Which Sextant

steveej

steveej

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So I am progressing through Ocean Theory with a view to completing my qualifying passage later this summer.

So the predicament is a Frieberger Yacht Sextant cheapest I have seen is £650, versus a Davis Mark 25 circa £180 from ebay (inclusive of import charges). I hear that the sextant errors need adjusting much frequently on the Davis but there is a big price difference. Do the plastic ones work? Surely accuracy will be dependent on how much the boat is rolling around in any case?
 
steveej said:
So I am progressing through Ocean Theory with a view to completing my qualifying passage later this summer.

So the predicament is a Frieberger Yacht Sextant cheapest I have seen is £650, versus a Davis Mark 25 circa £180 from ebay (inclusive of import charges). I hear that the sextant errors need adjusting much frequently on the Davis but there is a big price difference. Do the plastic ones work? Surely accuracy will be dependent on how much the boat is rolling around in any case?
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I had a long discussion with a RYA examiner about sextants, his comment was with a bit of practice he could get down to 6NM with the Davis.
 
steveej said:
So I am progressing through Ocean Theory with a view to completing my qualifying passage later this summer.

So the predicament is a Frieberger Yacht Sextant cheapest I have seen is £650, versus a Davis Mark 25 circa £180 from ebay (inclusive of import charges). I hear that the sextant errors need adjusting much frequently on the Davis but there is a big price difference. Do the plastic ones work? Surely accuracy will be dependent on how much the boat is rolling around in any case?
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Both look expensive. Keep looking. At the price quoted for the Freiburger you can (or at least, you could) get an Astra IIIb which is a really nice sextant - the ships I manage all carry them, and they are easier to use than my old Plath. One good thing about the Astra is that you can swap the horizon mirrors between full width (much easier to use) and half silvered (better for stars due to low light) and much lighter.
 
have a very clean Freiberger Drum for sale. Nowhere near the £650 new price :)

PM me if interested


Be aware, the Freiberger Yacht and Freiberger Drum are two different instruments.
 
sarabande said:
have a very clean Freiberger Drum for sale. Nowhere near the £650 new price :)

PM me if interested


Be aware, the Freiberger Yacht and Freiberger Drum are two different instruments.
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Greetings,
whar Sarabande said ^^
Also, I have the Freiberger, yacht version, paid about £200 and it's like new. £650 is taking the mickey, there are plenty out there, keep looking, don't rush, ask around, maybe get a basic, 20 quid ebay plastic fantastic, it's fine for learning.
 
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Plastic sextants can be fine. I used an Ebbco for my qualifying passage even though I also owned a very nice C&P Sailing Sextant. It was a one way passage and I didn't fancy hand carrying the C&P through airports.

Index error of a plastic sextant will change a lot with temperature but calibrating for this is part of taking a sight. I would never take a single sun sight........too many opportunities for error. I tend to take half a dozen over about 20 minutes, plot the results and choose any one that best fits the straight line. This is also fairly normal practice for we amateurs.
 
eBay for "(freiberger,tamaya,zeiss,astra,plath) sextant" (with the brackets, but without the quotes) will weed out most of the cheap and nasty reproduction brass ornaments.

Saved search on there sends you emails when listings are placed on the site - add them to your watch list and check it daily. Use auctionstealer.com if necessary.

If you're patient you'll get a decent metal one for less than £180 - possibly substantially less. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/112699755436
 
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Just made a mental note to nick an Astra IIIb sextant when we scrap the old girls; it will hardly have been out of its box. My number one son did his cadetship with a pukka British outfit and found himself teaching the Second Mate how to use one (the second officer is by convention in charge of navigation - third mate does safety, second does navigation, mate does cargo, Old Man does what he likes haha) .
 
Strolls said:
eBay for "(freiberger,tamaya,zeiss,astra,plath) sextant" (without the quotes) will weed out most of the cheap and nasty reproduction brass ornaments.

Saved search on there sends you emails when listings are placed on the site - add them to your watch list and check it daily. Use auctionstealer.com if necessary.

If you're patient you'll get a decent metal one for less than £180 - possibly substantially less. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/112699755436
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Good advice.
 
A lot of the ones on e-bay seem to be coming from India from the ship breaker yards. I have been warned against these as they may be copies, lots around about £300 but a lot of money to waste if its fake.
 
I hadn't realised they'd gone up so much. I bought an Astra one from the RYA ten years ago and it was only about £360 with the member's discount. Just checked and they'll be about £550 now with the discount.
 
Minn said:
Ten years ago a pound got you 15 RMB Yuan.

Today, thanks to Brexit, etc., a pound gets you around eight.
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It'll be even worse for me then as I earn in Euro. It had pretty much reached parity with the Pound in 2009 but is now about €1.12 per Pound.
 
Yes, the plastic ones work. They're more easily damaged and probably go out of alignment more often, but you'll still put yourself in the right part of our planet with one.

I got an Astra 3B several years ago. It was about £360 then; I'm horrified to see that they are selling at £630 or so now!

But some old, sage Tom Cunliffe advice I read or watched years ago was to go for an old Soviet Navy one, usually made (post-war) in East Germany.

Here are a few: https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_...iet+sextant.TRS0&_nkw=soviet+sextant&_sacat=0

In fact, a quick Google [ https://sextantbook.com/category/the-ussr-sno-m-sextant/ ] tells me that
In effect, if you buy a SNO-M, you are buying a C Plath with a few improvements. It has metaphorically come from the same mould and may have been produced with the same machinery, possibly even by the same workmen.​

I'd go for it, myself, as better and immeasurably more satisfying than the plastic Davis, but far better value than the Freiberger.

Of course, the first thing you're going to want to do with it is to correct its perpendicularity, side and index errors, but you'd do that with a brand new sextant anyway.

[Edit:] a couple of afterthoughts on my conscience:

I just re-read your post and your main motivation seems to be to use the instrument for the OY passage. Frankly, a plastic Davis will do the job just as well as a metal sextant - you'll still reduce your position to the same bit of sea and you're hardly going to be marked down if it gives you marginally less accurate sights. The rest is a luxury of joy of ownership, and whilst we can throw money at any gadget, trading up from a Davis sextant certainly need not be an additional cost of doing the OY exam!

I just looked at the Davis instruments online. You mentioned the Mk 25 (as opposed to their slightly cheaper Mk 15). I would definitely go for the Mk 15 instead: they say they fit the Mk 25 with a whole-horizon mirror (as opposed to a traditional half-silvered one). The short story is that this makes the easy sights easier and the harder ones trickier: read about it in any sextant guide. After a few sights you'll tire of it, if the visibility's poor that really might affect the results you can get, and then you really will wish you had either a Mk 15 or any decent metal sextant!​
 
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I have a Husun, bought from the Hamble with an ACO certificate. My only gripe is the eyepiece. In the original carry case complete with all the accessories it was <<£300.
 
It doesn't matter. You'll never use it. It'll just sit in its case and in 10 years time you'll sell it on here.
 
Maybe....or maybe not.

I guess it'll go nicely with the semaphore flags and the morse tapper.
 
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