Am I wrong for wanting a sextant?

Seriously... (please keep the girly jokes in GRM taste) guys: I am fascinated with just about anything old and inticate...just like you.

I love most things nautical, though I am leery of the water,( but thinking of buying a canoe or sailboat soon to test myself. (dont ask)

However, are there inexpensive and remotely accurate reproductions or simplified versions of this device (dont say gps, please)?Ebag just shows some shoddy repos that on a good day could probably tell me what hemisphere I am in and Shakelton's ones are just out of my price range.

So is there something out there that works for an old school guy like me?

I don't know the first damn thing about sextants. However, as a former student of Surveying, such things do interest me.

This antique English-made instrument looks decent. $75, no bids, 13hrs to go: http://cgi.ebay.com/STANLEY-LONDON-ENGLISH-MADE-SEXTANT-WALNUT-BOX-XLNT-/160453015847?cmd=ViewItem&pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item255bbeb927#ht_500wt_1154

Also, Harbor Freight has one for $20, which might be worth a punt. http://www.harborfreight.com/brass-sextant-66096.html

In reply to Luke:

ooooh... Harbor Freight... really... While it is probably as accurate as it's tubing bender it is worth a try for the first one...

thanks!

I still want to find an old engineer to teach me how to use a slide rule.

http://www.usps.org/e_stuff/advgrade.html
The US Power Squadron offers classes in Navigation that teatches sextant usage.

Sextants are cool. In the service I hung out with a quartermaster and he taught me how to use it. I can shoot a star and put it on paper, what I can't do is identify a specific star in the night sky. "Well Cap'n, we're either 28 miles east of Glouster or we're in Padukah.

Look at other vintage nautical stuff. Around the turn of the century was a torpedo shaped thing with a propeller on the back, you dragged it behind the boat and it showed in dials how fast you were going.

Dan

Appleseed wrote: I still want to find an old engineer to teach me how to use a slide rule.

Slide rules are very cool. Now I am going to have to go home and find one...

I have a couple of real ones and some toys. The Stanley ones are toys. Not that they aren't interesting as toys, but they are really just that. They are also not made in England, but India and just marked as London. If you see one that is all brass and looks "old," it is junk as a sextant and neat as a toy/paperweight.

If you want a real one that isn't very expensive, get a Davis. They're made from plastic, but are a real sextant. I have a real Plath too, which is the ultimate sextant to have. If you see something you think you might want to buy, ask me and I'll look at it (online) and tell you what I think. I'm not shy about telling people what I think.

The first thing you need to buy is "The American Practical Navigator." AKA: "Bowditch." It's a huge book but heavily subsidized by YOUR Federal Government, so you can buy it new cheap. Everything you will ever need to know about sailing, navigating, anything involving water is in that book.

I have a slide rule here on my desk. Bought it on eBay at the dawn of eBay for five or six bucks.

I had a slide rule in college and knew how to use it. That was b4 the hand held calculator was around (well for less than $350). My father had an old round slide rule (slide?). I have no idea how it worked, but it would have been circa WWII. .

Appleseed wrote: I still want to find an old engineer to teach me how to use a slide rule.

Slide rules aren't that hard.

Some private pilots still use the round E6B aviation version for navigation. I still have my dad's.

Dr. Hess wrote: I'm not shy about telling people what I think.

Potential signature line right there, Doc....

That round e6b circular slide rule is often faster and easier to use inflight than a modern calculator type and coffee does not ruin it

Reading this thread is freaking awesomely entertaining, because I have absolutely no berkeleying clue what you guys are talking about.

I thought, upon opening it, there would be a discussion regarding whether or not to add a sixth musician to the band.

poopshovel wrote: Reading this thread is freaking awesomely entertaining, because I have absolutely no berkeleying clue what you guys are talking about. I thought, upon opening it, there would be a discussion regarding whether or not to add a sixth musician to the band.

That would be a "sextet," sir.

slantvaliant wrote:

Appleseed wrote: I still want to find an old engineer to teach me how to use a slide rule.

Slide rules aren't that hard. Some private pilots still use the round E6B aviation version for navigation. I still have my dad's.

Still have my dad's also. These are still in use today although some of the younger crowd like the electronic versions.

