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April 11, 2001

Douglas Logan, Editor
Practical Sailor Magazine
PO Box 2626
Greenwich, CT 06836-2626

Dear Editor,

  I read with interest your article on sextants in the April 15, 2001 issue of Practical Sailor. My interest stems from 40,000 miles of ocean navigation using celestial and from teaching the subject both onboard and in the classroom. For the past ten years I have used the Freiberger Yacht Sextant which I find ideal on a 40 foot boat at sea and which has given flawless performance during that time. But I was disappointed to find that your article did not even mention this excellent sextant to new navigators, and I was surprised to read your statement on page 6 that "Duties from Germany have priced previously affordable units like the Freiberger Drum sextant effectively out of the American market." This is a completely misleading statement to new navigators who may not know the difference between Freiberger's Yacht Sextant and their Drum Sextant.

 To begin with, the Freiberger Yacht Sextant is retail priced in the US at $590; refer to the Clausen Instrument Company's website at www.clausen.net/fpmyyachtsextant.htm for confirmation. Thus, it is priced competitively with the highly touted Astra IIIB listed at $445 to $485 in the Celestaire 2001 catalog. Your one-sentence dismissal of Freiberger on the basis of price is all the more puzzling considering that your article included other sextants priced as high as $2,599.

 Further, I note that the Celestaire 2001 catalog lists the Freiberger Drum Sextant at $1,400 and includes the statement "... economic difficulties associated with German reunification have caused its price to increase dramatically..." Up to recent years, Celestaire included the Freiberger Yacht Sextant in their catalog priced at about $550, but, curiously, now only includes the more expensive Drum Sextant accompanied by the previous statement. My pragmatic self asks whether this coincidence could be related to Celestaire's ownership of the plant in China which manufactures the Astra IIIB, but my innocent self denies the likelihood of any such correlation.

 In general, your article appears to draw heavily on the Celestaire and Davis points of view, and it does not appear to represent the thorough research and informed judgment that you pride yourselves on. Besides this lack of research and candor, your article misleads beginning navigators by perpetuating several items of folklore of questionable validity, to wit: 

      • Plastic sextants are a good choice for beginning navigators. You dwell on the accuracy and temperature sensitivity of plastic sextants, but these are non-issues if navigators get an index reading with every round of shots as they should do with any sextant. The major problem with plastic sextants are very poor optics which increase the difficulty of bringing down a body and of achieving a good horizon kiss. Most beginners with plastic sextants either discard them in favor of a metal one, or they discard celestial navigation altogether as a difficult and not satisfying exercise. And, your conclusion that half of the Seven Seas Cruising Club members owning plastic sextants proves their usefulness is a specious argument; more likely these sailors are GPS navigators who carry a cheap plastic sextant "just in case". 

      • Whole horizon mirrors are easier for beginners to use. As you correctly point out, the whole mirror reduces horizon visibility and this can be a significant issue when trying to get stars in dim light conditions. If the sextant is properly rocked when trying to achieve horizon kiss, the whole mirror is no better than the half, and this has nothing to do with whether you're a beginner or not. But the half mirror gives the navigator a little longer time to complete his shots in the sometimes precious few remaining minutes of dim light. 

      • A heavier sextant is better than a light one. You point out that greater mass helps steady the instrument. I point out that your arm becomes tired and unsteady when you're trying to get that elusive horizon kiss in rough conditions with wave tops periodically obscuring your view and salt water splashing you in the face. Clearly, lighter is better. Further, achieving horizon kiss should be a dynamic process of swinging the pendulum ball back and forth repetitively until kiss is achieved. It is not feasible to "steady the instrument" as you suggest, on a rolling pitching little boat at sea. 

      • ABS plastic cases with extra room for accessories are needed to protect your sextant. These cases are simply too large and too hard to store on a 40 foot sailboat. My Freiberger Yacht Sextant case is half the size of these plastic cases, and is so much easier to store and retrieve when I want to get a quick shot. I've used it during 40,000 sea miles; it's been dropped and rolled across the deck several times and my sextant is still in perfect working order, so why would I need a massive Fort Knox case to protect it? 

I applaud the good service that you have brought to the sailing public over the past many years and hope that you find my comments constructive and helpful as they are intended to be. I would appreciate hearing your further thoughts on this subject. 

Sincerely, 

Tom Tursi
President