The Waukegan | Joseph Conrad Yacht Club is offering a celestial navigation classMost boaters and travelers have been spoiled in recent years by handheld GPS devices, smartphones and Google maps. But, what happens when you are beyond the reach of the cell towers? What happens when the power goes out or the batteries go dead? What’s your backup method for navigation? When you are a thousand miles offshore it’s too late to look for alternative options.
The Celestial Navigation course provided by the Waukegan | Joseph Conrad Yacht Club is designed to teach you everything you need to know to navigate around the world using observations of the sun, stars and planets, along with a dead-reckoning track. The class is taught in 4 sessions:
Sesson 1: Dead Reckoning (prerequisite for all other sessions)
Date: March 11 (11am-3pm)
In this session you will learn:
- How to obtain, read and use nautical charts
- How to identify latitude and longitude
- Measurement scales and other notations
- Navigation terms and terminology.
- How to plan a navigational track
- How to create and maintain a navigation logbook
- How to obtain fixes from visual observations
- How to compute ETAs
- How to identify set and drift and how to compensate for it
- How to identify magnetic variation and apply compensation
- How to create and maintain a dead reckoning track
Session 2: Navigating by the Sun
Date: March 18 (11am-3pm)
In this session you will learn:
- How the sun can used for obtaining navigational fixes
- How to use a sextant (hands on)
- How to calibrate a sextant (hands on)
- How to obtain visual observations of the sun (hands on)
- How to use the Nautical Almanac and site reduction tables
- How to calculate Line of Position
- How to advance sight lines to create a fix
Session 3: Obtaining Latitude and Longitude
Date: March 25 (11am-3pm)
In this session you will learn:
- How to test and calibrate chronometers and digital watches to ensure accurate observations and computation
- How to compute Local Hour Angle (LHA) for obtaining assumed LAN
- How to use a chronometer or digital watch to identify your longitude
- How to shoot Local Apparent Noon (LAN) with sextant (hands on)
Session 4: Navigating by the stars and planets
Date: April 8 (TBD)
In this session you will learn:
- How to use stars and planets for navigation
- How to compute sunrise, sunset and dusk
- How to compute Sidereal Hour Angle (SHA)
- How to identify stars and planet for observation
- How to obtain visual observations of planets and stars with sextant (hands on)
- How to compute a Line of Position (LOP) from stars and planets
- How to create a fix from multiple stars and planets
