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Map of the world produced in 1689 by Gerard van Schagen. The history of navigation, or the history of seafaring, is the art of directing vessels upon the open sea through the establishment of its position and course by means of traditional practice, geometry, astronomy, or special instruments. Many peoples have excelled as seafarers, prominent ...
Sailing Directions are written directions that describe the routes to be taken by boats and ships during coastal navigation and port approaches. There are also products known as Sailing Directions, which are books written by various Hydrographic Offices throughout the world. They are known as Pilot Books, because they provide local knowledge of ...
Table of geography, hydrography and navigation, from the Cyclopaedia of 1728. Marine navigation is the art and science of steering a ship from a starting point (sailing) to a destination, efficiently and responsibly. It is an art because of the skill that the navigator must have to avoid the dangers of navigation, and it is a science because it ...
Rutter (nautical) A rutter is a mariner's handbook of written sailing directions. Before the advent of nautical charts, rutters were the primary store of geographic information for maritime navigation. It was known as a periplus ("sailing-around" book) in classical antiquity and a portolano ("port book") to medieval Italian sailors in the ...
In the European medieval period, navigation was considered part of the set of seven mechanical arts, none of which were used for long voyages across open ocean. Polynesian navigation is probably the earliest form of open-ocean navigation; it was based on memory and observation recorded on scientific instruments like the Marshall Islands Stick Charts of Ocean Swells.
Sailing employs the wind—acting on sails, wingsails or kites —to propel a craft on the surface of the water (sailing ship, sailboat, raft, windsurfer, or kitesurfer), on ice (iceboat) or on land (land yacht) over a chosen course, which is often part of a larger plan of navigation. From prehistory until the second half of the 19th century ...
Clipper route. The clipper route, followed by ships sailing between Europe and Australia or New Zealand. In the Age of Sail, the Brouwer Route reduced the time of a voyage from The Netherlands to the Dutch East Indies from almost 12 months to about six months. The clipper route was derived from the Brouwer Route and was sailed by clipper ships ...
Portolan charts are nautical charts, first made in the 13th century in the Mediterranean basin and later expanded to include other regions. The word portolan comes from the Italian portolano, meaning "related to ports or harbors ", and which since at least the 17th century designates "a collection of sailing directions".