SEXTANTS AND TAFFRAIL LOGS...........

G.P.S. is fantastic, no doubt about it. However, I feel todays mariners are cheating themselves out of the satisfaction of making an accurate landfall after a 25 day passage using only a compass, sextant and good time piece. In a humorous note. I asked a navigation student of mine I hadn't seen for years how his celestial navigation worked out on his voyage to Tahiti? His reply was, "spot on Ernie, my trimaran is still on the reef at at Rangiroa in the Tuamotus. We've sold hundreds of sextants and taffrail logs over the years. Now, cruisers purchase three G.P.S.'s and head for Nuka Hiva. Today, sextants seem to be used for conversation pieces on coffee tables, to be hung on walls and to make lamps out of. Pictured above is one of several sextants we presently have for sale. Also is a brand new Taffrail log. I towed a similar one for 40,000 miles and was always amazed at how accurate it was. I also got a lesson in how rope is make when I had to untangle it from my trolling lines. Our good used sextants usually are priced in the $150.00 to the $500.00 range. Pictured is a U.S. Navy WWII sextant and a taffrail log that has never had it's fish in the water........