Salty Podcast #18 | 🧭⛵ How is Celestial Navigation Relevant to Sailors Today? | Listen to the Expert! 🌟🔭

Audio from Video Livestream April 17, 2024: https://tinyurl.com/SaltyPodcast18

Cap'n Tinsley talks to Commander Chris Kreitlein (USN, Retired), author of the book, "Simple Celestial – Navigation by the Heavens Made Easy"  Order book here: https://amzn.to/3JnigQ5.  

#saltyabandon #sailing #podcast #sailboat #celestialnavigation #sextant #pensacola FL #charter #instructor

Transcript

Good afternoon, whoops.

00:09
Good evening, everybody.

00:11
This is Captain Tinsley, Salty Abandon, with a Salty quickie, not a salty quickie, I'm sorry, I'm kind of doing things at once, with a salty podcast, and this is episode number 18.

00:22
We're moving right along.

00:23
I've got a special guest tonight, a celestial navigation expert.

00:29
And I've always wanted to learn this.

00:31
I'm fascinated with it.

00:32
I know a lot of people are.

00:34
So I'm going to go ahead and try to bring him out.

00:36
He's having some technical difficulties, but it looks like he's got it together now.

00:43
Hello, Chris.

00:44
Chris, what did I call you?

00:45
Commander.

00:46
You can just call me Chris.

00:48
OK, so this is Commander Chris Kreitland.

00:53
Kreitline.

00:55
Kreitline.

00:56
OK.

00:56
And turn up your volume just a little bit.

01:01
I do have to cough.

01:03
OK, retired U.S.

01:06
Navy.

01:08
I was trying to get that out.

01:10
Now, while I'm coughing, maybe you can explain how you got wrapped up in celestial navigation.

01:17
OK, I I joined the Navy and went to Officer Candidate School and they taught us.

01:25
The rudimentary procedures of celestial navigation.

01:29
I can't really say I learned it, but anyway, after that I went to a ship as an incident in the Navy and I relearned it for my warfare qualification, we call it.

01:42
And then I flew in the Navy and I never used it.

01:47
So I after I retired, I decided I would take up sailing.

01:52
And I wanted to learn celestial navigation again.

01:55
So I studied it and learned it really on my own.

02:00
I didn't take any classes, but you know, I had a a rudimentary understanding of it already.

02:07
So that's what happened.

02:09
And I I studied a lot of the books, manuals, all of those self-help guides.

02:18
and really taught myself.

02:20
But as I was doing that, I I said, well, okay, these these manuals, these books are good, but I think I can write a better one.

02:33
So that's what I did.

02:35
I wrote my own manual.

02:37
And of course, teaching something is is the best tool for learning it.

02:42
So I wrote my own manual and and really then I learned it well.

02:47
And began teaching it after that.

02:50
And there's the book, Simple Celestial Navigation by the Heavens Made Easy.

02:55
If you're going to order this book, I have a description in the, I have a link in the description.

03:01
Please use that link.

03:03
And no matter what platform you're watching, the description, it's in the description.

03:09
So, and the reviews are great on Amazon.

03:12
It's like 4.4.

03:14
So that that's pretty good.

03:15
Yeah.

03:16
All right.

03:18
So I do have some questions for you, but feel free to free form.

03:22
OK.

03:24
Explain what celestial navigation is and why it's relevant for sailors today.

03:30
OK, let me give just a a couple minutes of the history of celestial navigation.

03:36
That's great.

03:36
Yeah.

03:37
Of course, the Greeks divided the world into.

03:43
Latitude and longitude.

03:46
Well, latitude is easy to determine by observing the North Star.

03:54
Unfortunately, the North Star is not really a good star to use because it's rather dim.

04:00
But if you take a shot of the North Star, the angle from the horizon up to the North Star will give you your latitude.

04:08
So sailors were able back then.

04:11
to figure their latitude rather easily.

04:15
So they would get the North Star where they wanted it on a particular latitude and sail on that latitude.

04:24
Now you have to remember way back then, I'm talking the 1500s and earlier, they did not really spend a lot of time at sea.

04:34
They, They most of the sailing was along the coast.

04:39
And they were limited to latitude.

04:41
It wasn't until the mid 1700s that a a fellow invented a a clock that was accurate enough to figure your longitude.

04:54
Longitude goes east and West, and it's based upon the Greenwich Meridian.

05:01
It's the longitude line that passes through Greenwich, England.

05:05
Of course, it goes from the North Pole to the South Pole, but that's zero degrees longitude.

05:11
So if you're sailing west on your way to America, and you know the time in Greenwich, then you look for when the sun passes over top of you.

05:25
Let's say it passes over your head at one o'clock, Greenwich time.

05:35
Then you know you are 15 degrees West of Greenwich and that is your longitude.

05:44
So really the chronometer was critical to.

05:47
Yeah, I saw a documentary on that on and I I learned about that and and how hard it was to invent that.

05:54
They couldn't, they couldn't get it quite right for it to work on a ship.

05:58
That's right.

05:59
That's right.

05:59
And it changed everything.

06:01
Yes.

06:01
YesHis name was Harrison.

06:04
And his he made four different ones as he got better and better at making these clocks.

06:10
And they're all at the Greenwich Observatory just north of London, right.

06:17
I've been there and seen them.

06:18
They're they're intricate pieces of art, really.

06:22
And science.

06:23
Sure.

06:24
OK, so that's that's the basic idea.

06:28
Now what was what did you really ask me?

06:31
Well, OK, so but.

06:33
Well, let me just ask you.

06:34
So I read that navigation, celestial navigation is like 4000 years old, but the Sexton wasn't invented till like what, the late 1700s, the mid 1700s.

