Basic Celestial Navigation
Basic Celestial Navigation: ASA Course 117
Register for Basic Celestial Navigation Classroom Course
Register for Basic Celestial Navigation Starpath Online
Classroom Location
Sailcrafters, 7450 Oxford Street, St. Louis Park, MN 55426
Description
We offer both traditional Celestial Navigation (ASA 107) and the new Basic Celestial Navigation (ASA 117). Either one can be taken as a classroom course or independent study / correspondence.
Northern Breezes Sailing School has chosen the best Celestial Navigation textbook on the market! We are supported by the best in the business, Starpath Navigation. We have switched to Starpath Navigation's GPS Backup with a Mark 3 Sextant by PhD David Burch. David, in addition to writing the Celestial Navigation textbook, wrote Radar for Mariners and Marine Weather textbooks. Starpath has graduated over 20,000 Celestial graduates since starting over forty years ago! No one else in the country, including American Sailing Association, even comes close! Tony and Thom have decided to team teach this class so that you will have a great student-to-teacher ratio of five-to-one and so that they, the trainers, stay as sharp as possible on the material.
Basic Celestial Navigation (ASA 117) meets the standards for Offshore Passagemaking (ASA 108). We are excited to pass on to you the methods and techniques of eighteenth and nineteenth century mariners while eliminating the often frustrating process of seemingly endless references to various publications in order to complete one round of sights. Add a little historical perspective to your nautical skills. The sky's the limit!
The Basic Celestial course provides students the basic knowledge needed to fix their position at sea when completely out of sight of land using the Sun and Polaris. Coastal Navigation is a prerequisite for this class. Basic Celestial does not require students to learn and master the more cumbersome calculations required in ASA’s 107 level Celestial Navigation course.
Students will get hands-on experience with the sextant and learn the fascinating concepts that make celestial navigation possible. We highly recommend this course not only as an important skill set for emergency navigation, but also as a fun learning exercise that will allow you to better understand everyday occurrences such as the changing length of the day throughout the year and why the sun never sets in the summer in most of Greenland.
Basic Celestial Course Topics include
- Lat, Lon, and nautical miles
- Principles of celestial navigation
- Sextant usage and care
- Noon sights for latitude
- Running fixes from the sun
- Ocean dead reckoning
- Time keeping
- Sextant sights and sight reduction of sun
Northern Breezes' Starpath Online Course
Northern Breezes Sailing School is now offering Basic Celestial Navigation, ASA 117 as an online course with Starpath School of Navigation based in Seattle, Washington. This is the course in which Captain Thom Burns and Captain David Burch collaborated. This is currently the official ASA 117 course. It meets the requirements for ASA 108, Offshore Passagemaking which Northern Breezes Offers!
This course can be completed by students who are remotely located. Ocean sailors are prudent folks. They know they need a backup to all systems, and Celestial Navigation is the solution to the loss of GPS for any reason. But not all mariners desire to know celestial navigation to the level our parents and grandparents needed. GPS is here now and indeed dependable, although certainly not infallible. This course offers a quick way to gain the knowledge needed to have celestial navigation as a back up, so you need not worry about the loss of standard aids.
This course covers the basic celestial navigation needed to make your way to safety across an ocean with no special aids except one small book, a watch, and a sextant. The sextant can be the most basic available, namely the Davis Mark 3. You can learn on your own from this book how to take sextant sights with the Mark 3 sextant, or any other you might have.
The few topics covered are quick and easy to master using Starpath Navigation's textbook GPS Backup with a Mark 3 Sextant—All Instructions and Tables Included; for any Ocean, on any Date. This is a short book, 35 pages of text; 65 pages of tables. The tables are designed to make the process of finding latitude and longitude very fast, and very easy to learn.
We estimate that the course will take some 5 to 10 hours to complete, not counting optional materials, exercises, or practice sights.
The course does include the opportunity to submit your sextant sight data to Starpath Navigation for analysis if the results are not within specified uncertainties. The beauty of celestial navigation is its transparency. If the results are clearly wrong, we can almost always figure out why based on a series of sights. Cost includes the Starpath materials (shown in photo).
Why take the Basic Celestial Navigation Online Course through Northern Breezes and not directly from Starpath?
| Northern Breezes | Starpath |
| $329.00 for course, materials, certification, and no shipping cost**Orders are priced for shipping to USA customers. |
$349.00 for course $30.00 for test $29.00 for ASA certification Plus shipping cost |
Available for purchase
Navigation instruments by Weems & Plath.
2102-D Star Finder: $85.00
12" Parallel Rules: $29.00 - or - 7" Compact ParaLock Plotter $42.00*
Ultra light 7" dividers: $26.00
Nautical Slide Rule: $32.00
Chart Protractor: $31.00
Chart No. 1: $25.00
Coast Guard Navigation Rules: $13.00 (All prices include tax.)
*Both instruments are ideal for chart books. They are lifelong instruments.
Note: No sales tax when purchased with the class. Extra shipping charge is required for tools purchased with Starpath Online courses.
CLASS SCHEDULE for Basic Celestial Navigation Classroom Course
Classroom Course is not currently offered. Choose Starpath Online Course.
(Dates are subject to change)
Saturdays 9am-4pm, with lunch break
BCN1: Saturdays 9am-4pm:
Dates to be determined
Course Fee for Basic Celestial Navigation
Classroom Course: $299, including text materials. Optional Star Finder and sextants sold separately. $30 discount for couples sharing materials (any two people signing up together).
Starpath Online Course: $329, including materials and ASA certification upon successful completion.
Directions to Sailcrafters
7450 Oxford Street, St. Louis Park, MN 55426
From Hwy 169
Take exit for Hwy 7 East
Hwy 7 east to Louisiana Ave S
At the traffic circle, take the 2nd exit onto Louisiana Ave S
Turn right onto Oxford St, Sailcrafters will be on the right
From Hwy 100
Take exit for Hwy 7 West
Hwy 7 west to Louisiana Ave S
Turn right onto Louisiana Ave S, make a U-turn
At the traffic circle, take the 2nd exit and stay on Louisiana Ave S
Turn right onto Oxford St, Sailcrafters will be on the right.
Prerequisite for this course
Coastal Navigation (ASA 105)
Call Northern Breezes Sailing School at 763-542-9707 to register or with questions.
