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Not exactly celnav but closely related

When ships are routing they must be trying to minimize energy used (or
a trade off between that and passage time). Obviously optimal routing
would use prediction of wind, tide and maybe wave height. But as the
earth is not a sphere the geodesic (shortest distance path) is is not
a great circle.

Is the difference between geodesic and great circle (around one
percent at most I think)  insignificant compared to the variation in
the other factors, or could ships save a worthwhile amount energy if
they plan using the geodesic route. Given the huge energy consumption
of ships maybe 1% is worth it? Maybe they already do it, as presumably
big ships just use software to do routing.

Bill Lionheart

   

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