NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: What do offshore recreational navigators really do?
From: Marc Bernstein
Date: 2005 Jun 6, 11:42 -0400
From: Marc Bernstein
Date: 2005 Jun 6, 11:42 -0400
In November of 1990 I sailed on a 35 footer from St Malo in Brittany to Madeira and then on to Guadeloupe. The sole means of navigation was celestial. The skipper who had a fair amount of experience in trans-atlantic crossings never bothered with anything but morning and afternoon sun shots. This was my first practical exposure to celestial and I was eager to try different things so I started doing regular dawn and dusk star shots and latitude by Polaris as well as moon shots when available. The skipper knew how to do star shots but he had never gotten his latitude from Polaris! We also spoke any passing ships for their GPS/satnav position.