NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Running down an Astro-Position Line
From: Gary LaPook
Date: 2021 Mar 16, 12:31 -0700
From: Gary LaPook
Date: 2021 Mar 16, 12:31 -0700
This technique can also be used at sea. The first time I was sailing from Bora Bora to Raiatea it proved useful. It is about 40NM and you have to find the pass through the reef and these are very hard to spot from seaward. The course is about 110 True and about 1 pm we were approaching Raiatea and we still hadn't been able to spot the pass. At that time I noticed that the sun was on the starboard beam so I took an observation, plotted the "course line" LOP and saw that we were about a mile to the left of the course to the pass. So we altered to starboard and about an hour later there was the pass right in front of us.
gl
