Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
sea miles and put a circle around a dot. “We are somewhere here,” I informed my young
audience. Later, when a large cargo vessel appeared on the horizon, I confirmed our po-
sition. I had yet to tackle the sextant and complicated arithmetic solution to the spherical
triangle needed to navigate celestially. To make matters more interesting, my sextant was
made in the nineteen thirties, given to me as a present by my former father-in-law. I hoped
it would do the job; I would try later in the day.
Around midday, I went below, slung the sextant and its lanyard around my neck, and
grabbed my wrist watch, a scrap of paper, and pencil. I handed the paper and pencil to Paula
and the watch to Herman, and I went and sat down on top of the dinghy which was lashed
down on the coach roof. I steadied myself against the mast and held the sextant up to my
squinting eye. I instructed Herman to note the exact time to the second when given the sig-
nal and began swinging the sextant in an arc across the horizon, adjusting the reflected sun
as it kissed the horizon. I yelled out, “Mark!” He repeated the exact time to Paula, who in
turn bent her lovely, dark head and wrote it down on the paper, as well as the degrees that
I had observed. We worked well as a team and repeated these steps three times to get an
accurate average.
These readings would give out the angle that the observer made with the sun and horizon
at an exact time of day. I would tabulate this information in a nautical almanac and sight
reduction tables specifically printed for navigation. When these steps were taken at least
twice a day, I would be able to accurately determine within a few square miles our position
anywhere at sea. We would look forward to these two times a day as they brought us all
together, and it was a challenge to see how accurate we could be; it was also a break in the
routine of sailing and watch keeping. With the information from the midday fix, I was able
to determine only what our latitude was, and while it did not prove where we were, it assis-
ted me greatly in my deduced reckoning, which is an assumed position based on direction
and distance traveled. For example, if I had a positive fix the day before, and it was marked
with an “X” on the chart, twenty four hours later I calculated from my knot meter that we
had traveled one hundred miles. Since I knew that we had been sailing on a course as close
to one hundred and eighty degrees as possible by my compass, why, I could go to my chart,
take my dividers and open them to represent one hundred miles on it, take my ruler and
lay it at one hundred and eighty degrees from my fix the day before and deduce that I was
pretty close to where my dividers point was: one hundred miles down the line so to speak.
The trip between the two ports was about twelve hundred miles and was an easy sail down-
wind. The weather was proving to be as good as the old salts predicted at this time of year.
We were making good time and during the fourth day out we took three sun sightings in
the morning and three during midday. From these calculations I was pleased to get my first
definite fix: it was a milestone for me. This was my first real navigation on this maiden
