NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Polynesian navigation
From: Frank Reed
Date: 2009 Jun 6, 16:15 -0700
From: Frank Reed
Date: 2009 Jun 6, 16:15 -0700
Wolfgang wrote: "Even Ben Finney's navigator Nainoa Thompson of Hokule'a fame used latitude methods only after he had taught himself navigation reading astronomy books and taking an astronomy course at his university." That makes a lot of sense. And of course, Polynesian men sailed on European and American vessels in the Pacific right from the beginning. They were frequent crew members on whaling vessels in the early 19th century. Those crewmen were exposed to scientific (Western) navigation methods from an early date. It would be difficult to identify "pure" Polynesian navigational methods. And wrote: "In other words: latitude is no useful or even reasonable concept in traditional Polynesian understanding of the world. But it hasn't been useful in Western civilization for a long time either. Only in the Renaissance did measuring the stars find a practical use. Portolan chart which had been around for at least 200 years only showed latitude scales after 1500. " I don't think a clear understanding of latitude is required to use the meridian altitudes of stars. Anyone who travelled north-south distances greater than a few hundred miles would notice that the stars change their maximum altitudes --if they pay attention to the stars at all. It wouldn't even be necessary to know that the change in altitude is proportional to distance. -FER --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Navigation List archive: www.fer3.com/arc To post, email NavList@fer3.com To , email NavList-@fer3.com -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---