WRITING AND PUBLISHING
I have been writing since a child, and am the author and illustrator of several books:
The
Complete Loran-C Handbook,
published
in
1986 by International Marine Publishing, Camden, ME.
Based on lesson plans that I had developed to teach
a course in Loran-C navigation at the Sea School in
St. Petersburg, Florida, this book provides a complete
technical description of the Loran-C coastal navigation
system, which for decades was the primary naviga-
tional tool used by sailors plying coastal and near
offshore waters throughout the world.
The Loran-C system is now deactivated, replaced by
the Global Positioning System (GPS) made possible
by our fine network of position-indicating satellites.
"The Complete Loran-C Handbook" also provided
readers with detailed instructions and examples for
how to properly use the Loran-C system to safely
navigate coastal waters, including descriptions of
potential problems and errors.
"The Complete Loran-C Handbook" was one of the most successful "cross-over" books published by International Marine Publishing, a major national publisher of books on strictly marine subjects. My book was popular with owners of both sailing and motor yachts.
I took the majority of photos used in the book, and did all the illustrations by hand (the book was written in the days before I was introduced to the Macintosh).
First published in 1986, the book went through three editions before going out of print in 1996.
Piloting
with Electronics, published
in 1987 by
International Marine Publishing, Camden, ME.
Part of International Marine Publishing's popular
"Seamanship Series," Piloting
With Electronics
looks in detail at the wide variety
of instruments avail-
able to coastal mariners for navigating coastal waters,
including fully manual instruments, such as lead lines
and compasses, and electrical and electronic instru-
ments, such as depth sounders, knot meters, radar,
Loran-C and the then newly-emerging Global Position-
ing System.
In
the book, I discuss the operation and use of each
instrument individually, detailing both its strengths
and weaknesses. At the end of the book, I look at
how the instruments discussed can be effectively used
in concert to provide coastwise navigators with all the
real-time data they need to ascertain an accurate
position while underway and to avoid running aground.
As with The Complete Loran-C Handbook, I took the majority of the photos for the book and hand-drew all of the illustrations.
First published in 1987, Piloting With Electronics went through three editions before being remaindered in 1997.
Celestial Navigation The Easy Way: A Self-Study Guide, published in 1984 by The Sea School, St. Petersburg, FL.
I originally wrote Celestial Navigation The Easy Way: A Self-Study Guide to provide myself with a carefully structured textbook with which I could teach the subject of celestial navigation. At the time, I was a Loran-C instructor at the Sea School, a commercial business whose primary focus was helping recreational boaters obtain their Commercial Captain's License. One branch of the school, however, offered courses for commercial seamen, such as captains of commercial tankers, freighters, shrimpboats, and the like.
One of the most popular commercial courses was the Celestial Navigation course. That was because skippers of tankers and freighters were required to pass a ten-question exam on celestial navigation before the Coast Guard would certify them as competent to take their vessels more than 200 nautical miles offshore. For example, without the celestial endorsement on his or her license, a professional freighter captain could not take his boat from the U.S. to Japan to pick up a load of Toyotas. Nor could a tanker skipper travel to Kuwait to pick up a load of crude oil. In other words, for professional ship drivers the celestial endorsement on their commerical licenses was extremely important to their maritime careers and livelihoods.
The Celestial Nav test was widely regarded as one of the most difficult required by the Coast Guard. It consisted of ten questions, and only one wrong answer was permitted. The challenge in teaching the course was to sufficiently cover in a two week-long preparatory course a very complicated subject. The exam covered not only the theory of navigating by celestial sightings, but required the test taker to work a series of complicated plotting problems in which celestial sight data was provided and from which the test taker had to calculate his or her position with great accuracy. Adding to the difficulty of teaching the subject was the fact that many of my students had only finished high school and often had limited math and conceptual skills.
Since I was unable to find an existing text that was suitable for the unique way in which celestial navigation had to be taught so that we could almost guarantee that students would pass the Coast Guard test, I was forced to write the textbook from scratch myself. With it, we passed an average of 92% of our students on their first attempt at the Coast Guard exam. Nearly all those who failed the first sitting passed on their second try.
The textbook, and the Celestial Navigation The Easy Way: A Self-Study Guide book that grew from it, approached teaching the convoluted subject from the standpoint of enabling each student to study and proceed at his or her own rate. Concepts were carefully defined and exhaustively illustrated, and each chapter ended with a written examination consisting of ten questions which mimiced those students would encounter on the Coast Guard exam.
In all modesty, I believe Celestial Navigation The Easy Way: A Self-Study Guide is the most effective, understandable and usable introduction available for not only passing the Coast Guard test but also for learning how to navigate by the sun, stars and planets in the real world .
As with The Complete Loran-C Handbook and Piloting With Electronics, I took the majority of the photos for the book and hand-drew all of the illustrations.
For a number of years I have also been a frequent contributor to a number of maritime publications, including:
Ocean Navigator magazine
The Sailors Gazette
Cruising World
Yacht Vacations magazine
Florida Waterways
