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John,

"He fashioned a sextant out of hacksaw blades and a dime-store toy telescope"

If you go here:
http://books.google.com/books?id=_icDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA22
you will see actual images of his instruments (in an article from "Popular 
Science" magazine). It appears to be a quite legitimate, albeit homemade, 
sextant employing double reflection. Built properly and with some attention 
to detail, I would bet he could take observations to within ten or twenty 
minutes of arc regularly and reliably.

On Fred Rebell:
http://adbonline.anu.edu.au/biogs/A110360b.htm

This link matches your description saying:
"He practised sailing on the harbour, studied navigation in the Public Library 
of New South Wales, and copied outdated maps. With a home-made sextant and 
patent log, two cheap watches for chronometers, an old navigation manual, and 
six months supply of dried food, he sailed..."

And you wrote:
"So, unless the report is flawed, here's an example of a voyage based on 
highly improvised techniques.   I'd be inclined to give some of these 
credence."

So would I. And there are rare examples of these throughout history. As I 
wrote at the end of my earlier message:
"Of course, needless to say, there are, there were, there will be, and there 
always have been, mariners from EVERY country who navigate/navigated/will 
navigate using primitive or traditional means. When they have good p.r., 
commentators marvel at their aptitude and suggest that they must be "in tune 
with the rhythms of the oceans". When they have bad p.r., pundits marvel at 
their ineptitude and suggest that they are "lucky fools who have survived in 
spite of themselves". None of these tales tell us much about the state of 
"American navigation" now or in the past."

Rebell seems to fall in between the two categories I've suggested. Was he a fool or a genius?

Regarding his chart data, you say that he " copied an old atlas by hand.   
Evidently the atlas was so old that some of the islands he came upon weren't 
included."

That would have to be a REALLY old source chart :-). I bet it was actually the 
other way around --that he had islands on his charts which were not included 
in the real ocean. Inaccurate longitudes yielded a large number of spurious 
islands which remained on charts into the early 20th century.

-FER




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