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I’m preparing to shop for a few navigation books for my upcoming sail to and through the West Indies (not to
include the Bahamas). Since it has been well over a decade since I’ve sailed there, my old books are long gone
and I’m not current with the latest and greatest guide books being used today. So, I’m hoping (1) to receive
some input on which specific guide books/authors are considered “best” among cruisers down there now, (2) to
learn what other books one might also consider for a Caribbean cruise these days, and (3) to hear from anyone
with any recent versions of these books that they’d like to sell or otherwise pass along. The 2009 Nautical
Almanac is necessary (even though the 2010 edition will be out soon) if I am to do the celestial navigation
offshore in December that I have promised myself I’ll do.Here’s the list:
– 2009 Nautical Almanac (US or British, for Sight Reduction Tables & corrections)
– Caribbean Pilot Book
– Bermuda Cruising Guide (with approach and harbor charts)
– Lesser Antilles Cruising Guide ((VI to Trinidad, with all approach and harbor charts)
– Greater Antilles Cruising Guide (with all approach and harbor charts)I’ve glanced at Reeds Nautical Almanac, but since it no longer contains sight reduction tables I don’t see
much use in carrying it. Anyone have another view of that?Thanks,
Tor
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Silver Heels, P-424 #17
http://www.SilverHeels.us
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Hi Tor,
You need a new Nautical Almanac each year? Like is that the same as H.O. 249? I'm really new to celestial navigation so I pretty much have a sextant or two and an atomic synced watch (set to GMT).
What else do I need?
As far as books go, anything by Carl Hiaasen that you haven't read. Any Stuart Woods book, but earlier ones are better, and all of the Travis McGee novels (I forget the author). Other than that, I don't think there's a Texaco chart for the Caribbean… They won't help you with navigation but when you do get lost, you've got something amusing to read.
Bob
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Bob Fine
s/v Pelican
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Bob,
Sorry, my mistake. You need a current Nautical Almanac for the Declination and GHA Tables and other corrections. The HO 249 Sight Reduction Tables are a one-time, permanent collection. (Actually, you can get away with using last year’s Nautical Almanac simply by applying a small but essential correction to the Declination or GHA for each sight, so for my December shots a 2008 issue would work.)
Tor
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Silver Heels, P-424 #17
http://www.SilverHeels.us
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Or if you don't want to take either the NA or the tables take myExcel Workbook, it' will do the calculations for you. You still have to take the sights – haven't figured out how to program that in VBA, yet.
Tor,
I recommend you pose your question on current cruising guides on theSSCA Discussion Board. There are probably more caribbean cruisers active on that forum than any other. Several of these cruisers have written their own guides, which are probably more accurate and up-to-date than the big expensive ones at marine bookstores. Of course they don't look as nice on a coffee table, but somehow I doubt you've taken your coffee table with you. Also the Flea Market section on the fourm usually has a number of the coffee table guides for sale.I have not looked at Reed's for many years, but the last time I did I compared the UK version vrs. the Reeds published in the US. I do not believe there is any connection between the two documents, written and published by different groups. The Reeds UK is a serious reference. The Reeds US is a waster of money. That said I don't think the Reeds UK is all that useful for the Caribbean and of course you have to order it from the UK.
If you want to practice you navigation techniques I recommend Exercises for the Ocean Navigator by Kenneth Wilkes. It was written in the 70s so it is all about DR and Celestial. Not even a reference to Loran. I just checked an used versions (published in the 80s) are available on Amazon.com for under $15.
On Sun, Sep 27, 2009 at 4:04 PM, Linus Martinez < ([email][/email])> wrote:
Quote:That would be John MacDonald
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Tor
So sad about Reeds. They had such a great nautical almanac. I found it
much easier to use than HO-214. I wrote some spreadsheets that use the
sunephemeris coefficients to automate my sight reduction. This is of little
use without the paper tables however.This may be the same information. Maybe they still print it.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/071368996X/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_1?pf_rd_p=48
6539851&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0713667303&pf_rd_m=ATVP
DKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=0NPQ088VWJR7M8YPQBWTAlmost nobody uses paper tables for navigating anymore. They just didn’t
have enough demand to keep publishing the material. I even confess that I
didn’t bother to buy an almanac this year. I kept a tide table for the
summer months in my wallet, but nothing else. I use my computer for tides
and my GPS for navigation. I’d certainly get a new set of tables if I went
offshore again.Rich
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John,
I will put this to the SSCA group. Just thought I’d run by our 424 gang first. And I’ll check out the SSCA flea market. Didn’t know about that.
