NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
From: David C
Date: 2019 Aug 2, 02:23 -0700
The Dictonary of Nautical Words and Terms CWT Layton 1967 defined cocked hat (no quotes) as (1) RN Headgear and (2) Triangle on chart formed by three position lines that do not cross at one point.
I have looked at the index of Bowditch 1958 and also that in Dutton's Navigation and Nautical Astronomy 1951 and cannot find the phrase cocked hat. Because of the way the indexes are formatted I may have overlooked the words.
In my previous message I mentioned that I could not find cocked hat in Nicholls's. I thus conclude:
By the late 1960s an early 20th century slang expression had becom a word in its own right.
Merchant Mariners did not have any interest in cocked hats. Cocked hat was mentioned in the Admiralty Manual of Navigation because that publication included just about everything.
In the gps era navigation enthusiasts began to analyse cocked hats [/duck] ad nauseum - reference the unintelligible (to me) discussions about where in the cocked hat a ship is.
I may be completely wrong but it seems to me that the 21st century history of the phrase is just as interesting as its 19th century history.
