Celestial
8º48’S, 128º33’W
April 19, 2025, 2230 Ship’s Time | 8º48’S, 128º33’W | Full Mainsail & Poled Jib Top
“At certain times in the life of a navigator, it can be more useful for them to know not where they are, but where they are not.” — John Mellor, SAIL Magazine, November 1975
With Falken having happily found her stride and on the last 600-mile stretch to land, I found myself with some downtime to actually practice the one thing I set out to conquer on this passage—celestial navigation. I’ve really done my best to learn this dark art, but despite the hours of YouTube videos, online classes, and books, it’s maintained its ADHD-fueled mystery. I remember the first time Andy sat me down to explain the basics in Sweden last year using his signature “whatever fruit is available” presentation, and ever since it’s been my white whale. A geocentric model of the universe perplexes me, and I couldn’t get past the idea that celestial objects could be “above” something.
Well, with much patience and an open mind, we’re finally taking, reducing, and plotting sights—it’s starting to click. The last three days, the whole crew has taken turns getting in on the action, with Ted acting as a bit of a mentor for me. His approach is purely mathematical, using spherical trigonometry and a ream of graph paper to boot. I’ve opted for the more classic Pub 249 and Nautical Almanac route (cosine who?), made a bit easier with some of the celnav worksheets Andy made available from the Quarterdeck.
The other thing that has been made abundantly clear is the need for a good structure of planned sights! This means making a plan and researching what stars might be easily available come twilight because there’s not much time to dilly-dally. Being right near the equator, it would look something like:
- AM Nautical Twilight Three-Body Fix (zenith and approx. altitudes pre-calculated)
- Running Solar Fixes around Local Apparent Noon—with one sight shortly before LAN, one near LAN, and one shortly after to account for the almost 180º azimuth change in this part of the world.
- PM Nautical Twilight Three-Body Fix (zenith and approx. altitudes pre-calculated)
Are we actually able to pull this off? Well… not yet. If you read Andy’s previous blog, it should come as no surprise that we’ve had some successful star sights. Alas, tonight I’ve been stumped for the past hour trying to figure out why Aldebaran was giving me a terrible intercept—after some heavy cheating, I’ve determined it was actually Jupiter. My white whale swims off into the starlit swell of the Pacific. Here’s to hoping in these last few days, we can finally figure out where we are… or aren’t.
—Aidan Gray
59ºNorthApprentice
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A last hurrah
Under the dome of stars in a moon-less sky, each of us during our time at the helm used the most rudimentary celestial navigation, keeping a star or two lined up with the mast as a helper to following the heading range. It was a whole crew event to set the spinnaker, reef the mainsail and practice the heave-to in case of man overboard. Alex stressed that the key to success in all of these crucial activities is preparation. It was hugely satisfying to accomplish these tasks through teamwork. We share a constant good hearted back and forth full of stories, one-liners and comebacks that also means constant laughter.
One little bird!
Falken has almost rounded the Channel Islands and is cruising along splendidly about 100 miles offshore. Though several models predicted some slightly fresher winds today, we were met with a consistent 18-20 kts of pure bliss. It seems that from the moment we left the dock in San Francisco, there has been much laughter and conversation amongst everyone. The plan is to gybe in a few hours and begin our approach to Ensenada. As much as I do appreciate the jokes and intellectual musings, I equally appreciate the natural, silent moments we share at night, all of us on watch gazing up above to the shooting stars, constellations, and planets putting on their quiet show.
Birds and glows
The sun brought new wind and we were soon putting up the Yankee (jib) and turning off the motor. During the evening tradition of sharing “glums and glows” that follows the crew dinner, our Mate Ryan proclaimed it a “champagne sailing” kind of day. As Alex noted this evening, life goes by so fast that one of the very best things about his line of work is enjoying the passage of time in the slow lane of an ocean passage. But by tomorrow, the green blobs in the weather sailing app indicate we’re going to pick up some significant northwesterly winds and we’ll take them ever further south to the Channel Islands latitude. We’re all super excited for the knots to climb and to see Falken really run.