06:46
That's when, oh, the Sexton.

06:48
Well, the Sexton has a long history.

06:51
It is called the a back staff, a forestaff, a quadrant.

07:00
You know, it had different names, but it was around the early 1700s when they really narrowed it down to the sextant, which is interesting to me anyway, that Lewis and Clark had one and took with him the sextant and they plotted their position.

07:20
A lot of people don't understand, but or don't know, that celestial navigation works anywhere in the world.

07:29
And they they thought they used it to measure the size of mountains, couldn't they?

07:34
Well, no, that that is that's altitude that takes better.

07:40
That's a difference.

07:40
But they configured they they were able to mark their latitude and longitude as they went out exploring the Louisiana Purchase for Thomas Jefferson.

07:52
Wow.

07:52
OK.

07:54
And when people were on a ship, they would get like five people to take readings and see which one is the most consistent.

08:04
Actually, no.

08:04
Actually, OK, we're getting all the myths out of the way.

08:08
Yeah.

08:09
YeahNo, navigation at sea was an art that was very restricted because.

08:23
99% of the sailors were illiterate.

08:26
They couldn't read.

08:28
They couldn't use.

08:31
You know, all the data is now in a chart published in a nautical Almanac.

08:38
It shows where the sun is every day of the year, every second of the year.

08:44
Wow.

08:45
Well, they couldn't read that.

08:46
So navigation was strictly the captain.

08:51
And a couple of his select officers could do it.

08:57
Otherwise no one could.

09:00
So how many people, how many people would be taking that reading?

09:04
The captain.

09:05
Now they were also the the executive officer or the first officer, whatever you want to call them, the guy right below the captain.

09:16
He would be teaching the midshipman and part of his responsibility.

09:21
Was to teach the midshipmen how to do celestial navigation.

09:26
So every day at noon they would go up on deck and what they thought was noon or yeah, well, you know, you have to figure out noon, which is what we still do today.

09:42
We really use the same procedures today, at least I do, that they used in the 1800s, Captain Cook.

09:50
Went out to the Atlantic, I mean to the Pacific, you know, to the islands and Australia and New Zealand, all that.

09:59
And he used the noon site just like we do today.

10:04
OK, wow.

10:05
OK, so, so OK, that kind of explains celestial navigation.

10:10
And now why is it relevant for sailors today?

10:13
OK, two or three reasons really with.

10:19
With the invention of the chart plotter, it opened up sailing to just so many more people than ever could have had the courage to venture offshore.

10:33
Now they can with the chart plotter.

10:35
Well, that all works great.

10:37
All those electronics, all those batteries, all that electricity on your boat and all that stuff.

10:43
Hey, that's great.

10:44
I got, I've got a chart plotter, I've got a couple of them on my sailboat.

10:48
However, you never know when all that stuff may fail.

10:54
For example, a friend of mine left Pensacola going down on the Islam Harris race umm and the bilge pump flood broke.

11:05
The hose came off, it flooded the bilge, it flooded their batteries and they had no chart plotter, nothing.

11:13
All they had was the compass up by the wheel, which is of course not electrical.

11:18
It's just strictly a mechanical compass floating in fluid.

11:22
And they followed it to Mexico.

11:25
Oh, wow.

11:26
Instrument of last choice.

11:29
Last resort.

11:30
Yeah, no one on board.

11:31
New celestial navigation.

11:35
Otherwise they could have, you know, pulled out those tools and and and the way I teach it.

11:41
And what I encourage, now, there's a lot of ways to do celestial navigation with electronics, but I teach the manual way, no electricity involved.

11:53
Now I do encourage people to have a a simple calculator from Walmart, it's like $13 or a couple of them to help do the, you know, add degrees, minutes and seconds, it's a little tricky.

12:08
So other than that, it's all manual.

12:11
It's analog.

12:12
Yes, it's all.

12:13
It's all analog.

12:16
OK.

12:16
I think you're an analog.

12:18
I think you're an analog kind of guy because I couldn't really find any social media on you.

12:22
Yeah.

12:24
OK, that makes sense.

12:25
Yeah.

12:27
Well, so anyway, that that that's that's one reason.

12:30
In an emergency, if all else fails, you can use the sextant and celestial navigation to find your way.

12:38
to the general vicinity of where you want to go.

12:43
Your latitude, longitude, there's some inaccuracies involved.

12:47
Okay.

12:47
Another reason to learn it is because it's a lot of fun.

12:53
I've sailed across the Atlantic to the Azores by myself.

13:00
And when the weather is good, I never hear this from anybody else, but I will tell you, I was bored stiff.

13:08
I hear it forward every day to evening twilight when I could take some sights because other than you can only sleep so much, you know there.

13:22
Now there's times, of course storms, what have you.

13:26
But if the weather's good and the sails are set.

13:30
What do you do?

13:31
Well, you sit there and count the flying fish, I suppose.

13:35
But anyway, so that's another reason.

13:37
But above everything else, in all seriousness, it's good to know.

13:41
For safety factors.

13:43
Yeah.

13:43
Have an emergency.

13:44
Exactly.

13:45
OK, so you're about you're about to show us.

13:48
So let's go to the next one.

13:49
Basic tools and instruments used in celestial navigation.

13:53
OK, All right.

13:55
Let me describe it first.

13:57
The sextant.

13:59
Now, the sextant is nothing more than a fancy little protractor, like the kind you used in high school to measure angles.

14:11
That's what it does.

14:13
OK, that makes sense.

14:14
Yeah, you look through the eyepiece, through the other side at what you're wanting to observe, let's say the sun or the stars, and you move this arm to line it up.

