Naval Navigation

Navigation was vital to sailing in the Age of Sail, and not having a good Navigator was the difference between life and death. Many developments over the years have changed and forged the way that navigation helped sailors in their adventures.

Navigational Developments

• Line Sighting: triangulating coastal landmarks (needed to keep land in sight)

• Sounding: lead and line depth measurements (needed to hug the shoreline)

• Fixed Star Location: measuring fixed 'star heights' (so long as you can see the stars)

• Dead Reckoning: estimating position and trajectory (so long as it was a clear day)

• Avian Flightpaths: observing the migrational patterns (needed to be able to see birds)

• Eirplus Charts: written directions for circumnavigation

• Portolans: maps of costal land marks (needed to stay in sight of land)

Navigational Equipment

• Astrolabe: a disc to calculate the horizontal height of an astronomical body

• Cross-staff: a T-shaped device to measure the sun's height against the horizon (could cause blindness because of the sun)

• Back-staff: a reverse cross-staff

• Sextant: an instrument used to measure the angle between any two visible objects to determine latitude

• Nocturlabe: a device for telling the time of night based on star rotation around the North Star

• Compass: brass, wood, or ivory to determine direction. Because the wire inside tended to loose its magnetism it had to be re-magnitized with a lodestone