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I believe that you have misinterpreted what I have said. While graduates
of Merchant Marine academies enter the Navy with better training in
Navigation than graduates of Annapolis or ROTC, the true navigators in
the Navy are the enlisted Quartermasters. In the US Navy the job of an
officer is to manage his people, so while I work for the Navigator (a LT
or LTJG) it is really the job of myself and the junior personnel under
me to navigate the ship. I do believe that Merchant Marine officers are
better Navigators than most Navy officers however I would put myself or
any other senior Quartermaster up against a Merchant Officer to see who
is best. While a  Navy Officer might spend a year and a half of his
career in the job of Navigator, I will spend my whole 20 or 30 year
career making sure that those Navigators have the right answer when they
need it. And my primary focus will always be navigation while a Merchant
Officer will have to direct some of his attention to other aspects of
his job.

-----Original Message-----
From: Navigation Mailing List
[mailto:NAVIGATION-L@LISTSERV.WEBKAHUNA.COM] On Behalf Of yourname here
- Henry Halboth
Sent: Saturday, January 31, 2004 16:30
To: NAVIGATION-L@LISTSERV.WEBKAHUNA.COM
Subject: Re: Buying secondhand maritime books.

Also thanks to Stacy for putting in print what some of us have always
known - when the USN wants a real navigator they all too frequently have
had to turn to Merchant Marine officers who had to do it all themselves,
every day year in and year out. This is not meant to discredit in any
way
those naval officers who did specialize in navigation, i.e., Ageton,
Dreisenstok, etc., and provided us with very useful short tabular
methods
- navigators don't generally, however,  become Admirals.

                                halboth@juno.com

   

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