Cruising Sailors Forum Archive

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In Response To: Me 3 ()

I was the navigator on a replenishment ship in the Pacific. We had Loran C and "Sat Nav". Neither of those units were very reliable so we used celestial mostly. The Pacific permits that sort of thing, something I suspect the North Atlantic is fairly stingy about. Loved taking fixes with the Chief.... pre-dawn, noon sight, evening. Once snagged a daytime fix with the sun, moon, and venus. All the sort of thing lost to purely electronic nav. So is the hour-long sight reduction without a calculator to get a fix plotted. But, the science of navigation, weather piloting, celestial, or GPS, fascinates me. AIS is another great invention I hope to explore when I finally trash the 30 yo VHS that came with the boat. I will, however, still have my hand powered fog horn just in case!

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