NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: which would you choose?
From: Jim Manzari
Date: 1999 Aug 03, 3:36 PM
From: Jim Manzari
Date: 1999 Aug 03, 3:36 PM
Dan Hogan wrote: > > Well having been in this position once. Here's what we had. > > Tables H.O. 249, Sextant Hughes, Almanac, Time pieces: 3 Quartz from > yard sales, Shortwave Radio, Pilot Charts ,2 INT Plotting charts, 3 > destination large scale charts. FWIW, here's what I carry in my navigation kit... - Tables H.O. 249 - Duttons, the old one with relative motion problems in back - Bowditch, the old fat version - Tables from Bowditch - H.O. 603, Forecasting Ocean Waves - Star Finder H.O. 2102 - Two 90-45-45 degree plastic triangles with compass rose - Small true-magnetic-compass circular calculator, plastic - Small speed-time-distance circular calculator, paper - $10 quartz alarm clock selected for good rate + spare battery - Plath sextant - Lifeboat sextant, unfortunately lost - High-quality alpine or pocket barometer - Small hand-bearing compass - Pad of sight reduction sheets - Pad of relative motion sheets - Fine-tipped drafting dividers - Nautical Almanac - Perpetual almanac taped to cover of log book - Tide tables, light lists, radio signals list - Pilot charts for all oceans - Pilot books for regions to be visited - High quality SW radio for time signals and entertainment - Cheap, throw-away 7x50 binoculars - Pen light with red lens + spare batteries - Personal log book + clock rate book + ship's log book, these are ordinary ledger books with non-removable pages Added during the past 5 or 10 years... - Hand-held GPS + spare batteries - Small electronic compass + spare batteries - HP 32SII calculator It's difficult to estimate what all this has cost over the years. Charts have always been a major on-going expense. The Plath and the radio were the biggest individual expense. The other stuff was built up slowly over many years of trail and error. Parts of kit are packed in a map case that I take with me whenever I sail on someone else's boat. It's a bit like asking a carpenter what he has in his toolbox when he starts out as an apprentice and then ask him what he has after 35 years. When I started out the kit looked nothing like it does today. However, when I started out I knew I wanted to navigate for the rest of my life, so the kit just naturally expended and I feel the cost was well justified. Jim Manzari
