Bought a secondhand classic "Carac" Japanese hand-bearing compass (HBC) recently.
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| Carac hand-bearing compass |
It was made in Tokyo, Japan about 50-60 years ago to a high quality professional mariner's standard. They are very accurate to 1 degree and have a "night light" as well. A foam padded plywood box stores it safely. I liked the bakerlite pistol grip with light trigger and magnifying prism roll-knob.
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| Taking a bearing, prism raised |
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| Stored in box, prism lowered |
The sighting prism/mirror magnifies the card's degree markings making it easy to read with no parallax error. The card also has 4 basic cardinal points (N,S,E,W) with intermediary cardinal marks (NE, NW, SE, SW) when viewed from above.
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| Night-light workings inside the pistol grip |
In 1988-89 i had a HBC similar to this aboard my Endeavour 24 keelboat, bought secondhand from an ancient mariner onboard a wooden gaffer at Coff's harbour, NSW. I kept it after the sale of the E24, however the compass went missing in the mid 1990's.
So this compass is a nostalgic replacement and reminds me of the 20th century's navigation era before modern electronics existed.
The "Carac" brand isn't produced now, (as they were taken over?) by "Saura" co Ltd, Tokyo a manufacturer of binacled large commercial ship's compasses, and they still make a vertical grip prisimed hand bearing compass in a nice wooden box today. Saura hand-bearing compass
Found an advertisement online, mine looks very similar, so presuming my one is a Model No N-2000 |
| Advertising card |
