NavList:

   

Reply

Alexandre,

You wrote:

> I wonder what they were (are??) used for. Except the evident
> task of determining a ship's position from the bearings of two
> angles between three objects.
>
> The book by A. J. Hughes "The Book of the Sextant" (1938)
> briefly mentions them, calling them "Station Pointers",
> has a picture of
> one, exactly like my one,
> and says: "A full description of the principle and use
> can be found in the Admiralty Manual on the station pointer".
>
> Can anyone suggest where to find this Manual, and/or what it
> contains??


Station pointers were/are indeed used to determine a position from
horizontal angles. I imagine it is still done routinely in hydrographic
surveying. It certainly was in the 1970s, despite the surveyors having
local electronic navigation systems far more precise than modern
civilian GPS. When doing critical work surveying dredged channels, there
is probably a need for robust checks of the electronic data and no other
method comes close to the precision of horizontal angles observed by a
good-quality sextant and plotted using a proper station pointer.

Since the Russians have so many for sale, the Soviets presumably
required that every warship navigator have one on hand. I guess they
would be good backups to electronic methods when navigating close
inshore under circumstances where the position was critical (bombarding
  inland targets by indirect fire, for example).


As to the Admiralty Manual, I imagine that the reference is to the
Admiralty Manual of Navigation, which can be purchased from any chart
agent who stocks Admiralty charts. I have seen modern editions but not
one from the 1930s.


Trevor Kenchington


--
Trevor J. Kenchington PhD                         Gadus@iStar.ca
Gadus Associates,                                 Office(902) 889-9250
R.R.#1, Musquodoboit Harbour,                     Fax   (902) 889-9251
Nova Scotia  B0J 2L0, CANADA                      Home  (902) 889-3555

                     Science Serving the Fisheries
                      http://home.istar.ca/~gadus

   

Reply