In the age of AI, dual-band GNSS and inertial units, the U. S. Navy returns to good old fundamentals by encouraging its sailors to practice celestial navigation. To prevent jamming, spoofing, or even a hypothetical total electronic blackout, US Navy commanding officers and navigators must master the dead reckoning and handling of the sextant. Excerpt from an article from U.S. Naval Institute freely translated and adapted (¹). Read more …
Label : astronomy
Celestial, navigation on iPhone and iPad [Update-2]
[January update 2025] This great app, not updated for several years, no longer works and has been removed from the Apple Store. It's a shame because I had made the French version. A similar alternative could be Celestial Nav whose latest version 3.3 September date 2025, at the price of €30 for the PRO lifetime license. Compatible iOS 26.
`I haven't had the chance to test it yet.
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G-Stell le sextant du futur
Amazing ! At a time when GPS networks are multiplying (GPS, GLONASS, Beidou-2, and soon Galileo) a genius engineer, sailing enthusiast, creates a company and invents the replacement for dad's sextant : an electronic sextant requiring no knowledge, with a claimed accuracy of less than one nautical mile, the G-Stell. Read more …
About alignments and sextant
This holiday season, during which we happily return for a few days to the traditions, inspires me to rethink the traditions of an activity that is dear to us : navigation.
Not that of our illustrious predecessors, royal navies, discoverers of distant lands, corsairs, pirates or honest merchants, isn't it. I want to talk about the one that has concerned us for more than half a century : yachting. Especially to the attention of our friends who are sailors born in 70-80, who discovered navigation from the years 90, period of the appearance of GPS on board our pleasure boats.
I, who is constantly adding a website and a blog on the intricacies of computing onboard, of all these tools which bring us our position a few meters away, what the weather will be like in eight days, the height of water under the keel, the time at which it will be necessary to tack to take advantage of the favorable wind shift, and how much additional information is available in three mouse clicks, I don’t forget how I learned to sail.
This holiday season, during which we happily return for a few days to the traditions, inspires me to rethink the traditions of an activity that is dear to us : navigation.
Not that of our illustrious predecessors, royal navies, discoverers of distant lands, corsairs, pirates or honest merchants, isn't it. I want to talk about the one that has concerned us for more than half a century : yachting. Especially to the attention of our friends who are sailors born in 1970-80, who discovered navigation from the years 1990, period of the appearance of GPS on board our pleasure boats. Read more …