14:29
Through the mirrors here.

14:32
And when you get it on the you bring, what you do is you bring the sun down to the horizon of the ocean.

14:40
And when you do, you'll read an angle right here.

14:45
This is the angle, just like off a protractor.

14:48
Well, of course that that means two things.

14:51
Number one, you got to be able to see the the moon.

14:55
If you're going to shoot the moon, if it's cloudy, you can't do it.

14:59
Oh yeah.

15:00
If the sun's behind the cloud, you can't do it.

15:02
You have to wait till the next day.

15:05
A star.

15:05
Same thing.

15:07
Similarly, you've got to be able to see the horizon that that gives you the angle from the horizon up to, let's say, the sun.

15:20
If if it gets too dark and you no longer have the horizon, then you're fit.

15:24
You're done for the day.

15:26
All right.

15:27
Or.

15:28
If it's cloudy, it's hazy, it's foggy, and you don't see the horizon, you can't do it.

15:36
So those are the those are the the limitations of if it's cloudy, yeah, you've got to be able to see the horizon and what you want to observe.

15:53
OK, so you at the same time.

15:58
You have to note the time.

16:02
Now, Captain Cook took that chronometer, but I have a, I have two or three digital watches on my boat, 'cause I'm telling you, one will fail just when you need it.

16:14
Is that a dive watch or?

16:16
No, this is just a stopwatch.

16:18
Oh, okay.

16:19
Now I have a, I have a a digital watch on my sailboat that is setTo Greenwich Mean Time.

16:30
In other words, it's set for 0 degrees longitude at the prime Meridian.

16:37
OK, so there are different techniques, but you do need to know Greenwich Mean Time when you take your shot.

16:46
If it's in the evening, say you're off Virginia, it's going to be, you know, it could be midnight, 11:00 at night, Greenwich time.

16:57
You've got to know that because all the data that you use, all the data that you need out of the Nautical Almanac is based on Greenwich Mean Time.

17:12
It's all it's not local time, it's Greenwich Mean Time.

17:15
So you have to know what to subtract.

17:18
Yeah, that's right.

17:20
Now there's another thing that, you know, people pretty serious about it will do.

17:26
Is carry a shortwave radio on the sailboat and you can dial that in and it'll give you Greenwich Mean Time on the on the the time hack on the shortwave radio.

17:45
OK, OK, so but anyway, you got to know the time you've got to take, you got to get your angle, you have the time and then you start doing.

17:56
The mathematics.

17:58
Now what?

17:59
What you have to do is fill out a site form.

18:06
They're they're readily available.

18:10
You you fill out all this information.

18:13
This part I'm showing you right now is what's necessary to observe the sun at noon.

18:20
See, there's really not that much there in 15 minutes.

18:24
You write down your your observation.

18:27
You write down the time.

18:29
You look up the sun's position in the nautical almanac.

18:33
Do a little add and subtract either in your head or with your calculator.

18:38
And poof, there is your latitude, longitude.

18:41
And how accurate is it?

18:43
OK, that's everybody.

18:45
Everybody asked me two questions.

18:48
I go to the the Annapolis Boat Show.

18:52
Right where I sit and sell my book.

18:56
I sit with the people that that sell the sextants.

18:59
I sit with them and I answer all the questions.

19:02
Two things people always want to know.

19:03
How long does it take?

19:06
15 minutes.

19:07
How accurate are you?

19:08
Well, if you're going to shoot the sun at noon, OK, All right.

19:13
It's going to take you about 30 minutes, 15 minutes.

19:18
You're taking observations.

19:21
Because you're tracking the sun as it rises in the sky.

19:25
Then 15 minutes to do the paperwork.

19:28
OK, so that's where all celestial navigators should begin.

19:36
Learn to do that.

19:38
Observing the sun at noon.

19:40
At noon.

19:40
Then when you become proficient, you can begin to observe the stars, the moon, the planets at twilight.

19:50
And that is a, it's a different, it's a little different process.

19:55
And that will take you at least an hour.

19:59
You've got to take the observations.

20:02
Then you got to sit down at your navigation table and you've got to look up the data on three different objects.

20:10
Let's say the moon, Sirius, the star Sirius, and Jupiter, for example.

20:18
Then you get these lines of position.

20:20
It takes about an hour to come up with those lines of position and you plot them on a, you plot them on a universal plotting sheet, this thing right here.

20:33
And hopefully you've done well enough that the three lines will triangulate into a a little, you know, they won't be perfect.

20:47
But they'll get close enough and and that's where you're at.

20:51
Now, remember, celestial navigation is not a science.

20:56
This is an art.

20:58
So you're it's not like one or zero.

21:00
No, you're going to have an error, a circle of error, a circle of probability of where you're, well, actually a triangle of probability of where you're at.

21:12
And hopefully you're within.

21:16
10 miles, OK, 5 miles on a on a nice flat sea.

21:22
But if it's rough, the boat's rocking, you know, 10 miles.

21:27
But once again, it's not to get you to your Marina, it's to get you to land.

21:35
Yeah, so.

21:39
So my my thought, I've never looked through a sextant, especially on a on a boat.

21:45
I might have looked at it one through land, but even just using binoculars on it and it's rough waters, I can't get it to, you know.

21:52
So how hard is it to take a a sight when there's rough seas?

21:56
It it if you're trying to observe the stars, it's very difficult cause they're a little pinpoint of light.

22:04
That's why most small boat sailors like me, like you, we shoot the sun at noon.

22:14
Now you're you're generally going to be able to find the sun, right?

22:17
It's up there.

