The Lifeboat Navigation App
In 1946 Harold Getty wrote a book called 'The Raft Book'. His aim was to write a manual for 'LifeBoat Navigation'. A manual that all ships would carry in their lifeboats. The manual would assist navigators who had the misfortune to have to abandon ship and find their way to land.
The story inspired me to design an app that would be available to everyone who would ever be in the same unfortunate circumstances, or for those who had the misfortune, for some reason, to be without a GPS.
I decided to design the app to incorporate some of the methods the Polynesians used, and also to design some method to find land without the aid of a 'professional' sextant or GPS.
Most importantly, the app had to be useful for people with no real prior learned skills.
The App consists of 2 parts, to be downloaded separately.
The first part consists of Mercator Sailing, and Dead Reckoning. Working out distances and courses to steer, and distance and course run, over a period of time.
This way you know where you are coming from and going to. A huge improvement on not knowing where you are!
Part-1 comprises a method to find ones longitude and latitude.
We discuss how to measure the altitude of a celestial body without a sextant.
If you liked and learned from the first part, then the second part will put you on the road to becoming a Polynesian navigator.
You will find stars to navigate from in the Starfinder. 58 Stars from the Nautical Almanac with an easy method for identification.
A 'Subpoint' calculation for steering towards stars, of which you will have calculated the point in the sky, where these stars are overhead. An important piece of the puzzle of Polynesian navigation.
There is also another method for finding your longitude; the 'Long by Chronometer method'.
I hope you will enjoy learning to navigate the Polynesian way!
'On a clear night, you could never lose the stars,
and with them you could never be truly lost'.
(David Baldacci)