Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Navigational instruments are instruments used by nautical navigators and pilots as tools of their trade. The purpose of navigation is to ascertain the present position and to determine the speed, direction , etc. to arrive at the port or point of destination.
Polynesian navigators used a range of tools and methods, including observation of birds, star navigation, and use of waves and swells to detect nearby land. Songs, mythological stories, and star charts were used to help people remember important navigational information.
The backstaff is a navigational instrument that was used to measure the altitude of a celestial body, in particular the Sun or Moon.When observing the Sun, users kept the Sun to their back (hence the name) and observed the shadow cast by the upper vane on a horizon vane.
Coastal navigation was practiced since the most ancient times. [2] The biblical account of the great flood, where the Noah's Ark appears, is based both on myths and on the navigational practice of the Mesopotamian civilizations, who from the Sumerians onwards navigated their two rivers (Tigris and Euphrates) and the Persian Gulf.
A navigation system on an oil tanker. Navigation [1] is a field of study that focuses on the process of monitoring and controlling the movement of a craft or vehicle from one place to another. [2] The field of navigation includes four general categories: land navigation, [3] marine navigation, aeronautic navigation, and space navigation. [1]
A sailor threw a floating object overboard and used a sandglass to measure the time it took to pass between two points on deck. The first reference to a Dutchman's log is in 1623—later than the ship log. [4] The Dutchman's log could be used with a brass tobacco box, rectangular with rounded ends.
Translated into English as the Rutter of the Sea in 1528, it was reprinted many times, and remained the pre-eminent rutter used by English sailors for decades. [ 6 ] Another frequently used rutter was the work Portolano by Pietro Coppo , published in Venice in 1528, which included a collection of sea charts and the description of Christopher ...
Several definitions of portolan chart coexist in the literature. A narrow definition includes only medieval [5] or, at the latest, early modern sea charts (i.e. maps that primarily cover maritime rather than inland regions) that include a network of rhumb lines and do not show any indication of the use of latitude or longitude coordinates. [6]