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A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Celestial Navigation on the wane?
From: Fred Hebard
Date: 2007 Jan 15, 21:27 -0500
From: Fred Hebard
Date: 2007 Jan 15, 21:27 -0500
Somehow having been transformed over my life into a non-lurker type, might I just point out regarding Frank's little-worn newer sextants on eBay. The worn ones would tend to still be in use and not for sale! Fred On Jan 15, 2007, at 9:18 PM, Ken Gebhart wrote: > OK Frank, lurk inclined as I am, any time someone says that CN is > of little interest to people these days, I have to raise my voice. > Now that you have said that CN is of enormous superficial interest, > and that the number of people with greater than a casual interest > is debatable, I will call it a day and quit while (I think) I am > ahead. > > Sincerely, though, I really appreciate your willingness to come > forward with your views, and welcome others. > Ken > > > On 1/8/07 7:33 PM, "FrankReedCT@aol.com"wrote: > >> Ken Gebhart wrote: >> "Frank, may I ask on what you base this conclusion? We (at >> Celestaire) are >> seeing sextant, nautical almanac, sight reduction tables and CN >> calculator >> sales all up over previous years. This is the case as reported by our >> dealers in the UK and Australia as well. At most of the US >> sailboat shows, >> attendance at CN seminars is much higher than 10 years ago, and is >> quite >> respectable." >> >> That's certainly very interesting. First, let's not discount the >> fact that you personally are doing something right. Imagine a >> grumpy old man sitting in a booth saying to prospective customers, >> "Yeah, it's a sextant. You're holding upside-down, moron. And no, >> it doesn't have anything to do with sex. Don't even think about it >> until you read these three books!" You can imagine that this >> imaginary sextant merchant would see declining sales. But of >> course, that's not you. You're a skillful, interesting public >> speaker, an enthusiastic advocate of the art of navigation, and an >> all-around nice guy. No flattery intended. As the available >> options for learning about celestial navigation have dried up in >> the past twenty years, the remaining business should rather >> naturally gravitate to you. So that's part of the puzzle. >> >> More generally, I think that there is enormous superficial >> interest in celestial navigation. Sextants are "cool". They look >> like they might be really fun to use. If a person could become a >> celestial navigator in three days or fewer, or better yet three >> hours, I am sure that the market for the tools would be very >> large. As it is, many potential students are eager to buy "stuff" >> but very few indeed get around to trying them out. How many of >> those boat show sextant sales end up on ebay a few months later? >> There are used Astra IIIb's on ebay on a regular basis, and the >> auctions almost always include these phrases: "hardly ever used", >> "used once", "never used, stored in a closet for ten years". >> You'll never see phrases like "normal wear from use" or "used on >> three Atlantic crossings". Those phrases do appear on auctions for >> old Simex sextants, Tamayas from the 1960s, and so on. And, of >> course, the great majority of sextants on ebay are purely >> decorative. But they sell well. >> >> The number of people with a greater than casual interest in the >> subject is debatable, but I think it's very low. >> >> -FER >> 42.0N 87.7W, or 41.4N 72.1W. >> www.HistoricalAtlas.com/lunars >> >> >> > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ To post to this group, send email to NavList@fer3.com To , send email to NavList-@fer3.com -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---