If I was going to equip a life boat I might give a modern, waterproof,
handheld GPS and some batteries higher consideration over a sextant. If
I had not been found or grounded by the time that quit working, the sun,
moon, and stars would be the backup. :)

--
Jack Erbes in Ellsworth, Maine, USA - jacker at midmaine dot com

The R/V that I ride carries an A3 comm consol along with a SART and 406
EPIRB. You can hit 3 red buttons and grab the SART out of it's rack outside
the pilot house on your way to the lifeboat. The captains are constantly
working on upgrading their licenses and the company helps foot the bill for
training (this includes celestial navigation, bridge management, basic
Radar, ARPA and other). Overall, I feel very safe while working on the
boat. It's the thought of those that have no clue that bother me.

Just in the last year, in our area, we have had a large boat crash into the
jetties, one into a dredge pipe and another aground. No good excuse for the
jetty thing, the pipe guy claimed he never saw the yellow strobes and the
grounding guy was running on his GPS course.