22:19
It's worried about the water surface, you know, with it moving, you know.

22:22
Yes, it once again, it's an art.

22:25
You do the best you can.

22:26
So I've been out there when it's so rough.

22:29
Forget it.

22:30
You can't.

22:30
You got to wait till the next day.

22:32
OK, you're not on an airplane.

22:35
You're not flying 500 miles an hour.

22:38
You know you're doing 4 knots, 6 knots.

22:41
So hopefully you're you're far enough away from land that you can wait.

22:46
We have a comment from Instagram.

22:48
I can't, I can't put it up, but I can read it.

22:52
Blue Watersnails says Captain Chris is knowledgeable.

22:54
We have all have become accustomed to technology.

22:57
When that fails, you should know how to plot on a paper chart.

22:59
That's right.

23:00
And be proficient with celestial navigation.

23:03
Thank you for your comment.

23:03
Blue water sails.

23:05
That's a great comment.

23:06
Oh, good.

23:07
I appreciate that.

23:08
Yeah.

23:09
YeahYeahSo I've got a lot of videos on YouTube and one of them is on accuracy.

23:19
There's, there's, it's an art.

23:21
There's a lot of inherent accuracies.

23:23
I've I've had people say, well, I was within 400 yards.

23:30
Wow, that's pretty good.

23:32
I know.

23:33
Well, that's that's pretty good considering when you plot on that on this universal plotting sheet or you transfer it to your paper, your pencil lead is half a mile wide.

23:49
Wow.

23:49
The pencil lead on this thing is half a mile wide.

23:53
So it's impossible to be within 400 yards.

23:57
Oh.

23:58
You know, I, you know, I, I, I flatter them and say good job.

24:03
You were thinking maybe that wasn't quite true.

24:05
Well, maybe they're sitting in a classroom and they've got a extra sharp piece of lead.

24:11
Oh, I see.

24:12
Yeah.

24:12
So we got to bring a pencil sharpener too.

24:14
Yes.

24:15
Imagine.

24:16
Imagine you're on an open ocean chart and you're going to use a pencil on that chart.

24:24
That pencil lead is going to make a mark a mile, 2 miles wide.

24:30
It's like I said, it's an art.

24:33
Another thing that you're going to need are another couple things.

24:38
I just point this out to everybody.

24:41
A good pair of dividers, just just like coastal navigation, you know, and then your dividers.

24:52
Oh, yeah.

24:56
OK.

24:58
And for people that are interested, there's all kinds of videos on YouTube of of people.

25:05
And we're going to talk about you.

25:06
You, you do classes, right?

25:08
Yes, I do.

25:09
We'll talk about it at the end.

25:10
So people have to pay.

25:11
They have to keep watching to find out about that.

25:13
We've got to keep them till the end.

25:15
And hopefully it's in Pensacola, which is just about an hour for me.

25:19
So that's great.

25:20
Yeah.

25:20
YeahSo the way, let me just go ahead and say online here that the way I found out about you is Captain Ralph.

25:29
Shout out to Captain Ralph Bush.

25:30
He was my, I don't know if you know how I know him.

25:33
He taught me ASA 104 back in 2014 and I bought his wife her her boat.

25:41
I bought her Catalina 25 and I I kept that one for about 10 months.

25:46
I sailed it to death and then I upgraded to an island pack at 27.

25:51
And then five years later, upgraded to an island pack at 3:20, which is what I have now.

25:56
So yeah, and so, oh, when I did go through Cap Captain Ralph's captain's class and I went did the upgrade to to masters.

26:03
So I I just love Captain Ralph.

26:06
So shout out to Captain Ralph.

26:08
So he's the one that gave me your name.

26:09
He said you taught him to do this.

26:12
Yeah, he he set up a class for me at the Pensacola Yacht Club.

26:18
And I taught a class there.

26:20
I've taught a couple classes there.

26:22
OK, well, we'll talk about that at the end, because I hope you do another one.

26:26
So is that the base, all the basic instruments?

26:31
OK.

26:32
In your experience, why you kind of already answered that one.

26:41
Common misconceptions or myths about celestial navigation?

26:45
We've.

26:45
And how would you debunk them?

26:47
We talked a little bit about that, but anything.

26:49
I know you probably get a lot of dumb questions.

26:53
Well, people, people are intimidated by the idea, right?

26:58
I tell them no, noNow a a midshipman back in the 1700s had to learn trigonometry.

27:09
Wow.

27:10
They had different processes where they also used logarithms, but.

27:15
You know, that would have been pretty daunting for a 11 year old boy to learn all that trigonometry, spherical trigonometry, by the way.

27:23
Well, nowadays that's no longer necessary.

27:26
It's all in the publications.

27:29
It's all just there.

27:31
What you do is you get the form and you step through the form.

27:36
You know, you study it online or you take a class, you take the form, you get a good manual to help you if you have any questions, and you just step through the form and look up the data.

27:48
Now there's always a chance that you'll, you know, go to the wrong.

27:53
Column or whatever.

27:54
So you got to be careful, but it's really not difficult at all.

27:59
Like I said, particularly shooting the sun at noon, which is where everybody starts.

28:04
That's the easiest thing.

28:05
That's you can do that in 15 minutes.

28:07
You could learn the basic processes and then practice it and you don't, you don't have to go to your boat.

28:13
You can, you can go to the beach or you can do it in your backyard.

28:18
There are well, I want to say that I watched.

28:21
I watched a movie Adrift.

28:24
Did you watch that?

28:24
It was a 2018 movie and it was a true story about the the girl's name was Tammy Oldham Ashcraft and Ashcraft and she was on it was 1983 so it was before you know GPS and all that and they they were taking a boat from I think it was Australia to San Diego.

