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On Jun 8, 2005, at 3:58 PM, Lu Abel wrote:

> I'm going to alter my "use the $1000 to buy four GPSs and a lot of
> batteries" statement.

Good navigation is based on competency via several different methods.
Lu described this as his "alternative method" of redundancy.
Both reliability and redundancy are needed, as mentioned.

Thinking about how I would buy navigation gear, I made the following
lists.  I chose
West Marine because I know that they have most of these things.  I
would in practice
shop around, use Froogle, check out defender.com, celestaire.com, and
other places
before buying.

If I had $1,000 to spend on navigation gear at West Marine, I would buy:

  $300 - Garmin GPSmap 76 Handheld GPS (primary)
  $100 - Garmin eTrex Handheld GPS (backup)
  $145 - Davis Instruments Mark 15 Sextant
    $9 - Casio FX-260 solar scientific calculator (at Amazon.com)
    $9 - Casio FX-260 solar scientific calculator (at Amazon.com)
(backup)
  $180 - Raymarine RAY101 Handheld VHF Radio (accepts AA batteries)
  $160 - Fuji Moorea Waterproof 7x50 Binoculars w/Compass
   $43 - Bowditch American Practical Navigator book (at Amazon.com)
   $28 - Complete On-Board Celestial Navigator book (includes almanac
& tables)
   $16 - Ritchie Wet Notes 5x7" waterproof notebook
    $7 - Dockmanship by David Owen Bell
------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----
  $997 TOTAL


If I had $2,000 to spend on navigation gear at West Marine, I would buy:

  $600 - Garmin GPSmap 172C (primary)
  $300 - Garmin GPSmap 76 (backup)
  $510 - Astra IIIb Sextant
  $184 - Fuji Mariner XL 7x50 Binoculars w/Compass
  $180 - Raymarine RAY101 Handheld VHF Radio (accepts AA batteries)
  $100 - HP-48GII Graphic Calculator (at Amazon.com)
    $9 - Casio FX-260 solar scientific calculator (at Amazon.com)
    $9 - Casio FX-260 solar scientific calculator (at Amazon.com)
(backup)
   $43 - Bowditch American Practical Navigator book (at Amazon.com)
   $30 - Chapman's Piloting & Seamanship book
   $28 - Complete On-Board Celestial Navigator book (includes almanac
& tables)
    $7 - Dockmanship by David Owen Bell
------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----
$2000 TOTAL


If I had $5,000 to spend on navigation gear at West Marine, I would buy:

  $740 - Garmin GPSmap 178C Fixed Mount GPS/Sounder (primary)
  $195 - Garmin 200kHz Flush through-hull bronze transducer
  $300 - Garmin GPSmap 76 (backup)
$1100 - Tamaya Jupiter Sextant
  $145 - Davis Instruments Mark 15 Sextant (backup)
  $380 - KVH Data Scope / Compass
  $184 - Fuji Mariner XL 7x50 Binoculars w/Compass
  $180 - Raymarine RAY101 Handheld VHF Radio (accepts AA batteries)
  $150 - Raymarine RAY45 Fixed Mount VHF Radio
$1200 - Furuno 1623 6" LCD 16 nmi Radar
  $100 - HP-48GII Graphic Calculator (at Amazon.com)
  $100 - HP-48GII Graphic Calculator (at Amazon.com) (backup)
    $9 - Casio FX-260 solar scientific calculator (at Amazon.com)
   $43 - Bowditch American Practical Navigator book (at Amazon.com)
   $70 - British Admiralty's Ocean Passages for the World book (used
on Amazon.com)
   $30 - Chapman's Piloting & Seamanship book
   $28 - Complete On-Board Celestial Navigator book (includes almanac
& tables)
   $15 - Bruce Bauer's Sextant Handbook
    $7 - Dockmanship by David Owen Bell
------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----
$4976 TOTAL

The actual setup on my Tollycraft 26 was remarkably close to this
last $5,000 setup.

If you could double your budget again to $10K I'd add a laptop with
electronic charting, another radar, and make the backup sextant
metal, and so on...

I really hate plastic sextants but I was not able to justify
excluding a couple of good GPSes in order to buy a metal sextant for
the $1,000 group.

I like Astra IIIb sextants (I own one), but I really like the Tamaya
Jupiter sextant, probably the best sextant that you can buy new today
now that C. Plath is out of business...

Other ideas about how you would really spend your dollars are
welcomed... all of my prices are rounded to the nearest dollar and
I'm ignoring tax, consumables like batteries, but I am really trying
to stay under budget and I looked up all of the prices on
www.westmarine.com and www.amazon.com.

Dan

   

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