NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Lost at Sea with a sextant puzzle
From: Brad Morris
Date: 2019 Jun 22, 23:46 -0400
From: Brad Morris
Date: 2019 Jun 22, 23:46 -0400
Doug
About the only "navigation" will just be finding out where the ocean currents and winds are taking you. That will be of little comfort in 7 days without water.
You could take apart the sextant to get at a lens, such that you could heat some water. This could be used in conjunction with a salt water still (watermaker) to make some drops of precious fresh water.
The sextant can then be screwed back together for that futile navigation effort. You did say life raft, did you not?
Brad
On Sat, Jun 22, 2019, 10:03 PM Doug MacPherson <NoReply_MacPherson@fer3.com> wrote:
I was recently subjected to the "Lost at Sea" Team Building exercise....again. I've done this one a number of times. If you are unfamiliar with it, you can find it here:
or Google it.
But it prompted this question:
If someone was lost at sea in a life raft and had a sextant with them, but no tables, no nautical almanac, just the sextant pencils and scratch paper, would the sextant be of any use. What could that person do with it?
Assume that our intrepid survivor is a seaoned navigator with years of exerience doing celestial navigation. The top priority is being found, but he or she would also like to do some navigation to "quench" his or her thirst.
Doug
38° 34' N, 121 121° 29' W