28:46
Somebody hired him and they got they got hit by a bad storm and what do you call it when you.

28:51
When it goes like this, when the boat does that capsize, not capsize.

28:56
It goes, it's where it goes from the back.

29:00
Yeah, yeahAnd so the guy was lost.

29:02
She was, she didn't have anything.

29:04
Like she didn't even have, you know, sails or mast or anything.

29:07
And she got to Hawaii using a sex.

29:09
She did rig up a little sail, but she used a sex in it.

29:12
And so they show in the movie her going through her charts and adding it up and everything.

29:17
And there was some work to it, but she got herself.

29:20
close enough to Hawaii.

29:22
And it just so happened a Chinese ship came by right before she got there and picked her up.

29:26
That's a true story.

29:28
And today she's doing, I believe she's doing charters still.

29:31
So she it was it was a horrific experience for her.

29:35
Like she didn't eat fish.

29:37
Well, she started eating fish because she needed the fish.

29:40
Yeah.

29:40
You haven't seen that movie.

29:41
Yes, I saw it.

29:43
Oh, OK.

29:44
Where she.

29:45
She fantasized that she found her boyfriend or her husband and had him on board injured.

29:51
And it was all just.

29:53
Yeah, I read the book after I saw the movie and it explains a lot more.

29:57
Yes, yes, I'm sure it does.

29:59
Now, there was another movie not quite as well known with Robert Redford.

30:07
I saw it.

30:08
Did you?

30:09
Yeah.

30:10
Was he using a sextant on there?

30:11
I thought, what was that one called?

30:13
I can't remember.

30:14
But it was a good one.

30:15
Yeah, he used that.

30:17
He pulled out a sextant out of a a box.

30:21
It's I have that sextant.

30:23
I mean it's really the most popular sextant in America as far as good quality metal sextants.

30:30
So is that about $800?

30:31
Let's talk about the price.

30:33
OK, well, cause they go up to thousands.

30:36
I saw inflation now it's OK, OK, it's an Aster 3B, but he.

30:43
Takes out the Sexton and he gets in his life raft and he teaches himself celestial navigation.

30:48
Oh my gosh.

30:49
Yeah, I mean, you know, it looked great.

30:52
It looked great.

30:53
But for someone who knows celestial navigation, it was totally ridiculous.

30:57
It wasn't believable.

30:59
OK, well, it made a good movie.

31:02
I enjoyed it.

31:03
I watched it five or six times.

31:06
That was a good movie.

31:07
There was no talking other than Mayday, Mayday.

31:09
That was.

31:10
Yeah, yes.

31:12
But anyway, we we digress.

31:14
But hey, it is.

31:15
I think everybody should watch Adrift cause how shall she survive?

31:18
Because that's a true story.

31:19
Oh yeah, yeah, yeahWell, there's there's a lot of those cases, you know, where sex has come in very, very handy.

31:29
Surely you were asking about the the misconceptions.

31:33
People think it's real complicated and it's not.

31:36
If you want to, if you want to learn it, you can learn it.

31:40
Particularly shooting the sun at noon.

31:42
Now when you start, which for me that I I have a basic class and that's what we learn.

31:49
Then I have an intermediate class and that's where we learn to shoot the moon, the stars, the planets, 4 planets we use and that is a little more involved.

32:04
The process is a little different, but once again.

32:08
There's there's no mental gymnastics.

32:10
It's just strictly fill out the form, look up the data.

32:14
OK, if you have a good form.

32:17
And by the way, I'll I will admit to having the very best forms there are in my book.

32:24
But if you follow the form, you really won't have it.

32:29
So people save you.

32:31
That is analog.

32:32
So you're going to have to have this paper on board.

32:34
That's right.

32:35
Yeah.

32:36
While everybody else is eating dinner, you're going to be sitting down there figuring out your position.

32:42
Oh, gosh.

32:43
OK, that's.

32:44
I mean, I'm on board.

32:45
I'm ready for the next class.

32:46
So yeah, let's see.

32:50
Tips and resources you would recommend to help them get started, I guess.

32:54
Well, either by the book if you're a good.

32:56
I like class.

32:58
You know, it's like when there were some people that were taking the captain's class.

33:03
Online, but when you get to the chart plotting and all that stuff, it's best is I preferred to be in the classroom for that.

33:10
And I'm a very digital person, but for something like that, I'd rather learn it in person.

33:15
Yes, yesWell, I don't claim to be an Einstein.

33:19
I'm very average in everything, but I I got a good book and I I learned it through the book because it's like I said, if you got a good form and a good book.

33:30
Really, anyone can teach themselves.

33:32
Now, of course, having a class is nice that you can ask questions and you can practice right there.

33:40
You know, you can.

33:41
I teach it over a weekend.

33:44
If you're going to get a book, it's going to take you a month to learn it if you're particularly dedicated.

33:50
But if you have a class in in my class, it's all day Saturday and Sunday and.

33:57
Really, we learned it on Saturday and Sunday.

34:00
We finish up a little bit and then we spend the rest of the day doing problems.

34:05
So everybody leaves knowing how to do it.

34:10
It's just a question of sticking with it.

34:13
Because if you don't, you're going to probably forget how to do it.

34:17
Yeah.

34:18
Yeah, it's just like chart plotting.

34:20
You have to practice that.

34:21
You gotta practice.

34:22
So I've got the name.

34:23
I also post these on audio podcast website.

34:26
So for those who can't see what's on the screen, I've got the name of his book on the screen.

