This once proud oaken varnished stand along with it's shiny brass compass that was bolted to the wheelhouse at one time was the focal point of the ships course and destination. It was bolted so firmly that even the roughest of seas could not deviate it from its chosen task, to house the compass that no matter how much a ship pitched, yawed, rolled, rode the violent crests or slid into the fearsome troughs at sea the precise gimbals of the sturdily mounted brass compass affixed on the equally strongly bolted stand on the deck always gave an exact position in relation to the charts on the chart table, so the good ship could and eventually would make safe harbor for crew & cargo. It sits now, the once shiny brass compass now gone, sits left to the elements and who knows what to eventually end up burnt, smashed or if by some fortune and caught by someones curious eye, taken home, cleaned up, sanded and varnished again and restored in some worldly fashion as perhaps a very ornate and curios planter, or perhaps as someone inventive idea of a lamp, or perhaps to just sit all shiny & new in someone rec room as a topic of curious conversation and speculation, as a life renewed......thanks for the peek