NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: GPS shortcomings.
From: Jared Sherman
Date: 2005 Jun 11, 11:22 -0400
From: Jared Sherman
Date: 2005 Jun 11, 11:22 -0400
What I'd heard from many sources (which doesn't mean it is true) is that the Davis, and all plastic sextants, suffer more from thermal changes in the material than metal sextants. Supposedly taking it out from below decks and letting it heat up in the sun will throw the index error out more than it would with a metal sextant. But in theory a good navigator would allow a sextant to acclimate to heat/cold and then recheck the index error before using it. Perhaps it is bad habits that give it the bad rep?