NavList:

I would like to see some of the problems.  I am sure my computer program can go back that many years.

 

As you can see with my exercise posts, I was entertaining the list group with some sight from sea, ranging from the simple to the fairly exotic.  Once I return to sea in October, I will add more exercises to the list.

 

It is not common practice in the US Merchant Marine to take and average more then 3 sights in my experience, and to be honest, I have only very rarely seen any sights averaged, and those were always sun lines.  I have heard tell of Captains taking a round of stars in one set, then shooting the same stars sometime later in the same twilight, but have never seen this in practice, even on the training ships.

 

For this reason, I find it interesting all of this talk about finding slopes and speaking of probability mathematics, when the subject is not even in the curriculum of a Deck officer college course.  Frankly, the deck officer hardly has the time to shoot a round of stars and reduce them on the computer among his myriad of other duties, let alone spend the time shooting a body multiple times and then finding slope lines.  I am permitted to shoot stars only when there is no traffic or I am not on watch, even then, i feel the loss of situational awareness.  This is why you see my multi-shots done in a matter of minutes and they are reduced later in my stateroom.

 

Jeremy

 

Jeremy,
you're right, what I got is only an estimated position, which is meaningless
unless the 1900 ZT position is considered a DR position as it used to happen
before GPS.
I still have some navigation notes that my father took when he was an
Italian merchant marine deck officer. They are real life celnav problems and
if anyone is interested I would be glad to post some of them here.
Federico