Sextance

[Gypsy Rose]

Ok I am looking for a replica sextance. One that looks good but won't cost me over $100. For that much money I could get a better sword or gun.

[blackjohn]

Sextant...

try this maybe...

http://www.nauticalsupplyshop.com/

[Gentleman of Fortune]

Navigation ain't my bag... but isn't an Octant GAoP?

Greg

[CaptainJackRussell]

It is:)

Sextant, I have one left. It's a replica pocket sextant including a wooden box. 50 bucks it's yours. Unfortunately, it's in Germany.

GoF, can you manage something to get it to the states, if Rose is interested?

Anyways, in the 18th century a octant is the comon thing in use, sextant appears in the 1780th.

Fair winds,

Jack

[Sjöröveren]

If you will be in Port Washington next weekend, I'll bring one that I have to sell. I'll be with the Fool's Gold crew.

[Cap'n Pete Straw]

I have a replica Titanic Life Boat Sextant... it's a copy of the ones they packed in the lifeboats. Watertight. Pretty cool, actually.

You can get lots and lots of sextants on ebay.

I am trying to think of a joke of what a "sextance" would be. An entire sentence about navigation? A series of canvas structures inside which one engages in marital relations? A British coin worth three tuppence?

[MorganTyre]

A sextant is certainly out of periodas the first wasn't even made until John Bird's work in the mid-to-late 18th c. The octant came about in the 1730's but were fairly rare pieces. The top of the line tool available for general use was the davis quadrant or backstaff (so named because it was used with your back to the sun) which was first described in 1595. Prior to that the standard was the cross-staff which was still commonly used well after the invention of the backstaff and was probably the navigational instrument most likely to have been found aboard ship in the mid to later 17th c. and was probably easy to find in the early 18th c. Other tools of great popularity are the astrolabe and quadrant though the latter is really only practical in relatively calm waters as it rely's on the use of a pendulum. For costuming purposes I highly reccomend the book Latitude Hooks and Azimuth Rings: How to Build and Use 18 Traditional Navigational Instruments as it describes the construction and use of all these tools and more. If you have access to any wood working tools any of these projects can be made for well under your $50 budget even counting the cost of the book.

[Tall Paul]

From time to time, reproduction octants turn up for a resonable price on ebay, the octant that we use in our shows was one such purchase.

Anyone interested in period navigational tools should get a copy of a book called

Latitude hooks and Azimuth Rings.

by Dennis Fisher

ISBN 0-07-021120-5

it contains instructions for making and using 18 different navigational tools many of which were in use during the GAoP

"Tall Paul" Adams

[Capn_Enigma]

During the Buccaneer era, the Davis Quadrant ("backstaff") was in use, succeeded by the octant in the mid- 1730s.

"Sextance" (I thought this was something adult at first) or octants are about as "authentic" for navigation in the early 1700s as are Colt Governments for a brace of pistols.

Oh Paul, while you mentioned "Latitude Hooks And Azimuth Rings": I have just finished another wooden Davis Quadrant (walnut, mahagony and cherrywood) with the assistance of this excellent book. A real must for all those interested in building their own proper navigational tools!

[Gypsy Rose]

I will have to look for that book. Making one would be just up my alley.

[Guest PistolProof]

A sextance is a false appearance or intention to deceive someone into having sex; something larger or imagined to be larger than it really is; a cucumber.

[Cap'n Pete Straw]