NavList:

I googled "sextant" on google's news page today.

There's a sad story of a guy in California who spent 26 years building
a "Galway Hooker" (a traditional Irish sailing workboat) and wrecked it
on the maiden voyage. He managed to salvage the sextant the next day,
but otherwise the boat was a total loss. Here's the story:
http://www.thelog.com/news/newsview.asp?c=194210

I sure hope this guy had a GPS receiver aboard as well as a sextant. If
not, I bet he's beating himself up over it now...

There was also an article about merchant marine education on the NY
Times web site. I could not access the entire article without paying
for it. But this correction caught my eye: "August 24, 2006, Thursday:
An article on Tuesday about the New York School of Seamanship, which
opened last month on Staten Island, referred imprecisely to the role of
the sextant, a measuring instrument, in celestial navigation. It is
used in some forms of celestial navigation, but is not essential to
it."

A sextant is not essential in celestial navigation? Well, maybe. But
good luck without one!

-FER


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