Ik kom er net achter dat als
mijn eerdere link naar de 2019 uitgave van
"Bowditch" (American Practical Navigator) gevolgd wordt, daarin een heel hoofdstuk (H11) gewijd is aan het gebruik van een sextant bij "piloting".
Inclusief "danger angles".
Lecky maakte eind 19de eeuw mijns inziens wel een statement over het nut van de sextant voor andere toepassingen dan astronavigatie.
Lecky schreef :
The foregoing examples afford conclusive proof that the Sextant is often of greater use in pilot waters than the Compass — not that the latter, after centuries of good service, is to be despised and forsaken; that time has not yet come.
Each of the two instruments is good in its place ; and it is the object of these pages to point out more particularly those cases where, with advantage, one may be employed in preference to the other.
To conclude this subject, it should always be borne in mind that, in taking cross-bearings, the better plan is to observe but one compass bearing — whichever is most conveniently situated for the purpose — and then, with the sextant, take the horizontal angle between the two selected objects. The second bearing is, of course, got by applying the sextant angle to the right or left of the first one, as the case may require.
Dat deze ideeën niet helemaal zijn uitgestorven laat een passage in de Bowditch van 2019 zien.
Bowditch schreef :
The marine sextant has long been an accurate means for fixing a vessel’s position in coastal and confined water circumstances. However, with the advent of reliable gyrocompass technologies, followed by the introduction of precise electronic positioning systems like GPS, use of the marine sextant for terrestrial navigation has declined to such an extent that it is seldom employed during normal piloting conditions.
This is unfortunate because the sextant can be used to great advantage in situations where other methods or tools, including the gyrocompass, are inadequate.
Ik zie bij deze toepassingen trouwens meer heil in een eenvoudig (plastic) sextant dan in een "digitaal" sextant.