MovieChat Forums > Adrift (2018) Discussion > Navigation

Navigation

posted 5 years ago by ElKabong1940 (315)
11 replies | jump to latest

I seriously doubt if this gal could do celestial navigation with a sextant. It is very difficult and requires a lot of training and practice. You also have to do it often to remain proficient. One has to keep the horizon in site - almost impossible and very inaccurate in a relatively small rocking boat like the one they were in. You can't get a fix during the day since the only object you have is the sun. You can do a "Local Apparent Noon" but that is very difficult and they din't even teach that in U.S. Navy Navigation School I attended. Celestial navigation is best done at night. You have to know all of the navigational stars. We spent hours and hours in a planetarium learning them. Just some more Hollywood B.S.

[–] ExTechOp (2742) 5 years ago

You're kidding right?

You know this is based on a true story, and that the real woman did exactly that - used a sextant to navigate 1,500 miles, all while brain-damaged so badly that it was six more years before she could read again

Are you just troll-posting imaginary issues all over this site?

[–] ElKabong1940 (315) 5 years ago

How much celestial navigation have you done to dispute what I have written?

[–] ExTechOp (2742) 5 years ago

I’m not Tami, so my experience is irrelevant

I’m also not the movie’s writers, but one of them crewed Hokulea, a Polynesian voyaging canoe that routinely travels the Pacific without ANY equipment, not even a sextant.

Their experiences don’t just dispute but utterly refute what you have written.

Are you seriously disputing these true accounts because YOU can’t do what they did?

[–] ElKabong1940 (315) 5 years ago

Just what I thought - you are criticizing something you know nothing about. Anyone who sails across the ocean in a small boat is risking their life. Might as well play Russian roulette.

[–] ExTechOp (2742) 5 years ago

Actually, it's clear YOU are "criticizing something you know nothing about"

You're attempting to refute the believability of things that actually happened

The FACTS dispute what you have written, and continue to do so in the case of Hokulea

I'm simply citing those facts. And your only response is to ... attack me? I'm not claiming to have the skills of Tami Oldham or Nainoa Thompson. You're claiming to know better than either of them. Your affirmative claim bears the burden of proof; you're sinking under weight of that burden.

[–] ElKabong1940 (315) 5 years ago

I don't know why you are getting your pantyhose in a knot over this. My point was that the movie did not properly portray celestial navigation - that's all!

[–] ExTechOp (2742) 5 years ago

Hahaha still attacking me because the facts don’t support you

Your as hominem evasion and backtracking speak for themselves

At no point in your original post did you talk about “proper portrayal” (though your retreat to that position is duly noted)

No, you were claiming Oldham’s real-life navigation was “Hollywood B.S.” fully ignorant of the reality that she actually did it, or that the Hokulea crew continues to navigate the same ocean in small, bobbing boats without Oldham’s Casio watch and sextant

Care to address the actual facts in light of your original post? Or do you feel more comfortable discussing my pantyhose?

[–] RickGee (258) 5 years ago

Haha. "Based on a true story." You know what that means? Somebody was in a boat once and things went bad.

[–] zeesha (1754) 5 years ago

There is nothing funny about "things went bad" at sea. "Dead men tell no tales." If you know what that means, you would show some respect to the survivors.

[–] ExTechOp (2742) 5 years ago

Don't feed the trolls

[–] RickGee (258) 5 years ago

"Based on a true story." Haha. That usually means almost nothing in the film is accurate.