My mate Lofty (Lofty1) gave me this plywood box with a wooden sextant inside it yesterday. He knows nothing about it's origins but it has intrigued me since I have looked closer at it. The attached latitude calculator, which is slightly too large to fit inside the plywood box, seems to be hand printed, and is marked with the name 'H. G. Williams, Brixham, January 1944'. Any ideas/information?
Hi Mike I wonder if it is this man?? LEISURE AND SAILING Bluewater Seamanship. By S. W. Mort. »6.00 (per post »9.06) Boat Work. By L. G. Taylor, Extra Master. »7.00 (per post »9.76) Book of Canoeing, The. By A. R. Ellis. 63p (per post »3.39) Canoeing for Beginners. By A. R. Ellis. 40p (per post »1.31) Canoeing for Everyone. By E. M. Harris. »5.25 (per post »8.01) Coastal and Deep Sea Navigation for Yachtsmen. By C. A. Lund. »1.80 (per post »3.94) Cruising Guide to Anglesey and Menai Strait. By Dr. R. Kemp. »9.95 (per post »12.09) Cruising Guide to the Isle of Man. By Dr. R. Kemp. »9.95 (per post »12.09) Hints and Gadgets for Small Craft Owners. By H. G. Williams. »4.00 (per post »5.84) How to Build and Manage a Canoe. By A. R. Ellis. Vol. IöText. »4.00 (per post »6.76) Vol. IIöPlans. »4.95 (per post »7.71) Motor Boating for Beginners. By G. Prout. »1.80 (per post »3.94) Survival for Yachtsmen. Including Supplement. By C. H. Wright. »15.00 (per post »18.36) Tide, Distance and Speed Tables 2011. »7.80 (per post »10.14) from here - http://www.skipper.co.uk/uploads/Feb_2011.pdf TD
Hi TD, Could well be the man, judging from the maritime connections. I couldn't find anything on him with a quick google search. I wonder how he appears to have made his own sextant and latitude calculator - and why? Apart from the obvious answer - it would be expensive to buy one! Amazing craftsmanship in both sextant and calculator. There seems so be one new stainless steel bolt fitted and I can't work out if the separate part is a lense or a mirror or where it fits.
Hi Mike It seems that you can build wooden sextants - image top left - https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=wooden+sextant&biw=1146&bih=591&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=o-IiVdSPGszLaKeRgLgM&ved=0CAYQ_AUoATgU&dpr=1.25 there are also some discs similar to yours - https://www.google.fr/search?q=(http://www.tecepe.com.br/nav/CDSextantProject.htm&es_sm=122&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=6uIiVZqVM9jtaN2_gZgO&ved=0CAoQ_AUoBA&biw=1146&bih=591&dpr=1.25 I guess one advantage is that it would float if dropped overboard. It also seems that one would need an eyepiece and a mirror for it to work correctly, so perhaps the mirror part is missing?? Have fun with it TD
My uncle made himself a plastic and wooden sextant from a kit as I remember some time in the seventies when I was a young lad. He tried to teach me to take star sights and sun sights but I can't have been a great pupil as I don't remember much now. He was RNVR and served in HMS Sussex before becoming an officer in 1943(?) when he went as a sub-lieutenant into an armed trawler - from Mombasa to Murmansk I think - that must have been a culture shock. He was very much into the nautical and had a compass in a brass binnacle and all sorts of stuff floating about, but a sextant was a very expensive item when he was learning to navigate and I think he always wanted one of his own. This looks like it could have been made from a plan in a hobbyists publication of some sort...?
TD, The component on the cam-shaped piece below the spirit level is a mirror and the separate part might be a lense but I can't work out where it should fit
Hi Brian, Despite doing a RYA Day Skipper course many years ago I have never really understood the practical use of sextants although I have a rough idea of the theory. Your thought about a 'hobby kit' model seems very plausible. It seems so simple compared to the complex brass sextants we usually see I wonder how accurate it could be?
I know it says Brixham on the latitude calculator, but the sextant looks as if it could have been made by POWs in Milag Nord for instruction. I can't see that it could have been used for sun sights as there are no shades. Being a bubble sextant it could have been used were there was no horizon. Perhaps the latitude calculator and the sextant come from different sources?
Interesting line of thought there Roy. Ancestry shows 4 x H G Williams as POW's - 2 are New Zealanders ( a driver and a Private) 1 in the Military Police and 1 in the RA. As Brixham is not far from Dartmouth, and using Roys thoughts that it is a home made instruction device perhaps he was based at the Naval College in Dartmouth ???? TD
Hi TD, Were there any Merchant Navy H G Williams in Milag Nord? In an introduction to a study book first produced in 1942 - in this case on Ship Construction - it is also recommended for 'our brother sailors who are prisoners of war.' Roy
Hi Roy There are 17 Williams's on the database from the Merchant Navy recorded as being in "Camp Type: Marlag und Milag Nord (Milag)" but none of them have an initial 'H' or 'G' TD
Strangely I know someone who was in Marlag und Milag Nord. He is the skipper of the LCT which features heavily in the book in my signature. I will give him a call and ask if the sextant sounds familiar to him.
