Starpath home study

**rigdvr** · May 6th, 2012, 11:20 AM

Anyone use their home study books to prepare for the celestial exam? Rather use my downtime on the boat to study than give up 2 weeks of family time to sit through class....

**water** · May 6th, 2012, 12:29 PM

Good post. Hope there are some good responses.

I do know that the USCG ignores the table in 46 CFR 11.910 at the Master 500 GRT level.

**richard8000milesaway** · May 6th, 2012, 06:15 PM

I hit Murphy hard and passed all CMM first time, incl Celestial. Off watch and a bit while sitting on the DP console.
My background though is from a maritime academy... I've heard hawsepipers do the celestial class more just to learn that stuff none of us will ever use!

**Kennebec Captain** · May 6th, 2012, 06:51 PM

Originally Posted by rigdvr

Anyone use their home study books to prepare for the celestial exam? Rather use my downtime on the boat to study than give up 2 weeks of family time to sit through class....

I did all my studying;from AB to master unlimited on the ship or at home. It's not for everybody though.

K.C.

**Michojay** · May 6th, 2012, 07:59 PM

^ could you recommend any good study book/aids for studying on the boat or at home for ab through master?

**injunear** · May 6th, 2012, 08:48 PM

Originally Posted by Kennebec Captain

I did all my studying;from AB to master unlimited on the ship or at home. It's not for everybody though.

K.C.

I did the same to Chief Motor. When I first started in the early '70s, we delivered many workboats to the North Sea, Africa and South America. They were floating schools. Great capts and mates that took the time to teach the ABs.(if they wanted to learn) I know of at least a dozen ABs getting mates licenses with oceans and a few that had the time with tonnage, got their 3rd mates. This was long before the question pools were published. They mostly used Capt Van's study guide.

**Kennebec Captain** · May 7th, 2012, 04:46 AM

Originally Posted by Michojay

^ could you recommend any good study book/aids for studying on the boat or at home for ab through master?

I used Murphy's blue books, are they still around? For texts - Bowditch and Dutton's, if I couldn't figure out the explanation in Bowditch I used Dutton's which has more/better examples.

Use a worksheet/form and solve the problems the same way each time. Use a separate scratch pad and keep your work neat so you can find the errors. When you get the wrong ans it is much faster to check the problem working backwards to find an error then to redo the entire problem. I just kept doing the problems till I could do them without errors. None of the problems are difficult, just long. if I recall correctly the lunar problems were the worse.

I used the formulas rather then the tables as it saves having to interpolate. The formulas are in Bowditch, you might want to check at the C.G. which edition is available in the test room. They let me go in and look.

I see on other threads people are using software, I don't know anything about that, I tested some time ago now.

I worked a little each day on the ship and when I got home I locked myself in to a room and put my head down and plugged away.

K.C.

**captbbrucato** · May 7th, 2012, 08:09 AM

Originally Posted by rigdvr

Anyone use their home study books to prepare for the celestial exam? Rather use my downtime on the boat to study than give up 2 weeks of family time to sit through class....

I used the Starpath home study system for my celestial upgrade. Take note that the program is mainly aimed at the yacht/pleasure cruiser community. That said, David Burch's people helped me with any question I had including back-sights of the sun. I found that I could set my own pace and use downtime at work or at home to learn the material. The program taught me most of what I needed and I was able to lean on the support staff at Starpath for whatever wasn't part of the curriculum. I coupled the Starpath course and Murphy Study Guides Q&A to study for and pass my exams.

**Kennebec Captain** · May 7th, 2012, 01:35 PM

Originally Posted by captbbrucato

I used the Starpath home study system for my celestial upgrade. Take note that the program is mainly aimed at the yacht/pleasure cruiser community. That said, David Burch's people helped me with any question I had including back-sights of the sun. I found that I could set my own pace and use downtime at work or at home to learn the material. The program taught me most of what I needed and I was able to lean on the support staff at Starpath for whatever wasn't part of the curriculum. I coupled the Starpath course and Murphy Study Guides Q&A to study for and pass my exams.

Did you use the the tables or the formulas? Doing that triple interpolation had me scratching my head for a while.

K.C.

**richard8000milesaway** · May 8th, 2012, 12:51 PM

For USCG use both: double/triple interpolation from the tables and the answer double checked by the algebraic formulae method. It'll work every time.

That's the way I always did it and I never flunked any USCG exam: 3rd mate, 2nd mate, 1600 crossover, and finally CMM.

**Kennebec Captain** · May 8th, 2012, 02:18 PM

Originally Posted by richard8000milesaway

For USCG use both: double/triple interpolation from the tables and the answer double checked by the algebraic formulae method..

That sounds like a good way to go. I used a programmable calculator, I had to take the batteries out to clear the memory but I reentered the formulas in the test room then ran the example problems from Bowditch to make sure I had done it right. I don't think they are allowed at all now.

If I was gong to do it now I'd be sure to try to select a decent calculator. I'm still using my old HP.

K.C.

**captbbrucato** · May 9th, 2012, 05:52 AM

Originally Posted by Kennebec Captain

Did you use the the tables or the formulas? Doing that triple interpolation had me scratching my head for a while.

K.C.

I used the tables for the most part. I practiced the interpolations and got it after a good long while. It was one stumbling block that seemed to eat up a lot of time. I basically went back to my algebra books and started from scratch on regular/basic interpolations to finally get squared away. Worked well after that.

**Capt. Phoenix** · May 9th, 2012, 06:27 AM

Originally Posted by Kennebec Captain

That sounds like a good way to go. I used a programmable calculator, I had to take the batteries out to clear the memory but I reentered the formulas in the test room then ran the example problems from Bowditch to make sure I had done it right. I don't think they are allowed at all now.

If I was gong to do it now I'd be sure to try to select a decent calculator. I'm still using my old HP.

K.C.

In November 2010 I used a graphing calculator. The proctor watched me clear all memory and then said I was good to go. I can't guarantee it will work with every examiner though.