NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Tamaya Venus MS-933
From: Joel Jacobs
Date: 2004 Dec 22, 12:35 +0000
From: Joel Jacobs
Date: 2004 Dec 22, 12:35 +0000
In those days my company Nautech Maritime Corporation was the importer of all Tamaya navigation instruments and was instrumental in the design of the MS 733, 833, 933, and NC 2 Navigation calculator. Ken Gebhart used to buy his Tamaya sextants from us as did all other companies. We are still incontact with the past owner of Tamaya today.
Here is a link to what I recalled about the first Venus sextant that was sent us as a pre-production sample. It was never a big seller, maybe because I didn't beleive in reduced size sextants. There was a discussion about their limitations by this group.
It was sold last year to a Marine major who likely is in Iraq since I haven't heard from him in some time. If you browse around my eBay store, and read about other Tamaya sextants that are sold, you will find more of my recollectiions about Tamaya's history in the U.S. One example is the 733 we had made with no markings that was sent to the U.S. Navy for evauation in an attempt to get a contract on the Navy MK III. We did not succeed. That sextant went to a retired Navy Captain who is now in charge of certifying Ageis Class Burke DD's for the Navy before final delivery.
BTW, Nautech was sold to Coast Navigation in Sept, 1978, and in Nov, Julie and I embarked on six years of ocean cruising in our 62 foot ketch, Bagheera.
All great memories. Merry Christmas,
Joel Jacobs
--
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-------------- Original message from Smith_Peter@EMC.COM: --------------
> On Monday, December 20, 2004 7:37 PM,
> Doug Royer asked:
> > Looking at Joel's on-line store I ran across something I've not
> > seen or been aware of untill now. I've never seen or heard mention
> > of the MS-933 model Tamaya Venus. Is it a "full" size or a "3/4"
> > size sextant? When were these model instruments manufactured?
> > It just suprised me because I thought I was current on all or most
> > of their post WWII model sextants. What a pleasant suprise.
>
> The Tamaya MS-933 "Venus" was built on a 7/8ths aluminum frame and was an
> attempt to make a lower-cost sextant for the yachting market. I can remember
> seeing them in the middle 1970's in catalogs and/or Robert E. White's in
> Boston, ! back when I was starting out in celestial.
>
> Celestaire used to carry them. Maybe Ken Gephart can shed some light on the
> production dates and other details, as I haven't saved any catalogs from
> that far back.
>
> -- Peter
