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What sextant should I buy to learn with?

Good sextants are expensive (about $3000US is not unusual), and the inexpensive plastic ones (Davis make the best-known) are far cheaper. For learning, or even for real navigation, the Davis models are fine, but require more careful and frequent adjustment, and often seem to give less accurate results.

They will give a result accurate to within about 2 minutes of arc, which should get your position right within about 3 miles or so. Errors made by beginners are usually computational or mistakes of understanding, and tend to be far greater than this. So a plastic sextant makes a fine tool for learning. Buy one, and if you like it, keep it as a spare when you go offshore.

Hints: to keep the readings accurate, beware of temperature fluctuations, which warp the sextant (temporarily). In winter, wear gloves. In summer, watch out for having part of the sextant in sun and part in shade. And last but not least, always approach your reading from the same side (i.e., always increase the angle until the sun is on the horizon--don't increase and then decrease and then increase, etc.) This prevents backlash from screwing up your readings. (jfh)


next up previous
Next: Boat pictures, and ftp Up: General Information Previous: Should we split rec.boats?
John F. Hughes
11/6/1997