“GPS-denied navigation” just made sextants sexy

Sextants are obsolete relics, they said. Spending time studying celestial navigation or using paper charts and hand tools to plot your course is a silly pastime for dinosaurs, they said. We can rely on our phone to get around with confidence, by land and sea, and the entire world has been thoroughly mapped and snapped to the point that drivers and skippers alike assumed that the Global Positioning System (GPS) would be a permanent aid and comfort. GPS has been around for half a century, and it’s been widely available to the public for a quarter century, so why wouldn’t we expect it to still be around tomorrow?

Then one day we woke up and realized that getting around by satellite isn’t always a sure thing, especially in war zones or during a cyberattack. GPS jamming and spoofing as a form of “navigational warfare” has been deployed recently in Ukraine, Israel, and Iran (jamming isn’t uncommon – “1,100 ships” were affected by recent denial attacks in the Middle East, and a June report found that in only a three-month span, “more than a million GPS jamming incidents have been recorded since the start of the Iran war”). The threat of EMP attacks causing chaos to electronic navigation systems also looms. 

Even non-state actors are jamming GPS – a million bucks worth of tequila backed by celebrity chef Guy Fieri and Sammy Hagar of Van Halen fame was stolen using a GPS denial attack. 

What’s more, GPS is run by the US government, and could, hypothetically, be taken offline at any time (which is why Russia, China, and the EU launched their own alternatives to “American GPS”). 

Responding to this new reality, “GPS-denied navigation” is the sexy new thing in VC and tech, and a slew of startups are rushing to attach their alternative nav products to drones, boats, bots, submersibles, tanks, and missiles. Within a few years, the value of this “GPS-free” market is expected to approach $17 billion. 

But the old Salts never lost touch with the ways of the ancient mariner. Silicon Valley can learn from the art of sailing, especially when it comes to navigating without having to rely on a modern Sputnik sputtering directions for you. 

Consider, for example, that even the US Navy, for all its sophisticated navigation systems and high-tech arsenals that are the envy of the world, still teaches sailors how to use the sextant. Naval officers learn to steer by the stars at Annapolis and Newport, because, as one reporter put it, “you can't hack a sextant.”

Dead reckoning (AKA ded reckoning), celestial navigation, sextants, paper and pencil, a compass, and triangulating a position at the center of the “cocked hat” – who knows? Maybe these old tools and methods will come back in vogue. 

In the meantime, there are plenty of sextant tutorials on YouTube and CelNav courses at US Sailing schools you can try. Find your way to one with this school map – GPS optional.