The Sextant Handbook: Adjustment, Repair, Use, and History

Loran and GPS notwithstanding, there will always be a place for the sextant aboard any blue-water boat, if for no other reason than the thrill and mystery of finding one's position on earth by gazing at the heavens. Here is the indispensable reference that should accompany the instrument aboard. Cmdr. Bruce Bauer, a professional navigator and master mariner with the U.S. Merchant Marine, has distilled years of hands-on experience into an eminently readable guide to buying, adjusting, using, and repairing sextants.

The Sextant Handbook is dedicated to the premise that electronic navigation devices, while too convenient to disregard, are too vulnerable to rely on exclusively. The book is designed to make beginner and expert alike conversant with this most beautiful and functional of the navigator's tools. Topics include:

• Assembly and Disassembly
• Vital Adjustments
• Avoiding Problems
• Rough Weather Sightings
• Oiling and Cleaning
• Immersion Baths
• Emergency Silvering
• Finding and Buying Used Sextants
• And Much More

You'll also find a list of distributors, manufacturers, and dealers worldwide, a discussion of future trends, and numerous helpful hints, including sighting with eyeglasses and using a Rude starfinder. All in a thoroughly revised edition of a book acclaimed by navigation professionals.

"The wealth of useful material is prodigious and by the time one has reached the back cover, the sextant is an old friend. Just as important, Cdr. Bauer deals comprehensively with maintenance and service, and his advice on how to select and assess a second-hand sextant is truly worthwhile. Refreshingly, he writes in a friendly manner--almost as though he is chatting to a group of students. A thoroughly enjoyable book."--Peter Milne, Technical Editor, Yachting World Magazine (England)

"If this book is a highly detailed technical manual, the reader is hardly aware, so plentiful are the diversions into related topics. It makes great reading and virtually everyone . . . regardless of one's skill level with a sextant . . . will find new things to learn about sextants, their history, their future and their best use."--Ocean Navigator

"The sextant and Commander Bauer's handbook should be standard equipment on every seagoing vessel. It is a book that should be provided with every sextant and class in navigating."--R. J. Holt, Director, Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum

"One recognizes here a centennial Lecky on the sextant. There is plenty of new material presented in a manner that would make a stranger want to meet Bruce Bauer and converse with him face to face."--Paul M. Anderton, Navigation Instructor

"Cdr. Bauer's book will become a standard reference on the sextant for professional and amateur navigators around the world. I have been doing celestial navigation since 1953 and have not, until now, been able to find so much information on the sextant collected in one place."--A. W. Fowler, Ocean Racing Navigator

"Bauer has succeeded in gathering a wealth of information from a multitude of sources and brought it all together into a fascinating book for the mariner. I recommend it to those who navigate the ocean's highways."--Warren P. Davis, Colonel, USA (Ret.), Sextant Authority

"Insecurity is sitting on a boat in the middle of the ocean staring at an out-of-whack sextant and not knowing how to fix it. I know from experience. This book should be mandatory equipment on every boat that goes offshore."--Wayne Carpenter, Author, The Voyage of Kristina