Sextants Were An Integral Part Of Nautical History

The sextant is an item of great significance to the navigator. Throughout the years from its development until now, the sextant has continued to evolve and adapt to modern solutions. In the very beginning the sextant was rather unrefined. The sextant had to endure large periods of growth in order to adapt to the ever changing demands of ocean travel. Sadly, all innovations must eventually become replaced by newer innovations.True to this, the modern day sextant is outclassed by the global positioning system, though old school navigators criticize GPS for its many faults.

Sextants weren’t always around, however. And long before the invention of the first sextant, navigators relied on Polaris to chart their journey to home port. In particular, the Arabs were very skilled users of this method.Arab sailors used to their advantage a device which they called a “Kamal”. This Kamal made use of a dumpy rope and an instrument positioning Polaris at the top, and placing the horizon at the bottom. The navigator would then tie a knot in the rope to align the two (Polaris and the horizon) to get his bearings. When returning back to port from a voyage, the navigator adjusted his sailing accordingly to bring Polaris into the exact location it was in when he left port.

By the 10th century, the Arabs gave the Europeans two critically important astronomical devices that would pave the road to the first working sextant. These two vital instruments were known as the astrolabe and the quadrant. The astrolabe was a revolutionary sea travelling device as it could retain its position in relation to the fickle conditions that betray our senses at sea. The astrolabe was used for more than 200 years because of its remarkable ingenuity. The astrolabe used a circular scale and rotatable alidade with sighting pinnules. When an astrolabe was held at eye level a celestial object could be viewed through the pinnules, and the altitude could be read from the point of crossing by the alidade on the scale.

The second of the two instruments that foreshadowed the sextant was the quadrant. The quadrant was especially useful to the Portuguese. Explorers such as the renowned Christopher Columbus used the quadrant to mark off points of Polaris altitude similar to the Arab way of tying knots in the Kamal. For example, Polaris was marked off and recorded in ports that sailors frequented. Eventually, the alturas of many ports would become published, allowing other sailors to use them as a guide to navigate their way around the coasts of Europe and Africa.

The necessity for a navigational instrument of accurate value arose as explorers began taking to treacherously uncharted seas. In order to use a sextant, a few things had to be done first. For instance, there had to be an almanac which included the location of celestial objects and bodies in relation to our planet at every single hour of every single day for countless years. Also, there had to be an instrument capable of measuring time to an exact point. The latter was called a chronometer. Cartographers were essential to plotting and charting maps so that longitude and latitude could be found and marked by the observer. A simple mathematical formula to transform the relation of the celestial body and the horizon with the navigator’s position would also be needed. With these things in place the sextant would be the final key in locating an accurate position of one's ship on the globe.

Today, sextants are often used as nautical decorations and collectible items enjoyed by enthusiasts worldwide.