Sextant

For £200 and some persistence / patience you could get a decent Freiberger on Fleabay and it would be vastly superior....

Plastic sextants ( such as the Davis) do not keep their adjustment for long and the constant alteration / testing is annoying to say the least.

Good luck...
 
G12 said:
Does anyone have any experience of the Davis Mk 15 sextant?
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Yes. I own one. It's great. Current prices in the UK though are ridiculous: They're $150 in the US:
http://www.starpath.com/catalog/accessories/1840d15.htm
If you or anyone you know is planning a stateside trip, it could be well worth having one delivered to your hotel or office: At that price it's under your duty free allowance. I didn't have a problem using a UK credit card with Starpath and having it delivered to a mate's house in the US 3 years ago.

When you're taking sights every day, adjustment only takes a minute and wouldn't you be checking adjustment with *any* sextant before using it? If this is for OYM, getting used to setting up a sextant is probably a plus. I've used mine for star sights as well as sun sights: plenty of light transmission

Thing that's often overlooked in "metal vs. plastic" discussions is weight. The mk 15 is light which makes wielding it for quick angular measurement in coastal navigation easier. More importantly for me, the mk 15 *in its box* weighs a bit over 2kg: about a quarter the weight of a boxed Astra IIIB. Ocean sailing on boats which aren't your own (even if it's just your OYM qualifying passage) often involves a one-way air trip. My sailing kit already pushes the 20Kg checked baggage allowance, and trying to take a 9Kg boxed metal sextant as hand luggage might lead to some interesting discussions with the airline staff.
 
Agree the Davis is very portable and great for general use, use mine a lot.

Downside, though is the plastic optics. Sun, moon, Venus no problem, but stars I find are much easier with a heavier instrument with glass optics. Try a Celestaire, good prices on ebay.

For your Ocean you really only need sun though so Davis will be handy.
 
laika said:
Yes. I own one. It's great. Current prices in the UK though are ridiculous: They're $150 in the US:
http://www.starpath.com/catalog/accessories/1840d15.htm
If you or anyone you know is planning a stateside trip, it could be well worth having one delivered to your hotel or office: At that price it's under your duty free allowance. I didn't have a problem using a UK credit card with Starpath and having it delivered to a mate's house in the US 3 years ago.

When you're taking sights every day, adjustment only takes a minute and wouldn't you be checking adjustment with *any* sextant before using it? If this is for OYM, getting used to setting up a sextant is probably a plus. I've used mine for star sights as well as sun sights: plenty of light transmission

Thing that's often overlooked in "metal vs. plastic" discussions is weight. The mk 15 is light which makes wielding it for quick angular measurement in coastal navigation easier. More importantly for me, the mk 15 *in its box* weighs a bit over 2kg: about a quarter the weight of a boxed Astra IIIB. Ocean sailing on boats which aren't your own (even if it's just your OYM qualifying passage) often involves a one-way air trip. My sailing kit already pushes the 20Kg checked baggage allowance, and trying to take a 9Kg boxed metal sextant as hand luggage might lead to some interesting discussions with the airline staff.
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Blimey, thats about half the UK price. I might see if they can ship one over as I don't know anyone heading to the states anytime soon. I did think £200 was a bit steep for some plastic but this is rip-off Britain afterall!
Interesting comments about the usage and weight issue. Thanks.
 
G12 said:
Blimey, thats about half the UK price. I might see if they can ship one over as I don't know anyone heading to the states anytime soon. I did think £200 was a bit steep for some plastic but this is rip-off Britain afterall!
Interesting comments about the usage and weight issue. Thanks.
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If they ship one over, you might find that the combination of postage, duty and customs handling charges eat up the difference in price. It is the last one that is the killer - the post-office charge a very high rate for handling imports. I got a watch that was of comparable (lower) value shipped from the States, and it ended up nearly doubling the price.
 
I've got one and it works fine. Yes you have to check the errors quite often but that only takes a few minutes although they don't change much at all.

Now I got mine for £115 brand new from Marine Megastore. I ordered the cheap Plastimo one (which I note they still have on the web site) after a few days I rang and they admitted they weren't in stock and had been discontinued. They then offered me a Davis 15 and before I could haggle the guy said I could have it for £115. Why not give them a ring and try it on.
 
I would say that if you just want it to get your ticket, go for the cheapest e.g. Ebco. If you plan on doing astro for real, get a metal one. Prices on eBay seem pretty good, £250-300. Just make sure you get a proper micrometer sextant, not an antique with a vernier or a brass replica.
 
Used Ebbco sextants turn up for around £25.

