NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Significance of azimuth errors, was : Principles and Being Practical
From: Peter Fogg
Date: 2003 Sep 8, 11:26 +1000
From: Peter Fogg
Date: 2003 Sep 8, 11:26 +1000
----- Original Message ----- From: "Trevor J. Kenchington" > Still, I'd rather not have the potential for a 15 degree error in > azimuth in my sight-reduction method We still don't know about this 15 degree claim. In the event that a navigator was relying on the Azimuth Tables, had (for the sake of argument) never found his way as far as the Weir Diagrams, then a 15 degree difference from his (corrected) compass reading would have the alarm bells ringing. They should be ringing anyway, as soon as she realized he was on or near the east/west line, if we can assume this navigator was at least familiar with the method it was relying on. What seems so unfair about this huge kerfuffle (about not very much at all) is that if only the Weir Diagrams were on offer then that would presumably have been just fine with the critics - haven't heard about their shortcomings. But since another, simpler method is also provided that works, once again, just fine in the vast majority of cases and has instructions provided for resolving ambiguity near the prime vertical then the whole method is denounced as 'VERY bad'. Which is nonsense.
