I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by....

From "Sea Fever" by John Masefield

The Navigator Module

There are two overlapping but separate skill sets in celestial nav: navigating across an ocean, and passing the Sail Canada exam. You choose the skill set you want by taking one - or both - of:

  * The Navigator Module
  * The Sail Canada Exam Module

The Navigator Module will be fast-paced, and intensely practical, with the objective that you will take 14 actual sextant sights over the course of the 15 hours of the module.

After an initial orientation to the concepts of celestial navigation, and to the sextant itself, we will establish a rhythm of going outdoors to take a sight, then coming back into the classroom to plot that sight. 

There are slightly different approaches that ocean navigators must use for the different types of celestial object, be it:

  * star,
  * planet,
  * moon, or
  * sun. 

You will learn all the techniques, and take sights of each of these types of object.  The course dates have been thoughtfully selected to give us the best possible selection of celestial objects to use for the course.

When you finish this module, you will be able to navigate across any ocean on earth using no more hardware than your sextant and a wristwatch.

Sailors are interested in redundant systems.  They have:

  * an extra halyard in case the halyard holding up the mainsail parts;
  * a manual bilge pump in case the electrics pack it in;
  * a manual tiller in case the steering gear breaks.

Celestial navigation is the fully redundant backup system to GPS.

That said, GPS is of course going be our primary navigation method, and you will learn how to maximize its usefulness. 

For instance, we will touch on the dangers of electro magnetic pulse (EMP) from lightning strikes, and the effective ways (and ineffective ways) of protecting your equipment with a Faraday cage.  The point is not just to use a sextant, but to get home safely.  This course will ensure that you have all the navigational tools at your disposal to do just this.

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