Some even turn up in skips at marinas - mine did. I spotted the box and thought I could use that for storage and inside was an unused sextant complete with instructions.

Mind you it is some years since I tried a sight and the subsequent maths.
 
TQA said:
Used Ebbco sextants turn up for around £25.

Some even turn up in skips at marinas - mine did. I spotted the box and thought I could use that for storage and inside was an unused sextant complete with instructions.

Mind you it is some years since I tried a sight and the subsequent maths.
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I reckon the kindest thing you can do with the Ebco is ditch the junk inside and keep the box for yer sarnies :)
 
Thanks for the info chaps. I will keep one eye on ebay and one eye out for other deals and wait for an offer too good to refuse comes up.
At least it has been confirmed to me that the Mk15 isn't total rubbish (which is what I feared from a plastic item), if not as accurate and requiring more calibration then it's better quality counterparts.
 
A long time ago and far away, acquiring a cheap plastic Ebbco sextant allowed the average ordinary coastal yottie ( AOCY ) to try out this 'religious relic' at a sensible price, to see if the bug would bite.

Mostly, it didn't, but hundreds of AOCYs learned about the many coastal uses for a sextant - distance off a lighthouse or headland, horizontal angle fix, passing safely between a point and an offshore reef, is that racing competitor receding or closing.....

That opened a whole new dimension - new tools in the toolbag - in their understanding of coastal navigation, for just £20.

So do buy a 'cheap' plastic sextant. Do use it for all the other stuff that Marine Cadets cut their eye teeth on. Use that experience to decide if the 'Real McCoy' is for you or not. It will not be money ill-spent.

:)
 
capnsensible said:
I reckon the kindest thing you can do with the Ebco is ditch the junk inside and keep the box for yer sarnies :)
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I think that is being a bit harsh on the poor old Ebco. I have a whole horizen mirror Freiberger and an Ebco. Because of the difference in size and weight the Freiberger lives at home most of the time but the Ebco is on the boat full time. Sure there is no comparison in quality and I would not even try a star sight with the Ebco but, provided you sort out the errors each time before using it the results would get you across an ocean. When I was using it regularly I expected to get an accuracy in calm weather to about 2 or 3 miles against something less than a mile for the Freiberger. Yes you are much more likely to get an aberrent reading than with the Freiberger but if you are using a calculator to reduce the sights you can take half a dozen, plot the lot, reject the outliers and and average the rest out. When I tried last season I only managed an accuracy of 5 miles but I put that down to operator skill fade rather than the inherent weakness of the Ebco. Even a 5 mile error is good enough for crossing oceans. I'm not suggesting anyone should attempt a serious passage using an Ebco but they are very good for practice and are a cheap and cheerful emergency back up.
 
Sybarite said:
What is the point of this post?
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It was intended to be helpful.

I often forget to check my PMs, and as the OP is not one of the frequent users of the forum, it occurred to me that he might not check his either. But I thought he probably would check back to see how his thread was getting on.
 
Apologies for this slight drift, just a thought re PMs....

If you go to the Options in your Profile and scroll down, there is a box (one of quite a few) that says
"The forum can send a message to your email address to inform you when someone sends you a private message".

And the helpful Forum doesn't just tell you that someone has sent you a PM, it sends the actual PM, so you don't then have to log on to find out if you have any PMs or not.
Works well for me! :)

Must admit I do lust after buying a Davis sextant sometime, but cant really justify it. I did learn a good calculation method 16 years ago while on an Atlantic passage, and my best position was about 10 miles out from what the GPS was telling us - and that was in very calm weather, with hardly any clouds in the sky...... so maybe I should stick to GPSes.....:D
 
I used the Davis extensively in the 70s. It worked well and was much more tolerant of being dropped or knocked than a brass sextant. It's also larger than many brass sextants which seems to make it easier to use. I don't recall it needing a lot of adjustment

I wouldn't spend a lot on a sextant. The moment you have your qualification will probably be the last time you open the box. Mine sat on the shelf for 30 years until I got around to putting it on ebay.
 
ytd said:
I used the Davis extensively in the 70s. It worked well and was much more tolerant of being dropped or knocked than a brass sextant. It's also larger than many brass sextants which seems to make it easier to use. I don't recall it needing a lot of adjustment

I wouldn't spend a lot on a sextant. The moment you have your qualification will probably be the last time you open the box. Mine sat on the shelf for 30 years until I got around to putting it on ebay.
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That's a bit harsh. I get bored on long ocean passages, and often get the sextant out to practice my sights a bit. Its something to do. I have also used it for 'distance off' and checking position by horizontal angles. Amazingly (perhaps not amazingly considering the way these things are made!) accurate.
 
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