Sunday, December 02, 2018

a brilliant bit of kit...

G&T with a common complaint, something regarding beef, and it would appear someone's been stealing...

This is really quite neat.

Billed as a GPS Backup Kit from the folks at Starpath it contains all of the tools you need to find out where you happen to be. Which, I suspect, is some kind of cool.

So, what's in the bag?

  • Davis Mark 3 plastic sextant
  • Quartz watch set to UTC, with 7-year battery, individually rated to give correct UTC on any date. (How we do the watch rates.)
  • GPS Backup with a Mark 3 Sextant (the instruction guide and needed tables)
  • 3x folding magnifier (to help read the sextant's vernier scale)
  • Plastic sextant case with locking handle
  • Douglas protractor
  • Roll-up 12" ruler
  • Clip and edge bar to facilitate Polaris measurements
  • 2 pencils, sharpener, and eraser
  • Notebook with graph pages
  • 5 Universal plotting sheets
  • Waterproof dry bag

Pretty much all you need to find out where you are wherever you happen to be...

How cool is that?

The sextant is actually very good (I use it's big brother). The booklet by David Burch is concise, to the point, and as fool proof as you can get. Top that off with a Casio timepiece and the miscellaneous bits (the plotter is what I plot with) that you need and, hey-presto, you have a brilliant bit of kit that won't break down or fail when you need it.

Of course, it's not quite all you need to navigate but add a compass and a means of measuring boat speed like a trailing log or a Knotstick then you're all set to go anywhere you want to.

Which is the whole idea isn't it?


Listening to Tower of Power

So it goes...