Celestial Navigation: What the Ocean Yachtmaster Needs to Know

by Tom Cunliffe

Celestial navigation is one of the sailor's oldest arts -- and one of the most awe-inspiring. To many sailors, it represents the pinnacle of their ambition. In these pages, respected nautical Writer Tom Cunliffe plains how to master the art in easy stages. Beginning with a sound foundation of basic concepts and definitions, he moves on to the sextant and how to use it. From there, it's on to figuring latitude with a noon sight and plotting position by observing the sun, planets, moon and stars. The skills, applicable anywhere in the world, are illustrated with step-by-step photo sequences.

Genres: Nonfiction, Reference

Paperback

First published November 1, 1998

About the author

Tom Cunliffe (born 1947) is a British yachting journalist, author and broadcaster.

Cunliffe has been a regular contributor to Yachting Monthly, Yachting World, Sail magazine, Classic Boat and 'Sailing Today' for many years.

A professional writer since 1986, Cunliffe has won the Best Book of the Sea award twice, for Topsail and Battleaxe and Hand, Reef and Steer.[4] He is author of the important Shell Channel Pilot for the English Channel.

In 2010 he presented the award-winning six-part BBC documentary series, The Boats that Built Britain. He also presented the popular 'Boat Yard' series for Discovery TV. He now has a big following on his Youtube channel, 'Yachts and Yarns'.

Reviews

[Frank Pernett · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is a good book. But, the basics were barely touched. If you don’t have a good background on celestial navigation you will be confused

[Dmitry · Rating 3 out of 5]

As much as I appreciate Tom Cunliffe's writing in magazines and books, I did not find this book very useful. It is hard to use when you are actually trying to master celestial navigation without any prior background. In this matter, I think, the organization of the material is of utmost importance, and this book is a bit chaotic in that sense. The matters are somewhat exacerbated by the media of a Kindle book: all the references are skewed, the tables are gone fishing and the drawings are smeared. I may be on a mission impossible trying to learn celestial navigation from a Kindle, but this book definitely didn't fill the bill.