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I'm surprised they gave it up. It is still best practice in yachting to have at least one crew member on an ocean crossing be able to do celestial navigation. You can't count on electricity, and thus GPS, so you have to return to the basics as a backup.

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On a modern naval vessel if you lose all the electronics the ship is going to be drifting anyway.

Still it seems smart to keep the skill around as the GPS system can be locally jammed and in WWIII could be completely knocked out.

Maybe not. Marine diesel engines can run without the computers attached using mechanical throttles. There has been instances where the yacht's wheelhouse is flooded with water and all the navigation computers and electronic controls are lost. The captain and mate stationed in the engine room coordinate by controlling the manual throttles on each engine. Move one throttle more to turn.

Depends on the ship of course, but this wouldn't have worked on at least one of the naval vessels I've visited. Common on newer ships are electric drives, where diesel or gas turbine engines are connected to generators instead of prop shafts.

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