Why is Ocean Theory so Expensive?

[dom]

OK, sextant fans, you're taking a noon sight, the boat lurches and you drop the sextant overboard. Now what?

Easy:

a) drill a hole at the intersection point at the bottom of my grotty little plastic protractor which hasn't been used in years, put a little nut and bolt through the hole, attach a bit of whipping twine and get back to work with my new astrolabe!

b) nav by north star assuming in the north, else southern cross, if my compass was also bust that is.

Edit: then keep heading east or west until I could buy a new GPS

 

[bedouin]

I am an old fuddy duddy and like the old way of doing stuff, but on the boat that my friends were on the owner cranked up the new fangled radar thingi and and bang, blew all the electrics. I suppose a position once a day would be fine, but how do you charge your phone again with duff electrics?

Very limited choice of what could cause that - and you should have spares aboard to resolve any of them

 

[JumbleDuck]

Easy:

a) drill a hole at the intersection point at the bottom of my grotty little plastic protractor which hasn't been used in years, put a little nut and bolt through the hole, attach a bit of whipping twine and get back to work with my new astrolabe!

b) nav by north star assuming in the north, else southern cross, if my compass was also bust that is.

Edit: then keep heading east or west until I could buy a new GPS

Good answer. The standard solution is to start playing patience, because within two minutes someone will appear, look over your shoulder and say "Red seven on black eight". You punch them in the face, obviously, then when they recover you can ask where you are.

 

[[70521]]

OK, sextant fans, you're taking a noon sight, the boat lurches and you drop the sextant overboard. Now what?

Lanyards. They come in a range of dashing designs. I am currently wearing one that says "Staff" that confuses anybody when I pop into another company and I'm not staff. I have a lovely one from France with a Breton symbol on it and my all time favorite is one with frogs on it, one day I might turn into a handsome prince.

 

[roblpm]

OK, sextant fans, you're taking a noon sight, the boat lurches and you drop the sextant overboard. Now what?

Yes why didn't i think of that. Having never used a sextant i assume that if you drop one hard enough it will go wonky?

How much does a decent one cost anyway. My collection of 20 gps's off ebay is going to be cheaper than one decent sextant. Let alone the backup sextant........

 

[GHA]

and bang, blew all the electrics. I suppose a position once a day would be fine, but how do you charge your phone again with duff electrics?

That's why he should have done a harsh shake down long passage to iron out things like that.
Anyway, jury rig the solar panels direct to the batteries and wire a USB charger onto them with a multimeter to keep an eye on the voltage. If there wasn't enough bits to do that plus no shakedown then the boat wasn't really very well prepared for offshore. And a phone battey will last for ages turned on for a few minutes a day to get a fix.
(and I do have a sextant & tables onboard more for fun than realistically needing it, but then you never know.. .)

 

[roblpm]

Yes why didn't i think of that. Having never used a sextant i assume that if you drop one hard enough it will go wonky?

How much does a decent one cost anyway. My collection of 20 gps's off ebay is going to be cheaper than one decent sextant. Let alone the backup sextant........

Now you have got me going. This is a ridiculous and dangerous practice that they are teaching. Far better to teach how to have enough gps's for most eventualities.

 

[roblpm]

In about 5 years it appears that there will be 4 independent gps systems. If there is a world war while i am half way across the Atlantic then i will be snookered. But probably not because i am lost.

Why do the rya persist in having astro as part of their highest level exam? It will have to change sooner or later. Maybe its because sailing is a sport run by old people for old people? They should move with the times. I can't think i have read of a sailing death caused by gps failure and no sextant? So whats the point.....?! Safety should surely be the biggest point and wasting 60% of the time learning astro when they could be looking at real case studies of accidents seems nuts!

 

[JumbleDuck]

Lanyards. They come in a range of dashing designs. I am currently wearing one that says "Staff" that confuses anybody when I pop into another company and I'm not staff.

Well, that's fine then, because by annoying them you have turned them into cross staff and you can use a cross staff for astronavigation

Yes why didn't i think of that. Having never used a sextant i assume that if you drop one hard enough it will go wonky?

If you look at them they go wonky.

How much does a decent one cost anyway.

My Ebbco Special plastic one, which is to navigational instruments more-or-less what a kazoo is to a bassoon, cost me twenty quid second hand. A proper good one, made of metal, seems to be about five hundred upwards. That's a lot of GPS receivers.

 

[dom]

Why do the rya persist in having astro as part of their highest level exam? It will have to change sooner or later. Maybe its because sailing is a sport run by old people for old people? They should move with the times. I can't think i have read of a sailing death caused by gps failure and no sextant? So whats the point.....?! Safety should surely be the biggest point and wasting 60% of the time learning astro when they could be looking at real case studies of accidents seems nuts!

Ocean sailing is great: read books you'd never read, watch films on the iPad but no surfing as wifi is seriously pricey (!!), learn fancy splices and so on. As Trump says it's a tremendous, awesome and it's gonna be an amazing trip.

Then a little man in the back of your head says, 'boring', 'boorrrring', 'OMG this is so boring!'

That's when the sextant comes in, the almanac, identifying the stars, figuring out when nautical twilight is and explaining the principles to anyone who is interested. Rosary beads and transcendental mediation are of course other options.

 

[Biggles Wader]

"Transcendental mediation"?Is that a new way to work out the haversine formula?

 

[RobbieW]

...Why do the rya persist in having astro as part of their highest level exam? It will have to change sooner or later. Maybe its because sailing is a sport run by old people for old people? They should move with the times. I can't think i have read of a sailing death caused by gps failure and no sextant? So whats the point.....?! Safety should surely be the biggest point and wasting 60% of the time learning astro when they could be looking at real case studies of accidents seems nuts!

