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Re: Celestial navigation classes: looking for suggestions...
From: Jackson McDonald
Date: 2016 Oct 26, 23:20 +0000

Frank,

Celestial navigation is a vast and fascinating subject. It can be intimidating.

Neophytes often see many trees, indeed many species of trees, before they can see the whole forest. At least, that was my case.

It was important for me to step back and figure out where we are and how we got here ("here" being navigation just before the advent of GPS). I found Cotter's history of celestial navigation to be very helpful in this regard.

So my suggestion would be a course surveying the history of navigation from the earliest days until the advent of GPS.

Obviously, this would be a broad, sweeping overview, not a technical course with hands-on sight-taking and calculations. In other words, describe the forest. The individual trees (that is, specific navigational methods) can be filled in later in greater detail in your other courses.

JMcD

On Oct 26, 2016, at 6:20 PM, Doug MacPherson <NoReply_MacPherson@fer3.com> wrote:

How about 16th and 17th century European Navigation.....how did the Portuguese et. al. get around before the advent of lunars and accurate time pieces.

How about Navigation by the Phoenicians?

A little hands on practice and history combined in both cases.

On Wed, Oct 26, 2016 at 2:58 PM, Robert VanderPol II <NoReply_RobertVanderPolII@fer3.com> wrote:

What people might be looking for is backup navigation, not exactly emergency nav like Tom Sult was suggesting, but something one or 2 steps up from that. Lets say you are crossing the Atlantic and Pacific, what would you carry as a backup to GPS that minimized cost and storage space, how to use those resources you brought and how to stay in some semblance of practice and how to keep your time pieces accurate. The goal being to continue the cruise to the next major port for repairs without experiencing major pucker factor until then.

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