NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: American navigation.
From: Douglas Denny
Date: 2009 Oct 31, 16:31 -0700
From: Douglas Denny
Date: 2009 Oct 31, 16:31 -0700
It is not just Americans who might have gone to sea with only a school atlas as the "navigation aid" available for a chart. And what's wrong with that anyway? Columbus would have been ecstatic to have one. I have heard of this kind of "navigation" from a number of sources over the years from unimpeachable sources, though I admit I cannot direct you to a definitive source right now. It is also reported in the newspapers here from time to time of strange people who seem to think they are going to sail from Britain to Australia or elsewhere and have virtually no navigational aid beyond a compass, and according to the reports they are most likeley not sure how to use that either. There is one called 'Captain Calamity' in the newspapers recently, who has had to be rescued a couple of times like this, it being reported only in the last year or so. See: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/1503308.stm I have personally met a chap who told me he was taken on as "navigator" for a delivery trip for a sailing boat from England to one of the Caribbean Isles, and who, when asked what sight reduction method did he use said "Eh?! what's that? It transpired that he did actually know a bit about navigation as someone had shown him how to find a LAN for the sun and how to work out the Latitude with a declination table for the day. So How did he find the island? By pointing South until he hit the 'right' latitude - then turned right and sailed West until he hit the next land available... more or less as Columbus did. Can't complain - he got there all right. Oh! and the chart he used? - a North Atlantic Admiralty chart only (at least it was a proper chart) but the scale of course was not much better than a school atlas ....! Douglas Denny. Chichester. England. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ NavList message boards: www.fer3.com/arc Or post by email to: NavList@fer3.com To , email NavList+@fer3.com -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---