NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
From: Frank Reed
Date: 2016 Sep 7, 12:24 -0700
Quoting a small article from McLatchey news service today:
Taking up a requirement that had been dropped in 2006, all second class (juniors) midshipmen at the Naval Academy must complete three hours of fundamentals in celestial navigation. Those taking a navigators course at the Surface Warfare Officers School in Newport, Rhode Island, now get 26 hours of such training, using sextants and nautical almanacs.
The ancient technique has serious drawbacks. The theoretical limit of accuracy is no better than 1 mile. And navigators are dependent on somewhat clear skies
“If you have a navy that can only operate on sunny days, it’s going to lose the war,” said Frank Reed, a celestial navigation instructor who teaches out of Mystic, Connecticut.
Reed said that if principal and multiple backup navigation systems failed aboard Navy ships, “they just become barges. If you’ve lost your electronics to that degree, evacuate.”
The article: https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article99066932.html. For NavList readers, please note that I was slightly mis-quoted in the final line here. When I said 'lost electronics to that degree' I was referring to a navy vessel that has lost all electronics, not merely navigational systems (which would be unlikely in any case since any attack or disaster that can take out all of the navigational electronics has probably severely disabled most other electronic systems).
Frank Reed
ReedNavigation.com
Conanicut Island USA