34:30
Simple Celestial Navigation by the Heavens Made Easy by Commander Chris.

34:37
Say your last name again.

34:38
Crite line.

34:39
Crite line.

34:40
OK, U.S.

34:43
Navy retired.

34:44
Gotta show some respect there for your.

34:47
Service.

34:47
Thank you for your service.

34:48
Yeah, appreciate that.

34:50
Yeah.

34:50
The book is, like I said, it's very simple.

34:53
I I I wrote it for the working sailor.

34:58
There's no, there's just a tiny little couple pages on theory in the back.

35:03
But otherwise, the book is how to step through the form in the easiest way possible to get your position.

35:13
It starts out.

35:14
It starts out, of course, on how to observe the sun for latitude, longitude.

35:19
Now, while I'm on that, let me mention OK, I have to my students have to be very careful when you're out looking at this.

35:28
When you're out observing the sun at local apparent noon, that's when the sun is over your head.

35:34
It's not noon on your watch.

35:37
This is when the sun is over your head or actually on your longitude.

35:43
Well, the sun is moving.

35:45
Well, of course I know that the earth goes around the sun, but in celestial navigation, we pretend the sun is going around the moon, the earth.

35:55
The sun is traveling across the sky 1000 miles an hour.

35:59
Yeah, well, you got to be right on.

36:02
That's why you go out, you figure up your noon and you go out 15 minutes ahead of time and you start taking shots.

36:12
And you'll see your sextant angle getting bigger each time until it peaks, and then it'll start getting smaller as the sun is descending.

36:24
If you go out there and it's descending, you missed it already.

36:28
And I've I've done that.

36:31
So you got to get out there 15 minutes ahead of time because the sun is moving fast now because of that.

36:38
The the the position at local apparent noon that you will get may be off 1015 miles.

36:47
That's about as good as you're going to get because the sun is moving so fast.

36:51
The stars are moving very slowly, so actually shooting the stars in the evening generally will give you a better.

37:01
More accurate position, but it is a little more.

37:04
I was amazed.

37:05
I was amazed during the eclipse.

37:07
I was watching all the coverage, how fast the moon shadow was going 1900 miles an hour like a plane can't keep up with it.

37:15
I was like, wow.

37:16
And they would show, you know, fighters up there trying to get the shot of it.

37:21
And but they can't follow it.

37:23
Yeah, the earth spins, you know, in 24 hours, 24,000 miles around.

37:29
So 1000 miles an hour.

37:31
It's it's moving pretty quick.

37:33
It's so amazing.

37:35
It's just this stuff's going on that we don't even pay attention to.

37:38
That's right.

37:39
So we talked about that story about Captain Tammy.

37:44
And how she made it to Hawaii and then the ship came by.

37:48
Can you think of any other recent stories or even historical stories where somebody was able to use this and save their lives or?

37:58
Uh I know a related story very well.

38:05
It's It's one of the top 50 adventure books and it is, it's called Adrift also.

38:13
And I can't remember the fellow's name, but he was in a life raft for 65 days.

38:19
Whoa.

38:21
Floated from the coast, from off the coast of France, all the way down to the Caribbean.

38:28
And he made, it sounds funny, but he put, he had a pencil or a couple of pencils.

38:36
He broke them and made a little triangle and used it.

38:41
to measure his latitude as he was floating across the ocean.

38:48
And he made it.

38:49
It's Steve Callahan, I believe is is his name.

38:52
It's a very good book.

38:54
If people want to read it.

38:56
Adrift Across the Atlantic in 65 Days or something.

39:00
Of course, he ate fish and and he had a couple solar stills, old World War II.

39:08
Did he mean to be on this?

39:10
Did he mean to be on this life raft?

39:13
No, no, noHe his.

39:15
He was on a boat alone and he hit something or something hit him.

39:23
It was probably, I suspect he hit a container.

39:27
Which is the same thing that happened to Robert Redford in that movie.

39:31
But you know, there are containers that fall off these container ships floating around out there.

39:36
But for some reason his boat hit something, could have been a whale, who knows?

39:41
But it went down in in about 10 minutes and he spent the next 65 days in his underwear and T-shirt.

39:59
OK, I'm not hearing anything now.

40:06
Sorry about that.

40:07
OK, so I cop.

40:08
I copy and pasted this from Instagram from Blue Water Sails.

40:12
I'm a member of the US Coast Guard on on an SAR team.

40:15
We rescued a solo sailor in the middle of the Gulf.

40:18
His vessel was hit by lightning, lost all electronics.

40:20
He did not know celestial navigation.

40:24
Yes, yesHe should have taken my class and been ready.

40:28
Yeah, he was in the Gulf.

40:29
He's probably close by.

40:30
Yeah, I wonder.

40:32
Well, like I I told you, my friends or this guy I knew was was out there in the in the Gulf of Mexico on the way to Mexico and their their bilge flooded.

40:43
So it it does happen.

40:44
It does happen.

40:45
He said that fortunately he filed a float plan and his wife called the Coast Guard and we found him.

40:50
Nice.

40:51
Yeah.

40:52
Very nice.

40:54
Very nice.

40:54
Did he have a locator device?

40:55
Blue water sails.

40:59
Oh, he's, you know, when I'm crossing the Gulf, I have a personal device attached to my my vest.

41:06
So I will see what he says.

41:08
They found him though.

41:10
Good.

41:10
And also also call early when you're having trouble.

41:14
With call the Coast Guard early, say, hey, I got my, you know, I don't know what's going to happen, but this is starting to happen.

41:19
I just want you to know where I am.

41:21
I did that recently on a Gulf crossing that was really, really rough.

