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Navigation class recommendations?

mike cunningham

mike cunningham

Freedom 30 "Jacqueline"
I have better than 15 gps receivers on the boat and a copy of David Burch's "Emergency Navigation" which I could probably read by candlelight if I was motivated and could find the candles. Now I mention it I don't think I have any candles aboard Jacqueline...fifteen GPSs and not a single candle. My point exactly!

I think I ought to up my low tech game. Never know when the bad guys are going to zap the GPS constellation or all the electrical dies or both. I can get the candles easy but I don't know celestial navigation.

I could take an online course but my Wife says I'm turning into a hermit since I retired and I need to spend some time with real humans.

Anyone aware of an in person nav training class (including celestial) they would recommend?
 
The US Sailing Coastal Nav and Celestial classes at Club Nautique are very good. But you'd probably have to go through the hassle of showing that you meet the standards of the lower level classes (up through Bareboat Cruising, I would guess) as prerequisites.
Max
 
definitely not a recommendation, because i have never even been there, but ...

Cal Maritime Academy NAU 202 & 202L, Celestial Navigation, plus Lab as an "Open University" student.
Perhaps NAU 102 & 102L (Navigation 1 and Lab) are prerequisites.
 
Offshore Sailing School offers a 3 day course, followed by a 3 day offshore passage making course. YOu could just take the first. It is in Florida...... taught by Jeff Werner just a fabulous guy. I also have a great 1970s german sextant we could discuss ownership with..... Realistically with the amount of things that rely on GPS it seems unlkely it would be down very long....given sailboat speeds to make a difference...... but Celestial is a lot of fun.....unfortunately it has been a year plus and I have forgotten most of it.....
Best,
Chris (Ventus)
PS Starpath navigation book is pretty good and you can almost self teach yourself.....but the class is nice complement and the west coast of Florida is quite nice as well
 
Thanks for the ideas.

My Son graduated from Cal Maritime, I didn't know you could take courses in an open university environment. That would be pretty cool. Having "assisted" my kid with tuition I know more about class costs that I want to. Might be a bit pricey.

I like Florida even more. I wonder if I could get a pass from the Boss to go out there for a week?
 
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Surely there is a Celestial Navigation for Dummies book ? Or maybe an SSS member could give a class and then there could be an "open SSS University lab" to follow, perhaps while on a short offshore passage to ... Santa Cruz? Do you want to learn it or obtain a certificate guaranteeing that you met the requirements? We are surrounded by sailors w this knowledge.
 
Starpath Navigation is pretty good.....not Cel for Dummies but pretty good. It is focussed on taking you through the tables step by step for all the various celestial bodies (it is short on theory and high on practical table usage) . It has enough examples to figure out where you are going wrong. Spherical trig is simpler in some ways, but you can debate if having trig tables is better or worse reliability than site reduction tables.

I am assuming that you are trying to survive the large EM pulse associated with the Zombie Apocalypse so your calculator and smart phone apps will be lost......
 
A zombie apocalypse? While watching Walking Dead I said to myself, "Don't worry! When they come for you in Oakland you can just get aboard DM and sail away!" I can see now that I am not the only one who thinks this way.
 

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Philpott said:
A zombie apocalypse? While watching Walking Dead I said to myself, "Don't worry! When they come for you in Oakland you can just get aboard DM and sail away!" I can see now that I am not the only one who thinks this way.
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To get away you're going to need to know where you're going. Those zombies walk on the bottom (I read the book) so you gotta find deep water. Thus my desire for a course.

BTW we spent a fun as hell week in Florida after watching "World War Z". We would have a couple of beers and evaluate the zombieproofness of buildings in Ft. Lauderdale. My assessment is Ft. Lauderdale would be excellent last stand territory.
 
Steve Hodges, 2014 SHTP Winner, and 2012 winner of the Navagation Trophy, teaches celestial navigation in the Santa Barbara area. You might want to see if Steve has any recommendations, or plan on a few days spent in Santa Barbara.
 
brianb said:
Steve Hodges, 2014 SHTP Winner, and 2012 winner of the Navagation Trophy, teaches celestial navigation in the Santa Barbara area. You might want to see if Steve has any recommendations, or plan on a few days spent in Santa Barbara.
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Thanks Brian, that sounds best yet. How would I contact Steve to find out what his schedule looks like?

What did he do to win the navigation trophy?
 
I enjoy celestial navigation and will be happy to discuss approaches toward a practical working knowledge. Sun sights (noon and running fix) are a great starting point. I also have an embarrassing number of sextants which im happy to show off. Steve dot hodges at cox dot net.
 
hodgmo said:
I enjoy celestial navigation and will be happy to discuss approaches toward a practical working knowledge. Sun sights (noon and running fix) are a great starting point. I also have an embarrassing number of sextants which im happy to show off. Steve dot hodges at cox dot net.
Click to expand...

But do you know how to avoid zombies and what if they are under my boat? Can they crawl up the side and should I remove my swim ladder?
 
I'm certainly no expert in anti-zombie tactics, different department. Anecdotally they do seem to avoid vesseles where deep questions are pondered, for example "why's a raven like a writing desk?" or "how many pancakes does it take to fill a dog house?" A Feynmann sum over all possibilities is, I'm told, a sure way of, not only addressing tgese meta-physical ponderances, but alsi a means of driving zombiesque thoughts from your hull and swim ladder. Hope this helps....
 
For our 25th Wedding Anniversary Nancy and I took a Cunard Lines "Mexican Riviera" cruise. The ship was an old North Atlantic liner that actually looked like an ocean liner and had a large passenger foredeck above the working deck. I took my sextant and navigation kit. Before we left Long Beach I dropped a fishing line over the side to determine how high about the waterline I'd be and then on the first day out went to the deck around noon local time to get a noon shot. I was busy with the sextant and stopwatch when I heard someone with an Italian accent calling me. I looked up and on the bridge a uniformed officer was yelling and gesturing. I thought he was telling me to get off the deck - it was a little rough and the ship occasionally took some spray over the bow. But, no, he was calling me up to the bridge.

When I arrived, the captain and officers were interested that I'd given up the casino, the show, the shopping mall, and 6 or 7 restaurants to spend my lunchtime taking a sun shot. Turned out I was only about 12 miles off. For the rest of the cruise I had an invite to the bridge, got to know the Italian officers, and enjoyed an experience I thought I wouldn't since I don't gamble, drink, or buy stuff. The climbing wall didn't interest me, either.

However, I never won the daily "how far have we sailed" contest, even though I spent each noontime waiting for the sun to peak.
 
Zombies aside, a simple, fun way to learn celestial is getting hold of John Milligan's
Celestial Navigation by H.O.249 (Paperback), available for cheap via Amazon or downloadable for free.

In his book, you join Milligan on his boat for a passage to Hawaii using celestial navigation. Milligan takes you through the tools, vocabulary, and techniques. If you can read, add, and subtract, you can learn celestial on your own using the simplified HO 249 tables. Recommended.

Flying back from Hawaii, the airlines used to give a bottle of champagne to the passenger who could guess the closest to halfway time. I won that once, until they discovered I wasn't old enough to receive the prize.
 
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