Safety
This month's safety article.

For classes not offered by the Marina The US Power Squadron
 has Seminars  open to non-members)more

Take the safety Quiz #2.

Carbon Dioxide article

Celestial Navigation for the Rest of Us

It is important to note that this article refers to navigation where we are, on the west coast, and that time in this article refers to solar time - so midday is when the Sun is at its zenith.
Now, we have all heard of that scary subject, Celestial Navigation. You would have to be a wizard to comprehend that stuff. It’s so complicated, that old time sea captains used to keep the crew from mutinying just by not telling them how to get back to land. We see things to navigate by in the sky every day. We just don’t think of them in that way. Consider the following:
The sun rises in the east and sets in the west. No news there. And it moves between these points at an almost constant speed. So at 9:00 AM, the sun is in the south-east, and at 3:00 PM, it is in the south-west. At midday it is due south here in the northern hemisphere. But when is midday? Well, it is at a time called Local Apparent Noon (LAN), and that is when the sun passes over the meridian of longitude that you are on. And it is also at the highest point that it will be for that day, as you see it. Remember though, that these are Mother Nature’s rules, not some arbitrary, man-made things like Daylight Savings Time. Remember also, that the earth speeds up and slows down in its rotation slightly over a year’s time, and thus LAN can vary up to 15 minutes from when you expect it. But the time of LAN will never vary more that 20 seconds from day to day. LAN is often referred to as high noon, although the correct astronomical term is solar noon. So at Greenwich, England, LAN, at that place where Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) is calculated, is at 12:00 o’clock, plus or minus. Because the earth spins around one full revolution each day, the sun will be back at high noon 24 hours after it passed the Greenwich Meridian yesterday (also at LAN). But high noon changes for you relative to Greenwich for every step you take east or west. You are either going with or against the sun. Because we know that the earth rotates one revolution every 24 hours, it follows that the spot that the sun is directly over (LAN for that location) differs from LAN at Greenwich by a very predictable amount. That amount is one hour for every 15 degrees of Longitude, or 4 minutes for each degree. In California, we are about 120 degrees of Longitude west of Greenwich. So our LAN is 8 hours behind Greenwich in time. But right here, in Del Mar Basin, we are about 117 and 1/2 degrees of Longitude, so we are about 10 minutes short of 8 hours from GMT for LAN.
How about another tidbit of practical celestial knowledge? Without a compass, how to find a true north-south line? Point the hour hand of your analog watch (held horizontally) at the sun. South will be halfway between the hour hand the 12. If your watch is set to Daylight Saving Time, south is halfway between the hour hand and the midpoint between the 12 and the 1. You say that this is the new millennium, and you haven’t had an analog watch in 15 years? Or you have no watch at all? Draw a circle, put a “12” on the circumference, (how about the North arrow on your maritime chart compass rose?) and put a radius line relative to this to where the hour hand would be (according to your digital watch) or to where you think it should be, using your best judgment. Point that radius line at the sun. Use common sense here. Is it early or late morning, or early or late afternoon? Once again, south is halfway between that radius line and the 12 on standard time.
You say “Very well, but the sun is not in the sky half the day”. Ah, a subject for another time.
Mace Mason, SMYC member.

Local & other Boating Safety Courses

The following three organizations are good place to learn boating skills, from basic to the most advanced. Contact your Safety and Education Chair for help in finding the course that is right for you.

MCCS Camp Pendleton – Marina conducts ongoing boating courses to authorized patrons. These include: basic sailing, intermediate sailing, coastal navigation, spinnaker sailing, youth sailing and advanced youth sailing. Dates and times for these courses are listed on the following website:

http://www.mccscp.com/home/Files/pdf/recreation/Indoor-Outdoor/Marina%20Guide%202010.pdf

San Luis Rey Sail & Power Squadron conducts boating safety courses and seminars open to the public are listed on the following website:

http://www.usps.org/localusps/slr/classes.html