I don’t want to use any programs or calculators for this, partly for my own gratification, but mainly so that I have a manual back-up when all the electronics stop working. As long as I have a sextant, the tables and an accurate time piece I can navigate. BTW, in the past I always used a pair of $10, battery-powered wrist watches as chronometers. I’d monitor them for a while before departing, noting their rate of gain or loss (i.e., “loses 1 second every 8 days” or whatever). Then I’d re=set them to a GMT signal just before setting sail. Never had a problem with time doing it that way.
As for practicing, I think I just need to take a few sights and work them out by my old system. Ages ago I developed an ultra-simple, 2-column list of the steps for working out a sight and put it on an 11″ tall X 2″ wide piece of cardboard. By clipping that down the center of a blank sheet of paper I have an instant “work sheet.” This avoids having to carry and replenish printed forms. Not fancy, but it works.
I believe the Reeds almanacs used to contain the Declination/GHA tables each year, so you could carry it instead of the US or British government publications. Now that Reeds no longer includes those tables, I have no use for it.
Thanks,
Tor
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Silver Heels, P-424 #17
http://www.SilverHeels.us
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Rich,
That’s interesting, that Reed’s publishes what appears to be the annual Declination tables, etc in a dedicated book. Bet it’s not a best-seller. I found the UK 2009 Nautical Almanac for only $20: http://www.amazon.com/Nautical-Almanac-2009-Commercial/dp/0939837811
Tor
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~http://www.silverheels.us
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Tor,
Between my Garmin GPS and my Doyle Guides, I’ve had no issues to contend with. I have back up paper charts just in case, but I’ve never had to rely on them. The new Garmin chips are particularly accurate in the Lesser Antilles, and I can get to an anchorage spot even at night ( as long as I can see boats at anchor which don’t use anchor lights).
Joe,
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Tor,
Understand about not wanting to go electronic for celestial, which is supposed to be the backup to electronic navigation in the first place. I developed this application primarily as a learning tool to understand celestial navigation in detail. It still might be of some value to you if you haven't purchased your Nautical Almanacs as it will print out the day pages, very similar to the NA, for any date range you wish – including Dec, 2009 – Jan 2010. It does take a lot of compute time, so If you want to print the day pages for more than a couple of weeks you should start the process before going to bed and it should be ready to print in the AM.
The only almanac data it does not produce is that for the Moon. The Moon is a bitch. Maybe next year I'll get those algorithms programmed.On Sun, Sep 27, 2009 at 7:35 PM, Joseph Steiner < ([email][/email])> wrote:
Quote:Tor,
Between my Garmin GPS and my Doyle Guides, I've had no issues to contend with. I have back up paper charts just in case, but I've never had to rely on them. The new Garmin chips are particularly accurate in the Lesser Antilles, and I can get to an anchorage spot even at night ( as long as I can see boats at anchor which don't use anchor lights).
Joe,
Half Moon
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Joe,
Are the Doyle guides what most West Indies cruisers are using now?
Tor
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Silver Heels, P-424 #17
http://www.SilverHeels.us
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John,
I never pretended to understand the spherical trigonometry of what I was doing back when I used celestial navigation regularly. I just learned the steps by rote from a skinny little book (now almost certainly out of print) titled “Self Taught Navigation – Ten Easy Steps” by Robert Y. Kittredge. That was enough to get me where I was going every time and I left it at that.
Right now I would be delighted to have the tables & corrections I need from the Nautical Almanac without buying a 2009 book that will be out of date in a month after I start using it. As for shooting the moon, I did that a few times back in the day just to do it, but can do without it for this trip. Is this application something I might use, at least to download the pages I’ll need?
Tor
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Silver Heels, P-424 #17
http://www.SilverHeels.us
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Tor,
I'm about to put up a new version today, which has a progress meter on generating the almanac (just so you know it's doing something). I'll give you a post back when it available for down load. You have to run the application to generate the almanac. It generates the output as an Excel printout which you can direct to printer or a file if you have file printers (e.g., pdf) on your computer. You don't have to print it to review the almanac, the report is stored in an Excel worksheet that can be saved and then printed at a later date.On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 12:23 PM, Silver Heels < ([email][/email])> wrote:
Quote:John,
I never pretended to understand the spherical trigonometry of what I was doing back when I used celestial navigation regularly. I just learned the steps by rote from a skinny little book (now almost certainly out of print) titled “Self Taught Navigation – Ten Easy Steps” by Robert Y. Kittredge. That was enough to get me where I was going every time and I left it at that.
