Classic_Boat_2016-01

LETTER OF THE MONTH SUPPORTED

BY OLD PULTENEY WHISKY

36 CLASSIC BOAT NOVEMBER 2015 CLASSIC BOAT NOVEMBER 2015 37

GPS – why make a case for the sextant?Slow, clumsy and less accurate than

STORY DAVID BARRIE

I

fell in love with the art of celestial navigation in August 1973 as I sailed across the North Atlantic from Halifax, Nova Scotia, to Falmouth,

England, in name means ‘sea queen’ in Anglo-Saxon. That love still burns hotly after more than 40 years.Saecwen, a 35ft wooden sloop whose

Captain called Colin McMullen. Over the course of our 24-day voyage Colin taught me how to take a meridian I was 19 and my teacher was a retired Royal Navy

altitude to find our latitude and then how to fix our position with timed sights of the sun and stars. To plot our position on the face of the ocean by the

light of those unimaginably distant thermonuclear fires was both humbling and strangely uplifting. By the time we made landfall, I could fix our position on my own

and had become a devotee of the sextant. I felt as if I were joining a long, ghostly line of navigators who had used these techniques before me – in a kind of

apostolic succession. Taking a sextant sight took on for me the character of a sacrament.

The Sextant

much the same way. In 1908 he embarked from San Francisco on a trans-Pacific cruise in The great American writer Jack London felt

his yacht under way: “The mystery was mystery no longer, yet such was the miracle of it, I was conscious of new power Snark. He taught himself how to use a sextant

in me, I was not as other men, most other men: I knew what they did not know, the mystery of the heavens, that pointed out the way across the deep...I forgot that all the

work (and a tremendous work, too) had been done by the masterminds before me, who had discovered and elaborated the whole science of navigation.”

take the trouble to find out about the astronomers, mathematicians and instrument-makers whose I, too, was pretty full of myself, but eventually I did

extraordinary efforts had made it possible to navigate accurately by the light of the stars. I learned about the the sextant and

the role this beautiful device played in the solution of the age-old ‘longitude problem’.

LONG LIVE

CELESTIAL

NAVIGATION

Sextant (circa 1835) by William Parnell

©NATIONAL MARITIME MUSEUM, L

ONDON

COURTESY OF LEO GOOLDEN

Letters

Power to

the lady

Welcome

relief

Classic Boat has been

one of the only

magazines to regularly

feature yachts and

motorboats within its

pages, something I

have always

appreciated. How

fantastic, though, to

see a glorious craft

such as Lady Hertha

on your cover. A

magnificent sight she

is and worthy of the

leading article you

gave her. I welcome,

too, the news that the

British Classic Yacht

Club will have a power

section in its next

regatta. We are all

part of the same scene

after all, it’s just that

our gin & tonics don’t

spill in a F5. Cheers!

Peter Hughes, Dorset

I’ve just had major

surgery and the

November CB arrived

as I recovered in

hospital. I read it from

cover to cover and do

believe it has helped

my recovery. Superb

• a great balance of
  articles to fill me with
  lovely thoughts.
  Hopefully I’ll be out
  before the next issue


• the operation has
  been successful.
  Peter Harrold, Suffolk

Women of the

America’s Cup

Sextant

passage race

Austin Healey

carburettors

There’s no greater pleasure – or

occasionally frustration – than using a

sextant on an open water voyage and

I whole-heartedly agreed with David

Barrie on the future of these

fascinating devices, whose

development changed the world. I

wonder if someone might propose a

regular passage race, or rally, with

only sextants to navigate by. It would

be an exciting way to maintain the

skills of the past and show a new

generation that sextants shouldn’t just

exist in museums.

Robin Sender, Bristol

In future, when Adrian Morgan

strays from writing about boats,

please reel him in. Austin Healeys

came with SU carburettors, not

Webers, and there never was an

Austin Healey 2000. A very

famous and desirable 3000, yes.

A 2000, no. As a matter of

coincidence when, aged five, I had

a tooth knocked out by an errant

tennis racket, the dentist turned

up to fix me in his metallic blue

and cream 3000. Fifty-five years

later I can still picture it.

Nicholas Dixey

Adrian writes: My apologies. Not

quite as bad as the time I wrote

about the Titanic being built on the

Clyde... but close, certainly for

lovers of Austin Healeys. Better

stick to boats.

We wanted to thank you for past

articles on our Reliance and to tell

you we complete our 37ft tall

model this winter. Now we are

turning our focus towards building

accompanying exhibits and ask

your readers for their insights and

participation. One exhibit that has

captured our visitors’ imagination

and gained support from nearby

Roger Williams University is the

story of women participating in

the earliest America’s Cup races –

Mrs Susan Henn, Mrs Phyllis

Sopwith, and we understand two

daughters of Lord Dunraven on

the British side and Mrs Hope

Goddard Iselin and Mrs Gertrude

Vanderbilt on the American boats.

We seek information on these

women and others we may not

know about. The museum will also

begin restoration of Wee Winn (a

fin-keel “½-rater” which sailed in

Cowes from 1892 onward) and

would like to learn more about its

owner Miss Winifred Sutton.

Arthur ‘Sandy’ Lee, Herreshoff

Marine Museum

It was with great pleasure and interest that I read the article in the

November issue The Sextant: Long live celestial navigation. Well written

and full of interesting historical facts, accompanied by relevant

illustrations and boxed comments, it typifies exactly what to my mind

should be the content of an intelligent classic boat magazine.

David Barrie’s conclusions could easily have been my own – like

most modern sailors my sextant hardly ever sees the light of day, let

alone night, but is occasionally brought out of its (beautiful wooden)

box as part of a conversation with a younger would-be navigator.

Although not necessarily relevant in a day to day navigation sense,

surely it is as important for future generations of seamen to know the

background and history of these remarkable tools, as say, how to read

a chart plotter? I shall be buying David’s book!

Mike Horsley, Antibes

One for posterity

PLYWOOD NEW BUILD Golant ketch^ BALTIC CLASSICS Glory of the 12-MsBIRTH OF A LEGEND The first ever Nelson seth