[QUOTE=Bloodyshitcakes;100049]Pop quiz:
What is your most important LOP?
Anyone?[/QUOTE]
first sunline of the morning to establish longitude. all the remaining sunlines during the morning leading to the noon sight and all then run together giving a pretty good daily fix for midday
miss that first sight and you never get a good running fix
[QUOTE=Bloodyshitcakes;100049]Pop quiz:
What is your most important LOP?
Anyone?[/QUOTE]
Is this a trick question? Call me to the bridge in middle of the night for a navigation problem first thing I want to know is where are we in relationship to the track-line.
[QUOTE=Topsail;100043]You would be more than wecome to do so.[/QUOTE]
That’s the spirit, Topsail.
Let’s make it competitive, you do one, I do one right after you and we compare. The best one gets treated to a cold beer. Either way we win, nobody watches someone with a cold one without grabbing one for himself…
Sextants and tables? Are you kidding me? Who has time for that?
Put it this way if you require the watch officer to play with sextants what are you going to have them stop doing? Less time watching forward?
If your on a ship with some nice long, slow ocean passage and you want to play with your sextant fine. Don’t expect that mariners on a working ship are going to neglect more urgent work for a little nostalgia.
[QUOTE=c.captain;100050]first sunline of the morning to establish longitude. all the remaining sunlines during the morning leading to the noon sight and all then run together giving a pretty good daily fix for midday
miss that first sight and you never get a good running fix[/QUOTE]
Good answer but not the most important one…
[QUOTE=Kennebec Captain;100051]Is this a trick question? Call me to the bridge in middle of the night for a navigation problem first thing I want to know is where are we in relationship to the track-line.[/QUOTE]
Not a trick question. Think outside of the box though…
[QUOTE=tugsailor;100045]Sometimes knowledge has intrinsic value, even if it is never actually used for its supposed purpose. Learning celestial navigation improves terrestrial navigation skills. It also builds confidence.[/QUOTE]
I know an outfitter who taught himself celestial, said its a very valuable tool while in the wilderness. I know what you are thinking, where’s the horizon? Well, knowing celestial navigation gives a person a good knowledge of the stars, how to identify them, how to work your way through the mountains with only a compass and stars to guide you. Plus this outfitter owns a good size boat which he sails out of the west coast. He has his own sextant, charts, and tables. He’s no fool.
[QUOTE=Bloodyshitcakes;100054]
Not a trick question. Think outside of the box though…[/QUOTE]
No thanks, I’m staying in my box.
[QUOTE=Bloodyshitcakes;100049]Pop quiz:
What is your most important LOP?
Anyone?[/QUOTE]
The one that’s accurate.
[QUOTE=Kennebec Captain;100051]Is this a trick question? Call me to the bridge in middle of the night for a navigation problem first thing I want to know is where are we in relationship to the track-line.[/QUOTE]
Probably has coffee spilled on it.
[QUOTE=Bloodyshitcakes;100049]Pop quiz:
What is your most important LOP?
Anyone?[/QUOTE]
I’m just thinking my DR but is that considered a LOP?
There are LOP’s and there are LOP’s. How good are you at lets say shooting the moon, upper or lower limb, Local Apparent Noon, watching the dancing RDF needle, or shooting the light on top of the main mast? 
Oh, don;t leave out your personal FU factor.
Contour lines are the most important LOP. They are curved and given on the chart but still a LOP when used with your fathometer. They are considered the most important for obvious reasons…
[QUOTE=Topsail;100021]In my early days, we had RDF (Radio Direction Finder), DECCA, LORAN, OMEGA, SAT TRANSIT. We knew Dead Reckoning and Celestial Navigation very well. We were pretty good in meteorology. The industry really needed our competencies. Everything changed in 1991 when I sailed for the first time with the GPS. The captain told me with tears in the eyes; ‘’ We all gonna lose our jobs ‘’. The Times They Are A-Changin …[/QUOTE]
This reminds me of the time I was on watch and the radio officer came bursting through the door all pissed off. He pointed at the Navtex and said “the C/M told me that that box is going to replace me. Well. “he said, pointing at the GPS” that box is going to replace you!”
I stared at the two boxes for a few moments and then told him " yeah, but the box that is replacing me is bigger and has more buttons on it then the one that replacing you"
[QUOTE=Sweat-n-Grease;100041]It might be a tad embarrassing to have an engineer get a good three star fix for you. :D[/QUOTE]
Ha! If that happened he’d better have a clean engine room.
[QUOTE=Bloodyshitcakes;100054]Good answer but not the most important one…[/QUOTE]
AH NUTS! Who made you professor for the day anyway?
This class is no fun…I want to change courses.
so professor smartypants…you gonna enlighten us unwashed navigators to this most important piece of seafaring knowledge?
btw, I’m out of my box now
See post #32. Perhaps you have been holding station for too long.
[QUOTE=PaddyWest2012;99954]It’s only a matter of time till someone starts shooting down satellites. Every merchant ship afloat will know exactly where they are to a tenth of a nautical mile and every American navy ship afloat will be running around like a chicken with its head cut off since they stopped teaching celestial navigation at Annapolis. Thank god for John Harrison.[/QUOTE]
No need to shoot them down, just launch a small thermonuclear warhead into the upper atmosphere and set it off. The resulting pulse of electromagnetic energy will fry every piece of electronics in the hemisphere and within visual sight in space including ALL cell phones, cell phone towers, computers, satellites, etc… The only electronics that will survive are the ones that were totally off (unplugged) and anything that uses tubes instead of transistors and chips.
Just another dirty little secret your government does not want you to know. You can thank me now and pay me later.
BTW, I taught myself and passed the tests. I didn’t need no stinking teacher. Who is John Harrison and why should we thank the almighty for him?
[QUOTE=Bloodyshitcakes;100062]Contour lines are the most important LOP. They are curved and given on the chart but still a LOP when used with your fathometer. They are considered the most important for obvious reasons…[/QUOTE]
Until an electromagnetic pulse fries it and then it is time to find the lead line up in the Bosun Locker.
[QUOTE=Bloodyshitcakes;100062]Contour lines are the most important LOP. They are curved and given on the chart but still a LOP when used with your fathometer. They are considered the most important for obvious reasons…[/QUOTE]
what obvious reasons? where is this stated as fact or is this just opinion?