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Dear Geoffrey,
I am not sure that I really understand the details of the method you
describe but it seems to be based on the almanac.
The people you mention just used the almanac BEFORE
their trip to select the stars.

In principle, you can memorize some data from the almanac,
then leave the almanac at home and use the data from your
memory:-)

For example, the hero of Mark Twain novel "Yankee at the court of
king Arthur" memorized the day and time of a solar eclipse:-)

(He just happened to read an almanac before his travel.)
I would not call this "navigation without almanac".

Second, how do you detect without a sextant when a star it in zenith?
I don't think this is easy to do.

Alex.

On Fri, 5 Nov 2004, Dr. Geoffrey Kolbe wrote:

> The idea was to sail North/South until certain stars passed over the zenith
> and then turn East/West to sail along a line of latitude. The time of the
> journey was carefully chosen so that the selected stars would be at the
> zenith at the correct times in the journey for the East/West turnings, that
> is when his boat was estimated to reach the desired latitudes for the turn
> East (or West) to run along a line of latitude.
>
> It seems there are people who specialize in this sort of minimalist navigation.
>
> Geoffrey Kolbe
>
> At 04:10 05/11/04, you wrote:
>
> >Frank:
> >
> >So how do you navigate (under certain circumstances?)
> >without almanac (and without sextant and without chronometer).
> >Could you give a hint?
> >
> >I am very curious.
> >Alex.
>

   

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