On Dec 3, 2:38*pm, IanM wrote:
max camirand wrote:
On Dec 3, 1:54 pm, Heikki wrote:
max camirand wrote:
I'm looking for a real gimballed marine compass, with a flat face
usable with a direction-finder.
You don't say where in the world you are. Here in Denmark, my first choice
would be Weilbach in Copenhagen - they've been in the business of compasses,
charts, etc since 1755 or so. I have sailed on a ship that has one of their
compasses, gimballed and with a flat face. Haven't tried with a direction-
finder, but it looks like it ought to work well. Big thing, probably
approved to be used on much bigger ships that ours...

http://www.weilbach.dk/netbutik.asp?...fold4479&l=155

-H

Thanks for the link!
Sorry for the oversight: The boat is in Seattle, USA.
Those compasses look excellent, but they're very expensive. Maybe I
shouldn't have any illusions about getting a good compass for little
money, but I hope I can find a commercial ship outfitter that carries
a decent product at non-yacht prices.

-m

Try this carefully crafted google search
http://www.google.com/search?q=marine+%22grid+compass

Unfortunately I have yet to see one in decent condition at a good enough
price. *If you have around $100 you *might* get lucky with a used one

Ships will all be using gyrocompasses or fluxgates now. *Your only
chance of beating yachtie pricing would be if you know a shipbreakers
who are currently scrapping an old fishing fleet.

--
Ian Malcolm. * London, ENGLAND. *(NEWSGROUP REPLY PREFERRED)
ianm[at]the[dash]malcolms[dot]freeserve[dot]co[dot]uk
[at]=@, [dash]=- & [dot]=. *Warning* HTML & 32K emails -- NUL:

Ah-ha, I didn't know they were called grid compasses. Large ships are
still built with magnetic compasses, even today (source: I am a
merchant marine officer). We don't ever /use/ them, but they're there,
on the monkey bridge, viewable from below at the wheel. As you
mentioned, all merchant ships are now primarily using gyrocompasses.

Good idea about looking for old fishing vessels. They're likely to
have something.

My other option is to get a "regular" compass and then whittle up a
direction finder on a fixed card in order to get a relative bearing
and mathematically apply it to the boat's compass heading and get the
compass bearing that way. Or maybe I'm just dumb for wanting to
navigate without electronic aids.

-m