Right now I would be delighted to have the tables & corrections I need from the Nautical Almanac without buying a 2009 book that will be out of date in a month after I start using it. As for shooting the moon, I did that a few times back in the day just to do it, but can do without it for this trip. Is this application something I might use, at least to download the pages I'll need?
Tor
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Silver Heels, P-424 #17
http://www.SilverHeels.us
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While I'm working on the version, here is what a single day page would look like.
On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 1:26 PM, John Stevenson < ([email][/email])> wrote:
Quote:Tor,
I'm about to put up a new version today, which has a progress meter on generating the almanac (just so you know it's doing something). I'll give you a post back when it available for down load. You have to run the application to generate the almanac. It generates the output as an Excel printout which you can direct to printer or a file if you have file printers (e.g., pdf) on your computer. You don't have to print it to review the almanac, the report is stored in an Excel worksheet that can be saved and then printed at a later date.On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 12:23 PM, Silver Heels < ([email][/email])> wrote:
Quote:John,
I never pretended to understand the spherical trigonometry of what I was doing back when I used celestial navigation regularly. I just learned the steps by rote from a skinny little book (now almost certainly out of print) titled “Self Taught Navigation – Ten Easy Steps” by Robert Y. Kittredge. That was enough to get me where I was going every time and I left it at that.
Right now I would be delighted to have the tables & corrections I need from the Nautical Almanac without buying a 2009 book that will be out of date in a month after I start using it. As for shooting the moon, I did that a few times back in the day just to do it, but can do without it for this trip. Is this application something I might use, at least to download the pages I'll need?
Tor
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Silver Heels, P-424 #17
http://www.SilverHeels.us
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Quote:
Original Message
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John,
Awesome! I became reasonably proficient with your inventory program many moons ago – use it almost daily to keep Silver Heels organized (and to find things I know I put… somewhere) – so I can probably learn this one. When, where, how can I get it?
Tor
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Silver Heels, P-424 #17
http://www.SilverHeels.us
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Yes, everyone I have met has the set. Leewards, Windwards, and there is one for T&T, if you plan on Carnival or hurricane season in Trini. The only thing that seems to get outdated are issues related to hotels and restaurants, so if you are interested mainly in maps of anchorages, a used set would do fine.
Joe,
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Tor,
The new version of the program is being uploaded now. Takes about 15 minutes or so while ExpressionWeb figures how what needs to be uploaded.
I originally created this Day Almanac report to verify the program calculations line by line against a real almanac. I've never used it as an Almanac source, and now if discovered a couple of things I left out.- Sun Semi-Diameter. I have a subroutine that calculates this value so it will be easy to add it to the report
- v and d values for the Planets. Again this should be easy to add.
So I have one more update to the program to make the almanac complete. In the mean time you can down load the program and test it with the existing almanac report at http://www.svsarah.com/Sailing/ewTechniqueExcelNavigation.htm
About halfway down the page is the link to download the program in a zip file.
Creating the almanac printout takes a little while (15 sec/day on my 3 ghz machine), which is why I put in the progress meter so you can tell if the program is doing anything.
The documentation covers the installation and set process.John
On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 1:44 PM, Silver Heels < ([email][/email])> wrote:
Quote:John,
Awesome! I became reasonably proficient with your inventory program many moons ago – use it almost daily to keep Silver Heels organized (and to find things I know I put… somewhere) – so I can probably learn this one. When, where, how can I get it?Tor
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Silver Heels, P-424 #17
http://www.SilverHeels.us
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Thanks, Joe.
Tor
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Silver Heels, P-424 #17
http://www.SilverHeels.us
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Thanks John! Saves me storing yet another tome…
Bob
On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 2:28 PM, John Stevenson < ([email][/email])> wrote:
Quote:Tor,
The new version of the program is being uploaded now. Takes about 15 minutes or so while ExpressionWeb figures how what needs to be uploaded.
I originally created this Day Almanac report to verify the program calculations line by line against a real almanac. I've never used it as an Almanac source, and now if discovered a couple of things I left out.- Sun Semi-Diameter. I have a subroutine that calculates this value so it will be easy to add it to the report
- v and d values for the Planets. Again this should be easy to add.
So I have one more update to the program to make the almanac complete. In the mean time you can down load the program and test it with the existing almanac report at http://www.svsarah.com/Sailing/ewTechniqueExcelNavigation.htm
About halfway down the page is the link to download the program in a zip file.
Creating the almanac printout takes a little while (15 sec/day on my 3 ghz machine), which is why I put in the progress meter so you can tell if the program is doing anything.
