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A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: CN Aspects of Chichester's Tasman Crossing
From: Geoffrey Kolbe
Date: 2015 Nov 22, 20:25 +0000
From: Geoffrey Kolbe
Date: 2015 Nov 22, 20:25 +0000
On Sun, Nov 22, 2015 at 6:40 PM, Brian Walton <NoReply_Walton@fer3.com> wrote:
The ambiguity is; does box refer to the sextant, or the case, and, does case mean a normal wooden box, or a leather pouch?
The 'box' is the cylindrical drum into which the sextant can be housed when not in use.
That is my understanding of the term and Websters dictionary would seem to agree.
Marine and type mean nothing.
I would demur. I think that the box sextant was originally a surveying instrument and, as such, did not need shades. A 'marine type' box sextant is a variant which has index mirror shades to enable it to be used as a nautical sextant.
I thought it fun to fly a 70 year old biplane, and use a 170 year old sextant, to investigate FC's 85 year old theories.
I applaud you in this endeavour! The armchair expert must always give way to he who has tried it in the field (or even, in the air...)
Geoffrey Kolbe
