NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Old charts and traditional navigation methods
From: David Fleming
Date: 2014 Aug 13, 10:57 -0700
From: David Fleming
Date: 2014 Aug 13, 10:57 -0700
The compass roses on the 18th century charts are a horistorical carry over from the Portolan Charts that preceeded Mercator Charts. In Portolan charts chart position was based on dead reckoning ie estimates of distance traveled in the directions of the points of the compass.
Dave