As someone who uses a sxtant--drag it out once, twice a summer--even with the really good, expensive ones (C.Plath). your position on the water will be +/- a mile. And that's if you've got the timing and math correct. GPS is so much more "accurate"--provided the chart is, too. Sextants can warp from heat, cold, being roughly handled, or the mirrors need to be redone. That said, they are a neat way to find out where you are. One for decoration and one for using is a hugh price difference. If you want to try just for fun, the Davis plastic one mentioned by Dr. Hess above is fine.

Knowing how to use a sextant is one of my goals. The GPS is more accurate now, but it can be monkeyed with very easily. I would not like operating airplanes with only GPS navigation equipment. I also like the old style papaer maps

Thanks for the info guys, it is nice to know that I not all that crazy... As for the ebay stuff, no thanks they are all repops until I see them in my hand.

I just thought it would be fun to try something different

Knowing how to use a sextant is like knowing how to swim. You may only need to know it once in your life, but there's no replacement.

Than again, on a 44 ft. center cockpit sailboat 30 miles off Hatteras, in a shipping lane, all the electrical went out, dark, dark, dark. I swore I would sit down and teach myself how to speak electricity.

Dan

At anchor and confirming position off of visual and radar sightings, I used to be able to regularly put a sun line within 1/2 mile of our position with a Plath. Given that the ship was 1100 ft long, that's close enough. That was 1/2 mile from the wing of the bridge where I was standing. I think my Davis was good to maybe 3 miles if I was really careful with it, but that was using an artificial horizon in my front yard. You can see that far anyway, so it doesn't matter. With the Davis, I have to tune it up each time I take it out of the case. It isn't that big a deal, and it's something you should know how to do anyway. Bowditch shows you how to do it. Bowditch even tells you how to re-silver (or murcury, actually) your mirrors with stuff you can find on the vessel.

Lately, I used the Plath to find clear spots in the tripple canopy to hit a sattelite for DishTV or DirecPC (worst internet ever), before I discontinued the services.

In reply to 914Driver: Just don't druel on the HO 249 sheet while holding the flash light in your mouth. Solo sailing offshore, I love it.

93celicaGT2 wrote:

poopshovel wrote: Reading this thread is freaking awesomely entertaining, because I have absolutely no berkeleying clue what you guys are talking about. I thought, upon opening it, there would be a discussion regarding whether or not to add a sixth musician to the band.

That would be a "sextet," sir.

I was about to be all "Not according to Herbie mother berkeleying Hancock, f00!" but alas, I fail. I guess it's just the title of the record. I learned something new today!

pilotbraden wrote: Knowing how to use a sextant is one of my goals. The GPS is more accurate now, but it can be monkeyed with very easily. I would not like operating airplanes with only GPS navigation equipment. I also like the old style papaer maps

Do you fly with a tin foil hat on?

What little navigation skills I learned was riding around with my dad in his 172 as a kid. Dad used to joke that we were flying IFR. As in "I Follow Roads"

This one is real (although I am unfamiliar with the brand): http://cgi.ebay.com/Simex-Mariner-Sextant-New-In-Box-NICE_W0QQitemZ150465363282QQcategoryZ37971QQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp4340.m8QQ_trkparmsZalgo%3DMW%26its%3DC%26itu%3DUCC%26otn%3D5%26ps%3D63%26clkid%3D7148015261759428905

This one is a toy: http://cgi.ebay.com/BARROW-SEXTANT-BIG-7-ANTIQUATED-BRASS-w-3-TELESCOPES_W0QQitemZ250446490690QQcategoryZ37971QQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp4340.m8QQ_trkparmsZalgo%3DMW%26its%3DC%26itu%3DUCC%26otn%3D5%26ps%3D63%26clkid%3D7147991244777104778

as is the ebay link Luke listed ("Stanley") and the HF one. The HF one is probably identical to one of the "Stanley" lines, if not made at the same Indian plant.

I made a spreadsheet which replicates the Publication 229 sight reduction tables. If it survived my disk crash of a couple months ago, I'll email it to anyone who wants it or post it on my web page. If anyone has an electronic perpetual nautical almanac, I'd be interested.