NavList:

   

Reply

  It's November 24, 1997, and you are enroute across the South Pacific to
Papeete via the Tuamotus.

  An hour ago, one of your crew was on deck with the handheld GPS, your
sole means of navigation, and dropped it overboard.  You've spent that
hour rummaging around in the boat, but have found no sextant.  You have a
1977 nautical almanac, a short wave radio, and some vague recollections
about celestial navigation.

  You look in the log and are ashamed to find very little.  GPS lulled
you; you'd turn it on, note course and distance, and turn it off.  The
last fix you wrote down put you about 1200 miles northeast of the
Pallisers, part of the Tuamotu chain, where a friend told you that he
would leave some casks of fresh water at Tahanea, 16 deg 50 min South,
144 deg 45 min West.  For the past few days, you've been pushing south,
then a little west, trying to get a comfortable ride in the swell, and
you are not quite sure of where you are except that you must be about 700
miles northeast of Tahanea.  You don't know the course and distance,
except to say Tahanea lies southwest.

  You're at a loss for the moment, with no sextant.  As you idly leaf
through the almanac, trying to remember enough to jump start you to what
to do, you come across something in the back of the book that catches
your eye, then has you sitting up straight and thinking that this might
work out after all.  Within a few hours, you are on your way to Tahanea
with a course and rough distance and are busily looking forward to that
water your friend left and to figuring out how to go on to Papeete from
Tahanea.

  What did you find in the back of the almanac that gave you a means of
emergency navigation to Tahanea?  (Hint:  Take this seriously.)

  Please send in your ideas or proposed solutions.  A solution will
appear here in about seven days.

  Mal Misuraca
  Passage East, Sausalito
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-=
=-=  TO UNSUBSCRIBE, send this message to majordomo@ronin.com:     =-=
=-=       navigation                                         =-=
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-=

   

Reply