The documentation covers the installation and set process.John
On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 1:44 PM, Silver Heels < ([email][/email])> wrote:
Quote:John,
Awesome! I became reasonably proficient with your inventory program many moons ago – use it almost daily to keep Silver Heels organized (and to find things I know I put… somewhere) – so I can probably learn this one. When, where, how can I get it?Tor
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Silver Heels, P-424 #17
http://www.SilverHeels.us
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Quote:
Original Message
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I did correct the report to generate the v and d values plus the Sun Semi-Diameter. If you download the same zip file you'll get the correction.
The d values are not truly what the NA uses. They use a mean value for the 3 days on the page. I just use the first two values for each day, so you may see a variation of +/- 0.1' if you compare it a the NA. My v values should be slightly more accurate as i calculate it for each day not just the middle day for each page.
Have fun and let me know of any issues.
John
On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 2:58 PM, Robert Fine < ([email][/email])> wrote:
Quote:Thanks John! Saves me storing yet another tome…Bob
On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 2:28 PM, John Stevenson < ([email][/email])> wrote:
Quote:Tor,
The new version of the program is being uploaded now. Takes about 15 minutes or so while ExpressionWeb figures how what needs to be uploaded.
I originally created this Day Almanac report to verify the program calculations line by line against a real almanac. I've never used it as an Almanac source, and now if discovered a couple of things I left out.- Sun Semi-Diameter. I have a subroutine that calculates this value so it will be easy to add it to the report
- v and d values for the Planets. Again this should be easy to add.
So I have one more update to the program to make the almanac complete. In the mean time you can down load the program and test it with the existing almanac report at http://www.svsarah.com/Sailing/ewTechniqueExcelNavigation.htm
About halfway down the page is the link to download the program in a zip file.
Creating the almanac printout takes a little while (15 sec/day on my 3 ghz machine), which is why I put in the progress meter so you can tell if the program is doing anything.
The documentation covers the installation and set process.John
On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 1:44 PM, Silver Heels < ([email][/email])> wrote:
Quote:John,
Awesome! I became reasonably proficient with your inventory program many moons ago – use it almost daily to keep Silver Heels organized (and to find things I know I put… somewhere) – so I can probably learn this one. When, where, how can I get it?Tor
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Silver Heels, P-424 #17
http://www.SilverHeels.us
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Quote:
Original Message
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Oops!
I don't know what happened, but just after I uploaded the latest version of the software, it started to fail on startup on my computer. Something corrupted the main program file. I fixed it and that version is being uploaded. If you have already downloaded and installed the program and it works OK – the main form appears when you click the “Nav” button then the problem was not in the uploaded version – something I did after I uploaded it. If it fails (Excel aborts), then download the zip file again. It'll work this time – I promise.On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 4:06 PM, John Stevenson < ([email][/email])> wrote:
Quote:I did correct the report to generate the v and d values plus the Sun Semi-Diameter. If you download the same zip file you'll get the correction.The d values are not truly what the NA uses. They use a mean value for the 3 days on the page. I just use the first two values for each day, so you may see a variation of +/- 0.1' if you compare it a the NA. My v values should be slightly more accurate as i calculate it for each day not just the middle day for each page.
Have fun and let me know of any issues.
John
On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 2:58 PM, Robert Fine < ([email][/email])> wrote:
Quote:Thanks John! Saves me storing yet another tome…Bob
On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 2:28 PM, John Stevenson < ([email][/email])> wrote:
Quote:Tor,
The new version of the program is being uploaded now. Takes about 15 minutes or so while ExpressionWeb figures how what needs to be uploaded.
I originally created this Day Almanac report to verify the program calculations line by line against a real almanac. I've never used it as an Almanac source, and now if discovered a couple of things I left out.- Sun Semi-Diameter. I have a subroutine that calculates this value so it will be easy to add it to the report
- v and d values for the Planets. Again this should be easy to add.
So I have one more update to the program to make the almanac complete. In the mean time you can down load the program and test it with the existing almanac report at http://www.svsarah.com/Sailing/ewTechniqueExcelNavigation.htm
About halfway down the page is the link to download the program in a zip file.
Creating the almanac printout takes a little while (15 sec/day on my 3 ghz machine), which is why I put in the progress meter so you can tell if the program is doing anything.
The documentation covers the installation and set process.John
On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 1:44 PM, Silver Heels < ([email][/email])> wrote:
Quote:John,
Awesome! I became reasonably proficient with your inventory program many moons ago – use it almost daily to keep Silver Heels organized (and to find things I know I put… somewhere) – so I can probably learn this one. When, where, how can I get it?Tor
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Silver Heels, P-424 #17
http://www.SilverHeels.us
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Quote:
Original Message
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