NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Another "emergency navigation" sightreductionmethod
From: Gary LaPook
Date: 2015 Jul 15, 06:51 +0000
From: Lu Abel <NoReply_LuAbel@fer3.com>
To: garylapook@pacbell.net
Sent: Tuesday, July 14, 2015 10:46 PM
Subject: [NavList] Re: Another "emergency navigation" sightreductionmethod
From: Gary LaPook
Date: 2015 Jul 15, 06:51 +0000
That's exactly what I said.
gl
From: Lu Abel <NoReply_LuAbel@fer3.com>
To: garylapook@pacbell.net
Sent: Tuesday, July 14, 2015 10:46 PM
Subject: [NavList] Re: Another "emergency navigation" sightreductionmethod
Excuse me, Gary, but who said that all sight reductions must be done by table (which, if I read your note correctly is what you claim)??
In fact, there are some who, at the beginning of this discussion, said "what's wrong with packing a small, solar-powered calculator in the ditch bag?" Or others (including me) who noted that it's highly doubtful that one would be doing any "navigation" whilst drifting in a modern liferaft.
If you want to call for a better title for this particular discussion, I'd vote for something like "ultra-compact sight reduction tables."
From: Gary LaPook <NoReply_LaPook@fer3.com>
To: luabel{at}ymail.com
Sent: Tuesday, July 14, 2015 8:56 AM
Subject: [NavList] Re: Another "emergency navigation" sight reductionmethod
BTW, I don't like calling these "emergency navigation" systems. That implies using a less accurate system for celestial navigation in emergencies whose only advantage is that they are compact so as to fit in a ditch bag. This seems to say that you use the most accurate standard system everyday, carrying the entire set of HO 229 in your small boat, and will use the bastardized system only in an emergency. What we are actually talking about are different methods of clestial navigation, that just happen to be compact, but that should be used every day for normal celestial navigation, leaving the entire set of HO 229 at the dock. Most navigators have apparently shifted to using HO 249 to save the considerable space (and weight) of the ultimate set of tables, HO 229, and find the level of accuracy in HO 249 accptable for practical navigation and the Bygrave and Hav-Doniol (and others) provide the same level of accuracy in very compact forms.gl
