NavList:

Thanks Bill!

That was the exact document I have been searching for, I am very grateful - thank you so much, hope our paths cross on this sphere one day soon!

I am still coming to terms with the fact that this sextant I thought to be just a bit younger than me is actually 30+ years older than I am, so she has been around some!

This sextant is a direct connection to the earliest days of the JDF Coast Guard, which was established with assistance by the Royal Navy; it would have been used on our first (wooden 63-ft) and second generation (aluminium 85-ft) patrol boats in the 1960's thru 1970's. I served on board a couple of the 85-footers, including a 1993 passage from Kingston, Jamaica to Jacksonville, Florida for drydock.

Like Murray said, my own experience included racing on board a 30-ft sailboat (J30) in the 1980's with transit-type Satnav (speed and flux-gate compass inputs for automatic DR), then a 40-ft sailboat (Oyster Lightwave 395) in the 1990's with one of the early Magellan 1000-plus GPS units. My time sailing was usually spent ahead of the mast or up it, until my developing interest in navigation moved me towards the back of the boat! What seems to really be missing in these days of GPS and electronic charts, besides the practice of CelNav, is regular honest, faithful practice of DR.... 

Again, thanks guys!

Yours aye,

Al Stewart

JAMAICA  

File: