by William Cobbs

Created on: May 31, 2008

As a boating enthusiast, perhaps a bit more than that, with fifty years of sailing and power boats behind me, and perhaps ten years of ocean sailing ahead of me, I have very definite ideas about "finding your way".

We must first identify OURSELVES as navigators. The week-end sailor or casual once in a while sailor is one thing...the inveterate sailor who wants to and tries to emeulate Sir Joshua Slocum is another.

You can ask yourself the same question put to Hillary when he had successfully climbed Mount Everest: WHY?
Well, why sail the oceans? Because they are THERE! And you, poor mortal, are also there!

NAVIGATION! The Chinese successfully navigated 5,000 years ago, although they confined themselves to about 500 miles from their bases. At some time, a doughty Chinese individual noticed that when he put a bit of "strange stone" on a bit of wood and floated it, it always "pointed" to the North and South. When he put it on his junk, he noted that it turned as the boat turned. He later, perhaps abou 3400 BC discovered that he could rub a bit of steel on the "lodestone" and float that on a cork. Voila! the first compass.

After several thousand years, Marco Polo ventured overland to China. He was astounded when shown the way of navigation, but it was a companion who brought back a lodestone, and introduced it to Italian seamanship.

Gradually the compass as we know it evolved, and that is the only thing we need to go anywhere in any sea.
Let's forget modern adaptations of the compass with screens that perpetually show you where you are...they are fine, and for the part-time or amateur sailor they are necessary.
But if you are like this writer an inveterate ocean traveler, sometimes alone, you should know everything about the compass, its variations, and its problems.

NEXT, you should know how to use a sextant.

Basically, there are only two directions at sea, LONGITUDE (north to south) and LATITUDE, (east to west) Each is divided into degrees and the degrees divided into minutes, all that starting at an arbitrary point in TIME at Greenwich observatory in England.

Get a good manual and a second-hand sextant and instruct yourself. You will also need, no matter where you are, a chronometer or fine watch or clock that MUST tell you the exact correct time at Greenwich observatory.

That and the SUN and the MOON and a few stars will tell you in a half-hour of work exactly where you are in any ocean or any desert or mountain, for that matter!

There is ANOTHER form of navigation,

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