41:25
Yeah.

41:26
And they checked on me every 30 minutes.

41:28
Oh wow.

41:29
Until I was tied up.

41:30
So because I don't, I'd heard stories of people.

41:34
Maybe having told their brother-in-law that there was a problem, but the brother-in-law never called the Coast Guard and pretty soon they disappeared and they just found remnants of the boat and lost a whole family.

41:45
So definitely that's the lesson of the day.

41:48
Tip of the day, call early, right?

41:50
Call early if you're having trouble, that's that's that's for sure.

41:54
Another thing while you're talking about safety issues, I am a very strong proponent of AIS.

42:04
Yes, I've got that.

42:06
And your loved ones for I I think it's a dollar a day.

42:12
They can track you by satellite and know where you're at all the time.

42:17
And if you have an inreach and I do.

42:19
Oh, yes.

42:20
Oh, there's all.

42:20
Isn't it a wonderful world we live in?

42:22
We've got all.

42:23
Well, you know, this is not the world of Christopher Columbus.

42:27
We we it's.

42:29
It's not, it's not as scary as it used to be.

42:31
People always say, how do you, how do you do that?

42:33
Aren't you scared?

42:34
And I go, well, I respect it, but I've got all the technology and I try to be responsible.

42:39
And yes, the downside of that is that there's a lot of people out there that shouldn't be out there.

42:46
Oh, it's true.

42:47
I see them because the fear factor is gone for so many people.

42:51
But it's it's I would, I would have to say compared to a lot of other sports, sailboating is is very safe sport.

42:59
Sure.

43:00
And Blue Water Sail says no, they did not have a personal locator device.

43:04
Oh yeah.

43:06
So he had his wife.

43:07
So that yes, the float man and the and the wife.

43:11
Yeah, yeah, locator devices.

43:14
And fortunately with the the Gulf, there's land in many directions.

43:21
All right, so let's see.

43:24
So obviously celestial navigation is gonna continue to be relevant, even though people might not think so.

43:30
But well, I guess that's it.

43:37
I guess that's all I have.

43:38
Unless you have something.

43:40
Well, you know, I can always, I can always ramble on about a few things.

43:44
What do I not know to ask?

43:46
What do you want people to know?

43:47
OK, I I did not attend the Naval Academy.

43:53
However, I park at the Naval Academy when I go to the Naval, but everybody, everybody stops and tells me that the Naval Academy is once again teaching celestial navigation.

44:05
They stopped for a while, but there are concerns.

44:09
There are threats.

44:11
There are threats to GPS.

44:13
You know, by our enemies.

44:16
Right, rightAnd in fact, Great Britain has reinitiated Loran over there.

44:25
That was before GPS, right?

44:27
That was before GPS.

44:29
That is a kind of a I've never used it, but it was kind of a, I think, a triangulation system.

44:37
And I think that's what Tanya, the 18 year old who went around the world, she used.

44:43
She got to Bermuda or the Bahamas or something on it, and she found out she was doing it wrong, but she got there anyway.

44:48
Yeah But But she crossed the Atlantic with nothing, not even a motor.

44:54
Wow.

44:54
Yeah.

44:56
YeahPeople take a lot of chances and survive.

45:00
That's good to know.

45:01
Yeah.

45:03
But yeah, so you have to triangulate something with radar, is it?

45:07
What is it?

45:08
The Loran.

45:08
There's signals.

45:10
And you have a box.

45:12
Of course it's electronic.

45:14
If it if it fails, you can't use it.

45:17
But it it gives you these lines of position that you have to plot to determine your position.

45:29
That's Loran.

45:29
But apparently it doesn't use satellites.

45:32
It uses shore-based transmission stations, you know, years ago.

45:39
If you read some of the the books from the 60s about Robert Knox Johnson, for example, the first guy to sail non-stop alone.

45:50
Oh yeah, when was that?

45:51
That was that in the 1800s?

45:53
No, no, no, noHe was 1962 or something.

45:58
Oh, OK.

45:59
But he sailed alone around the world, the first guy non-stop.

46:05
And he used he used radio direction finders and I've they're very hard to find nowadays, but theoretically you could dial in a a very strong radio station and then find another and where they triangulate of course with this direction finder.

46:27
But I I I'm not sure they even make them anymore.

46:30
So with all the GPS involved and all of that.

46:34
That that stuff has been abandoned pretty much, right?

46:38
Yeah.

46:39
And and when did that go into effect?

46:41
Late 80s.

46:43
When did we get the public get it?

46:45
What's that?

46:46
GPS?

46:47
When?

46:47
Yeah, yeah, the late 80s.

46:50
Wow.

46:51
I I'm not, you know, I I don't.

46:55
I flew in an airplane in the Navy, but we had inertial navigation.

47:00
in the airplane.

47:01
So I never really used GPS until I started sailing.

47:07
Well, we have about 15 watching live, 15 people.

47:12
So if you're on Facebook or YouTube, or even I can even see comments on Instagram, please ask a question, make a comment, something.

47:20
I'm sure people have questions out there.

47:24
So where's your next class?

47:27
Well, I'm teaching a class on the 28th and or the 27th and 28th of this month, the last weekend of April.

47:40
And I do have space for a couple other people if they would.

47:43
If anybody watching this would like to attend, you know they can contact me either.

47:48
How do they find you?

47:50
Well, my phone number is 850776.

47:58
2976 OK, I'm going to put this on the screen.

48:03
OK, yeah, people can call me and I'm teaching it here in Cantonment, just north of Pensacola.

48:10
I have a classroom.

48:12
We'll we will learn how to observe the sun at noon and we'll we'll go out and take an observation of the sun.

