They know they need a backup to all systems, and Celestial Navigation is the solution to the loss of GPS for any reason. This course can be completed by students who are remotely located. We highly recommend this course not only as an important skill set for emergency navigation, but also as a fun learning exercise that will allow you to better understand everyday occurrences such as the changing length of the day throughout the year and why the sun never sets in the summer in most of Greenland. Students will get hands-on experience with the sextant and learn the fascinating concepts that make celestial navigation possible. Basic Celestial does not require students to learn and master the more cumbersome calculations required in ASA’s 107 level Celestial Navigation course. Coastal Navigation is a prerequisite for this class. The Basic Celestial course provides students the basic knowledge needed to fix their position at sea when completely out of sight of land using the Sun and Polaris. Add a little historical perspective to your nautical skills. We are excited to pass on to you the methods and techniques of eighteenth and nineteenth century mariners while eliminating the often frustrating process of seemingly endless references to various publications in order to complete one round of sights. Starpath has graduated over 20,000 Celestial graduates since starting over forty years ago! No one else in the country, including American Sailing Association, even comes close! Tony and Thom have decided to team teach this class so that you will have a great student-to-teacher ratio of five-to-one and so that they, the trainers, stay as sharp as possible on the material.īasic Celestial Navigation (ASA 117) meets the standards for Offshore Passagemaking (ASA 108). David, in addition to writing the Celestial Navigation textbook, wrote Radar for Mariners and Marine Weather textbooks. We have switched to Starpath Navigation's GPS Backup with a Mark 3 Sextant by PhD David Burch.
Northern Breezes Sailing School has chosen the best Celestial Navigation textbook on the market! We, Captain Tony Green and Captain Thom Burns, are supported by the best in the business, Starpath Navigation.
Either one can be taken as a classroom course or independent study / correspondence. We offer both traditional Celestial Navigation (ASA 107) and the new Basic Celestial Navigation (ASA 117).