NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Opinions on Starpath courses
From: John Huth
Date: 2014 Oct 6, 19:29 -0400
From: John Huth
Date: 2014 Oct 6, 19:29 -0400
David published a "home study" book, which is quite good. If you don't have time or funds to take David's course, you might want to check that out. It has a lot of good worked examples and a lot of good wisdom in it.
If you want to get good at taking shots, an artificial horizon is a good option, but things change somewhat when you have the real horizon.
One thing that's important is when you advance lines of position using dead reckoning to fill in the gap.
For reduction, I use the current nautical almanac reduction tables. Just as a sanity check, I used the full-blown trig functions to get altitude and azimuth for some shots, compared them to what I could find online, and then also from working the tables. After that came out 100% consistent, I gained some confidence in the reduction scheme I was using.
On Sat, Oct 4, 2014 at 12:46 PM, Tom Sult <NoReply_TomSult@fer3.com> wrote:
It seems to me that the real question is how much room do you need and how many hands do you have. A self tending Genoa and all lines leading to the cockpit on a 50 may be easer to fail (auto correct may be right but I meant sail) than a 25 with all traditional/manual gear. On the other hand there is nothing like an automated boat with a malfunction to make your day ; )Wiley Post once said about flying - the only time you have too much fuel is when your on fire. The sailing equivalent might be - the only time you have too much boat is when you can't handle it.As to CN. I'm a pragmatist. Others here will be able to tell you how to solve any number of convoluted problems. My CN is generally a series of sun sights with advanced lines, because I worry about all three of my GPS going down at the same time (really) or both GPS and GLONASS going down at the same time (really) I practice AM and PM star rounds occasionally. Just in case one or both failures happen just at land fall (really).The real issue with CN is using the sextant and knowing your reduction method. Nothing like testing your sights against a GPS as your teacher. The book Celestial navigation in the GPS age will get you up to speed with most any practical navigation problem. Practice short dip at a local lake or use an AH if a true horizon is not available. Get comfortable and confident with adjusting your sextant and bringing your target to the horizon and be confident in the steps of your reduction method.My devalued 2 cents.
Tom SultSent from my iPhoneFreinds,
I am thinking about taking the Starpath Course on Celestial Navigation.
If Mr. Burch is lurking out there on this list, can he advise?
Or does anyone have a take or word to share whether it is worth the while to invest the $279.00 for home study, or would I do better with a local in-person school like the Maryland School of Sailing in Rock Hall, MD?
I am planning to make an attempt to purchase a IPY at this year's boat show in Annapolis. If anyone has an opion of the IPY 360 to 465 I would appreciate hearing.
Thanks,
Rommel