48:20
But you can call me with any questions, OK?

48:26
I'm trying to get your title right.

48:28
I want to give you all the respect you deserve.

48:32
Thanks.

48:32
I appreciate that retirement check from the American taxpayer too.

48:37
Appreciate that.

48:38
Yeah, I I looked up what Commander was, is and what they do and and I had to educate myself a little bit.

48:46
It's a very impressive.

48:48
So thank you.

48:51
Well, OK.

48:52
Well, I guess that's it.

48:53
We don't have any questions or anything.

48:55
There'll be, there's 16 people in here now.

48:57
I was hoping somebody would have a question, ask a question, but there'll be the people watching now.

49:02
But there'll be thousands that watch the replay.

49:05
So, well, if anybody, anybody has any questions, you know, they can always send me an e-mail.

49:11
All right, let me get your.

49:14
Yeah, it's just C.

49:16
No, noLet me give you this one.

49:18
Celeste Nav.

49:21
CELESNAV like celestial navigation.

49:26
Celeste nav@yahoo.com.

49:30
Old school.

49:31
I always like to talk celestial navigation.

49:34
Sounds like it.

49:35
Write me anytime.

49:36
Happy to hear it.

49:37
OK, there it is.

49:39
850-776-2976 or Celeste.

49:42
Do I have it right?

49:43
Celeste Nav.

49:44
Yep, that's it.

49:46
Not a T.

49:47
I can finish my part by by just talking about sextants for a second.

49:52
Let's do it.

49:54
People always want to know what, if I'm interested, what kind of sextant should I buy?

50:01
Well, OK, so you've got to ask yourself, how serious are you about it?

50:07
How often do you think you're going to use it?

50:10
And how much money do you want to spend?

50:13
There are plastic sextants like I showed you.

50:16
That's plastic.

50:18
And it works great.

50:20
It works fine.

50:22
Now, of course, it's not going to be as accurate as a $5000 Japanese sextant.

50:30
Japanese.

50:32
OK, yeah, yeahTo my I got this one off of Amazon.

50:37
Well, I.

50:38
Yes, that's that's an expensive Sexton.

50:41
That one's about 899.

50:43
Oh, no, noThat's the Astra 3B.

50:45
That's the one.

50:45
I've got one of those too.

50:47
I thought it looked familiar.

50:48
Yeah, but believe it or not, this one's plastic.

50:53
That's metal.

50:54
I prefer my plastic one.

50:56
Now you may say what?

50:57
WhatWhatFirst of all, accuracy is generally.

51:04
You got to be dependent on so many different things.

51:07
How rough is it?

51:09
How good are you?

51:10
How is the horizon?

51:13
How is your plotting?

51:14
How thick is your pencil lead?

51:15
All of that stuff that the sextants are will all give you a reading close enough to get your position without any difficulty.

51:24
So it's really a question of how much you want to spend.

51:28
You can go on eBay and find one.

51:30
Oh yeah.

51:31
A student I have just that's coming here at the end of the month, you know, talked to me.

51:36
He just went on eBay and bought one.

51:38
You can buy a brand new plastic sextant for around $200.

51:43
They're very good.

51:44
Or you can buy the $900 sextant.

51:48
Or once again, you can you can get AI think it's a German Freeburg sextant or a Japanese Tamaya sextant.

51:56
There was cardboard ones too.

51:59
OK, I I have one of those.

52:04
It's it's it's more of a learning tool.

52:07
I got you something to play with to show people.

52:10
I put it together with Elmer's glue and it works.

52:13
Don't get me wrong, it works, but I wouldn't want to get it wet.

52:16
That Elmer's glue might not hold up.

52:18
But anyway, so anywhere from I would say 100 on up to 2000, $3000.

52:26
There is a brand new sextant coming out that I have tested that has an electronic gizmo on it.

52:36
It's made in South Korea and you take three shots, push the button and it gives you your latitude, longitude.

52:45
Well, that works great as long as the batteries last.

52:48
Oh yeah, I'm more of a a manual type guy in doing this.

52:52
I want to be able to do it when everything else fails.

52:55
If you're going to do that, might as well just use your GPS.

52:59
There you go.

53:00
My thought exactly.

53:02
That was in my review of it too.

53:04
Anyway, so you know, all of those sections work.

53:09
It's just really how much you want to spend on one.

53:13
Now remember also if you're shooting the sun at noon.

53:17
You're holding that sextant for 1520 minutes and that metal sextant can get kind of heavy.

53:24
And and if you drop the plastic one over the side accidentally, OK, buy another one.

53:32
If you drop the metal one, you're going to be jumping in after it.

53:36
OK, OK, I say that in chess, but anyway, so you tie a string around it, right?

53:41
Yes, that's right.

53:43
So the the plastic one doesn't float.

53:47
Well, it's got a string on it too, so put it.

53:49
I've never dropped it before.

53:53
I've never dropped a sextant, so I hope I never do.

53:57
All right, well, if anybody wants to take the class, you can contact them directly if you didn't write the number down or something and you can always replay the video.

54:06
But you can contact me, saltyabandon at Gmail, and I'll give you the info.

54:10
I don't know if I can make that class because I got some things going on, but I'm sure we'd like to do one of your classes.

54:15
Sure, sureI'll contact you.

54:16
Count me in.

54:17
I'm all about the education.

54:21
All right.

54:22
Well, I appreciate you coming on.

54:23
It's great to meet you.

54:25
A lot of fun.

54:25
And maybe we'll have you back.

54:28
Let me find my outro video.

54:31
And what I like to say at the end of every video is salty abandoned out.