Celestial Navigation

This manual has grown out of all the courses given by Dominique Prinet, a certified Instructor-Evaluator for Sail Canada who has been teaching celestial navigation since 2000. It has benefitted from the thoughtful contributions of over 100 students. The aim of Celestial Navigation is to give a sufficient grounding in the subject to determine position at sea using a sextant for fixes on the sun, moon, stars and planets. Furthermore, the material presented will prepare a reader who wishes to pursue a Celestial Navigation Certificate through self-study.
The subject requires some comfort with the basic concepts of navigation, but the prospective navigator only needs to know how to add and subtract either times or angles. Lucid and well-paced, Celestial Navigation starts with fundamentals and definitions which ensure that a motivated student need not bring anything more to the table than his or her willingness to master the subject. Richly illustrated, it includes a chapter with more than forty pages of review exercises covering all topics. T
he cleverness of many of the concepts, explained here, will bring about great intellectual joy and satisfaction. Whether you are a recreational sailor or an individual pursuing professional certification as a navigator, Celestial Navigation will teach you what you need to know.

Author Biography

In the 1960s, Dominique Prinet worked as a commercial bush pilot in the Canadian Arctic and High Arctic, navigating with an astro compass since this was long before the GPS had been invented.
He holds a BASc from UBC and an MBA from McGill, and served asthe Marketing VP for Nordair in Montréal and, later, for Canadian Airlines in Vancouver.
He has sailed on the Indian Ocean out of Dar es Salaam and crossed the North Atlantic, finding the island of Guadeloupe with his faithful sextant. He has navigated the Mediterranean, the English Channel, and sailed extensively along the Pacific Northwest.
Dominique Prinet is a former Power and Sail Instructor, certified for all levels by Sail Canada and the International Sail and Power Academy (ISPA). He was an Instructor-Evaluator for Sail Canada, has taught boating out of Vancouver between 2000 and 2015, and has delivered Transport Canada courses to professional mariners. Dominique lives in Vancouver.