Shooting the Sun

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“There is nothing- absolutely nothing-
half so much worth doing
as simply messing about in boats.”
-Ratty said to Mole in Kenneth Grahame’s 1908
classic, The Wind in the Willows.

The junior officer on the right is using a sextant to take a navigational reading, a task referred to aboard ship as “shooting the sun.” Before the days of global positioning, sailors used a sextant to measure the angle between the horizon and the noontime sun and thereby help determine latitude.

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3 thoughts on “Shooting the Sun”

  1. …And after the next EMP event, all the ships will be lost because everyone except that old Chief getting ready to retire won’t know how to operate that sextant, or do the math.

  2. The old C-141 Starlifters still had the sextant port in the ceiling of the cockpit, and the old “ball” compass on the dashboard.
    All the navs were still required to learn that stuff, but I never saw them used in the field.

  3. Kurt: That old Chief. Great guy, always. . .
    MSgt: Wow, I did not know. Interesting that you all are/were still teaching the stuff.

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