Fundamentally because the MCA require them too. The other stuff is mostly to do with preparedness; can that be taught ? perhaps but I'd suggest the knowledge of what might go wrong and preparing for that is as much experience as teaching. The scope of a syllabus to cover all eventualities would be immense, the actual syllabus and the examiners notes cover in very broad terms the range of failure scenarios and discussion with other students is a valuable part of learning for Ocean. In essence whats required is resourcefulness or, to use Ransomes words, "if not duffers wont drown'.

...Then a little man in the back of your head says, 'boring', 'boorrrring', 'OMG this is so boring!'...

Each to their own, I've enjoyed the isolation being offshore brings and I've rarely been bored - no more than on a cross channel

 

[capnsensible]

Some, like me, just do it coz it's there. It's not compulsory.

GPs back ups? Well same applies if you are worried, take two sext ants. I got two.

Ask my mate Colin how useful his sextant and skills were in mid atlantic when his engine starter motor broke and he had no electric for two weeks. Clearly, he has now also fitted a wind gent and solar panels but he didn't have them when the engine broke.

Tomorrow I'm off on an eight weeker, there is sextant and tables on the yacht and I will use them. For fun!

But just in case........

 

[roblpm]

Some, like me, just do it coz it's there. It's not compulsory.

GPs back ups? Well same applies if you are worried, take two sext ants. I got two.

Ask my mate Colin how useful his sextant and skills were in mid atlantic when his engine starter motor broke and he had no electric for two weeks. Clearly, he has now also fitted a wind gent and solar panels but he didn't have them when the engine broke.

Tomorrow I'm off on an eight weeker, there is sextant and tables on the yacht and I will use them. For fun!

But just in case........

Obviously its fun. And entertaining. I like things like that.

But 60% of the theory in the highest level rya theory course. Really?

Ok mca rules. How many oil tanker drivers whip out their sextants to get a fix?

 

[laika]

Why do the rya persist in having astro as part of their highest level exam? It will have to change sooner or later. Maybe its because sailing is a sport run by old people for old people?

Your argument could surely apply to all elements of non-electronic nav in the other exams: rising and dipping distances, running fixes, dead reckoning, multi point fixes...why bother when you have GPS? Probably because knowing more than one way to get a position is a Good Thing and for ocean sailing astro is the main alternative to GPS.

RobbieW guesstimated 60% of YM Ocean was astro. I think it's a bit more, especially if you drop that stuff about great circles and gnomonic charts because your plotter does that better

In which case what are you going to have in the syllabus instead? Maybe some GMDSS stuff?

Personally I *enjoy* non-electronic nav. I spend all my days with computers. There's a kinda steampunk fascination with calculating a position from an instrument and a chronometer. I'm not sure the term "steampunk" is generally understood by those born significantly closer to the 19th century than I...

 

[obmij]

None - but their 3rd officers / cadets might do so on a daily basis.

Not sure what the argument is here..

£450 is cheap for a 5 day classroom based course by any standards, and..

..no-one if being forced to take it anyway! You can sail to Greenland with hope, an AA roadmap and a packet of monster munch if that's what turns you on.

 

[roblpm]

None - but their 3rd officers / cadets might do so on a daily basis.

Not sure what the argument is here..

£450 is cheap for a 5 day classroom based course by any standards, and..

..no-one if being forced to take it anyway! You can sail to Greenland with hope, an AA roadmap and a packet of monster munch if that's what turns you on.

There isn't really an argument. I liked that cartoon once somewhere, something about being busy arguing on the Internet!

 

[capnsensible]

Obviously its fun. And entertaining. I like things like that.

But 60% of the theory in the highest level rya theory course. Really?

Ok mca rules. How many oil tanker drivers whip out their sextants to get a fix?

This is a very odd ting. Having mentioned my mate Colin and the engine, literally within a half hour, well this is truly bizarre. If you got facebook, search Colin Thomas. He has just posted a picture, actually unreal. The first shows his wind generator with a vane missing. Then, truly, really under where is it, there is another of the missing blade smashed straight through his solar panel!

Bonkers, but that is why, friends, we, who go with Neptune and his mysterious moods, use the heavenly signs!

 

[capnsensible]

Obviously its fun. And entertaining. I like things like that.

But 60% of the theory in the highest level rya theory course. Really?

Ok mca rules. How many oil tanker drivers whip out their sextants to get a fix?

This is a very odd ting. Having mentioned my mate Colin and the engine, literally within a half hour, well this is truly bizarre. If you got facebook, search Colin Thomas. He has just posted a picture, actually unreal. The first shows his wind generator with a vane missing. Then, truly, really under where is it, there is another of the missing blade smashed straight through his solar panel!

Bonkers, but that is why, friends, we, who go with Neptune and his mysterious moods, use the heavenly signs!

 

[alant]

I agree that astro is very hard to teach well. If you go into the maths you have to teach about spherical geometry that many people won't have met before (I doubt if it is even on A Level courses these days). That is both hard to teach and hard to understand.

Otherwise you teach it along the lines of "you put that number in that box" which while very easy and reliable does not give any insight into how it all works.

Biggest problem people seem to have, is finding & looking up information from tables. People below a certain age, have never used logarithm tables or even a ready reckoner, so tables become the hurdle. Then it's 'simple' sums which trips them up, assuming the information is from the correct page. Spheroidal geometry doesn't enter into the RYA course as such, so no rocket science maths needed. It's simple arithmetic some can't do, I even had a Oxbridge double maths graduate get simple sums wrong.