NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Sextant sales; was: Role of CN at sea, was Re: Averaging sights ...
From: Carl Herzog
Date: 2004 Oct 14, 11:54 -0400
From: Carl Herzog
Date: 2004 Oct 14, 11:54 -0400
----- Original Message ----- From: "Ken Gebhart"> Carl, > >Sextant sales in the US, Europe, and Australia are all higher than > they have been in the last ten years, and almost up to the level of > pre-GPS. > I don't have data for other continents. > > We have scratched our heads over this phenomonon for several years, and > have > come up with a few ideas: > > 1. Making a sailing passage is a challenge, and a rewarding experience. > Doing it with sun, moon, and stars is more so. > 2. Celestial used to be required, and thus work. Now it is not required, > and so it is fun. > 3. There is a back-lash against technology which entices one to wish for > a > hand-on form of navigation. > 4. People want to KNOW how to do it in order to remove the mystery, and > make it available to them as a back-up. Once learned, they do not > generally > use it for routine sailing. > > Ken Gebhart Ken: I'm very happy to hear that sextant and related sales are up. I've long expected that an interest in celestial would return, for the very reasons that you mentioned -- much the same way wooden boats and traditional designs have made a comeback -- but I haven't seen any evidence that it's happening yet. I certainly hope you're right and that the trend continues. I would hazard to guess, however, that Celestaire's customers generally represent a better educated, more conscientious and competent sailor than the industry average. As indicated by the related threads on seamanship education, it's up to us to ensure that new and less experienced cruising sailors become the type of interested navigators that will feed the trend you're already observing. Carl Herzog Providence, Rhode Island