, but the weather was such that we never got it out. Too bad.


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## CaptainForce (Jan 1, 2006)

The last time I used a sextant was in '75 along with dead reckoning and a radio direction finder. I ditched the sextant and the RDF about the same time I got rid of my slide rule and my Loran. I respect the history of these devices, but I know that they don't provide the efficiency or accuracy of more modern tools.


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## sneuman (Jan 28, 2003)

This is going to sound a bit elitest, but I long for the days when there were at least a few barriers to entry. Too many things are just too easy these days. GPS not only means that folks don't need to know celestial, but chartplotters have convinced lots of folks that they don't even need the basic skills of coastal navigation.

Ever wonder why powerboaters seem to be the most ignorant folks out there? Because there are no barriers to entry - just turn the key and go like a bat out of hell. At least sailors still need to know something about sail trim. But this wholesale surrender to technology is much the same - when even an idiot can do it, we will have an ocean full of idiots.


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## CaptainForce (Jan 1, 2006)

sneuman said:


> This is going to sound a bit elitest, but I long for the days when there were at least a few barriers to entry. Too many things are just too easy these days..................................... when even an idiot can do it, we will have an ocean full of idiots.


- and there was the time when an educated person had to know Latin in order to read an academic text. I, too, would like to see fewer idiots on the water, but the solution will not come from holding back technology.


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## sneuman (Jan 28, 2003)

I'm not suggesting holding back technology. I am suggesting that technology (at the expense of actually knowing something) is not the only answer.


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## CaptainForce (Jan 1, 2006)

sneuman said:


> I'm not suggesting holding back technology. I am suggesting that technology (at the expense of actually knowing something) is not the only answer.


We continue to see people with high tech chart plotters aground on the wrong side of clearly present channel markers. So, I'll stand with you in recognizing the problem. So, what is this other answer that you are proposing when you suggest that, "technology (at the expense of actually knowing something) is not the only answer." Are you advocating a restrictive test to allow someone to operate a boat? What answer do you have in mind? I'm sure you don't mean that people should be required to learn how to use a sextant before they are allowed to use a GPS. What's the other answer?


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## jrd22 (Nov 14, 2000)

In the garage somewhere, at least that's my last recollection.


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## sneuman (Jan 28, 2003)

CaptainForce said:


> We continue to see people with high tech chart plotters aground on the wrong side of clearly present channel markers. So, I'll stand with you in recognizing the problem. So, what is this other answer that you are proposing when you suggest that, "technology (at the expense of actually knowing something) is not the only answer." Are you advocating a restrictive test to allow someone to operate a boat? What answer do you have in mind? I'm sure you don't mean that people should be required to learn how to use a sextant before they are allowed to use a GPS. What's the other answer?


Nope, I'm not advocating any such policies. I was only lamenting that the lack of any barrier to entry was increasing the percentage of idiots and suggesting therefore that such barriers have their benefits. If I'm advocating anything, I am advocating that everyone out there ought to have a reasonable handle on coastal navigation techniques. I'm also a firm believer that knowledge for the sake of knowing is a good thing and therefore learning celestial is a rewarding endeavor in and of itself. Nothing more.


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## CaptainForce (Jan 1, 2006)

sneuman said:


> ................ I am advocating that everyone out there ought to have a reasonable handle on coastal navigation techniques. I'm also a firm believer that knowledge for the sake of knowing is a good thing and therefore learning celestial is a rewarding endeavor in and of itself. Nothing more.


Yes, I'm still with you and I think most would agree that the knowledge is best, but you can't "rule out" ignorance.


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## SlowButSteady (Feb 17, 2010)

I pulled it out of storage so I can use it's filters to watch the transit of Venus today .


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## Skipper Jer (Aug 26, 2008)

In a cardboard box in the closet in the basement. The RDF is on my work bench since it functions as an AM radio. Actually used the RDF on the way to Fort Jefferson. I do have a certificate of sight reduction using the sun's lower limb. That class was 15 years ago. Dam time flies.


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## wingNwing (Apr 28, 2008)

Um, I found a cast-off sextant in the dumpster (!!!!) a few years ago. I learned to use it, and studied the math because I found the solution mathematically elegant (I'm a geek, what can I say?) But when I travel, I use my GPS. 

What can I say? I'm also using the internet, and not a carrier pigeon or a message in a bottle, to communicate my answer to your question.


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## sneuman (Jan 28, 2003)

wingNwing said:


> Um, I found a cast-off sextant in the dumpster (!!!!) a few years ago. I learned to use it, and studied the math because I found the solution mathematically elegant (I'm a geek, what can I say?) But when I travel, I use my GPS.
> 
> What can I say? I'm also using the internet, and not a carrier pigeon or a message in a bottle, to communicate my answer to your question.


Sounds like me. Long live the Geeks!


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## TQA (Apr 4, 2009)

In it's locker with tables and SR forms. Hope I don't have to use them for real!


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