Fort Schuyler stopped teaching cadets how to adjust sextants to remove index error many years ago. I recall nearly 20 years back the instructors sitting with stacks of them on the officer’s mess going through them one at a time working on them by themselves. Later on in the fleet many earlier graduates were mortified that all their newly minted mates knew how to do was work out the sun lines or star fixes, but not WHY they were doing a lot of the steps. It was all just “well, cause that’s the next step…” There was a time when you reported to the ship with your own sextant or you went home.
I am well aware of a company that requires a “loss of GPS/electronic navigation systems” checkoff be completed where the officers do celnav for a set period of time. Problem is, most captains are just checking it off as done and moving on with their day.
Really? Terrestial nav skills prevents sleepy electronically over-reliant mates to consciously or unconsciously question ECDIS and E-nav outputs which make no sense. In some global locals the frequentcy of spoofing and bad actors screwing with GPS reception alone should highlight the importance of celnav and T-nav.
Celnav is always is a good backup and knowing celestial allows an increase in situational awareness, enhances common sense nav when merely looking at the heavens and recognizing constellations and gleaning directional info from them by observation alone. Celnav also provides utility when shooting Azimuths and Amplitudes, especially using stars/ planets, unless you also consider those dated skills as well. For a mate not to at least keep a baseline of proficiency in Cel should be embarrassing. I am not a polished celnav practitioner and most of the transit times do not allow me to use it as much as I should by any means, but keeping a baseline of proficientcy is paramount and should be a source of pride, tradition and a fallback at the very least. Doubling bow angles, using a sextant to confirm distances to known objects are all T-Nav which along with set/ drift calculations should demand the attention of mates.
Shooter, I was always the only mate lugging a sextant aboard since I got my original 2nd mate license in '86, having had the requisite sea time to skip the 3rd mate exam. I paid $350 for an Astra lllB from Baker, Lyman & Co. out in the suburb of Metairie. That sextant held its own in a comparison with another mate’s expensive Tamaya Jupiter. It really started to hold me up in the airport security lines after 9/11. I stopped carrying it in 2020, and began adjusting and relying on shipboard sextants.
Apologies in advance for getting on my high horse, but it is hard to have an informed discussion on this bill without it devolving into an off-topic complaints thread.
It seems like a lot of the news and information we have so far comes directly from the special interest/industry groups which had input, which is unverifiable at the moment.
We don’t know what the text of the bill is, since it is not available yet. (Someone please drop a link when it does get published!). We don’t know who all of the lobbyists and special interests are who have the ears of the cosponsors (if they are ever identified), and there are no details beyond a lot of “the current system sucks” statements.
An interesting point came up today talking with shipmates that kind of puts this bill into perspective: Does anyone remember all of those survey emails from the Coast Guard for the Job Task Analysis we have been getting over the last few years? I observed an NMERPAC meeting where they were working to validate the results.
But those surveys went out to every American who had active licenses and endorsements at every level. The whole point was to update their exams and requirements based on what we actually do in the real, modern industry. We are the experts, because we’re out there doing the job. So, it seems like they’re already working on it (albeit, at the speed of government).
The astounding part is that something like 75% of us just didn’t respond to those surveys. 75% of our industry gave up that opportunity to proactively contribute when offered.
What needs to be modernized and rationalized is the entire ridiculous USCG licensing system:
Get rid of the too many different kinds of licenses and all the distinctions without a difference.
Eliminate the “six pack” license.
Leave the 100 ton licenses like they are for now, (but no more licenses limited to less than 100 tons).
Leave the Mississippi River and Inland licenses like they are for now.
Eliminate all trade restricted licenses: OSV, Fishing, Towing, and whatever else. Grandfather them to 500, 3000, or Unlimited.
All new licenses should include the exam for unlimited Third Mate, Oceans. (Do celestial (if it’s still required) and get oceans or stay on deck as an AB).
The new entry level mate license should be: Officer of the Watch 500, 3000, or Unlimited, Oceans. No exam required for a tonnage increase.
Towing endorsements need to be reconsidered. Either make the requirements for a towing endorsement meaningful, or just eliminate the towing endorsements.
I’d be tickled pink if they just eliminated taking ROR if you’ve already passed that module at a previously held license level. Annoying retaking it with upgrades.
Not that old — but an old AB years back told me he knew when mates were flying out to join a ship with him because they had their sextant boxes in their laps up in business class. I remarked at the time (like a wise ass) that it was amusing they’d bring their own with them and a much older mate with a masters license told me that at the time it was a requirement that deck officers brought their own. If you arrived without one you were not allowed to sign on. Believe he was a 1975 or 1976 grad from one of the state schools and this story was from the mid to late 1980s.
I remember fronting up to a customs official at an airport and he demanded.
“What’s in the box?”
I replied “a sextant.”
The third engineer in the queue behind me “ what kind of tent is that?”
For awhile at MLL I worked for a captain who kept the harbor and approach charts for the ports we hit in the drawer below the forward log desk. He insisted on having them out pre-arrival as an easy reference for his own use. No one ever corrected these — but he wanted them for himself.
At some point when he was off the opposite master was poking around, found them and lost his shit. Had them thrown out immediately or donated to the bosun for use as stencil templates.
I’m all for revamping the exam and simplifying the license structure. I do feel there should be some form of qualification for towing. It’s too dangerous to have to vet every licensed person that comes on and says they can tow.
— but an old AB years back told me he knew when mates were flying out to join a ship with him because they had their sextant boxes in their laps up in business class. I remarked at the time (like a wise ass) that it was amusing they’d bring their own with them and a much older mate with a masters license told me that at the time it was a requirement that deck officers brought their own. If you arrived without one you were not allowed to sign on. Believe he was a 1975 or 1976 grad from one of the state schools and this story was from the mid to late 1980s.