Navigation & Seamanship

One of the best practical textbooks on marine navigation designed specifically for the second mates. This world famous title has gained huge popularity and is deservedly treated as a best choice for those willing to improve their knowledge of marine navigation. The present edition of the publication features extended coverage of the tidal calculations and modern chart work. The main content of the volume is arranged in two section.

The first section consists of eight chapters covering the measurement of ship's position, distance and direction, considering the effect of wind and tide, position lines, tides, tidal streams, sailings, the traverse table and transferred position line, the celestial sphere, the nautical almanac, and compass error by the astro-observation.

The second section of the book is made of seven chapters dealing with the position circles, position lines, altitude correction, the Pole Star problem and Great Circle sailing, and many other important aspects. The publication has already been proven very effective for training due to the approach used by the author who presented the material in a very understandable way - numerous editions of the title have all been very well met by the people preparing for the relevant exams.

Another old-time classics. This is a world popular treatise written by one of the prominent navigation experts. The documents is full of useful information about the marine navigation and nautical astronomy and as such its content will be interesting to the navigators and students. Of course, taking into account that the original edition of the book was published bore than one century ago, it cannot reflect all technological advances that took place after that, such as the electronic navigation aids and so many others.

However, the fundamentals of navigation are explained in such a clear and understandable manner that we would still recommend the book even to the learners of today. Needless to say that it will also be an excellent exhibit in the collection of any navigator or person with the interest in maritime world.

The material of the book is divided into ten chapters covering plane sailing together with the Mercator's sailing and middle latitude sailing, course and Great Circle sailing, time and most important astronomical terminology, longitude and latitude, altitude correction, the Hour Angle and the Nautical Almanac. Most of the terms used have been provided with the explanation. Numerous examples are given for easier understanding.

The present publication continues the series commenced with several other releases, such as the original Marine Navigation and Safety of Sea Transportation, and subsequently released titles addressing Maritime Transport and Shipping, STCW Maritime Education and Training, Miscellaneous Problems in Marine Navigation, Transport and Shipping, Navigation Problems, International Recent Issues About ECDIS, E-Navigation and Safety at Sea, Transport Systems and Processes, and Methods and Algorithms in Navigation.

The book will provide readers with the thorough research of the maritime shipping industry creating a sort of forum for the marine engineers and ship navigators, transportation researchers, scientists and all other persons with professional interest in maritime industry.

The author has covered all important technological, scientific, social and economic aspects of the industry, marine navigation and transportation, publishing truly innovative research on relevant subjects. The book is intended to put the maritime studies in a much broader comparative and international context and is aimed at the industry professionals to share the experience as well as technical knowledge and results of the researches in the field.

Well, this is maybe the oldest of the books that have been presented here. This eleventh edition of A Complete Epitome of Practical Navigation was released in 1835. Written by a professional teacher of marine navigation and nautical astronomy, it was used for decades for learning students and future mariners. The language of the text is beautiful, the explanations are very clear and understandable.

Even today, in a world of electronic navigation instruments, knowing the fundamentals of navigation and sailing is an important thing. Covering absolutely all important areas of marine navigation, this volume may be deservedly called on of the best and classic training sources in the history. Note that the theoretical part of the publication is supplemented with numerous tables.

According to the author, the navigation itself is a sort of the art instructing the mariners in what manner they should conduct their vessels through the ocean, getting from one part of the world to another, in a safest but fastest way. Have a look in the book and save a copy for yourself. This will be a good and useful title in your collection of navigation related books even if you sail on a modern and fully equipped ship.

The present volume is acting as an excellent and very valuable manual for the old time navigation methods using the stars and providing sailors and pilots with the means to determine their current location. Even taking into account the prevalence of the GPS taking place today, a really comprehensive collection of the formulae that can actually be used on the regular calculators in case of catastrophic system or software failures shall be considered a vital failsafe.

It will also serve as a link to the centuries of explorations. The volume opens with the fundamentals of the positional astronomy, moving to the complex mathematics required to get better understanding of the ephemerides and data tables demonstrating the future positions of the planets and stars. The declared goal of the author is two-fold - the first goal is to provide the readers with the concise manual applicable to the astronavigation and then to furnish the algorithms to find the actual position of the Sun and stars at any given time.

There are so many navigators that rely on the modern technology being vulnerable to various electrical issues, solar flares etc., and the information and knowledge provided by the author of this book will definitely be a sort of backup...

The content of the present document was prepared in compliance with the provisions of ColReg. It starts with the explanation of main abbreviations used throughout the text of the document. Then the authors proceed to various situations, and the first situation is two sailing ships which have wing blowing on same side - as we know from the Rule 12 of ColReg, in such case one of the vessels shall keep clearly out of the second vessel's way.

Then we check the situation with same vessels but having the wind blowing on different sides. Should the wind side be unknown, this will be a separate condition to consider. Each of the pages of this document is dealing with one particular situation checking what is required to be done in each case.

This makes it very useful as a supplementary source for the students and trainees willing to improve their knowledge of ColReg rules and get much better and deeper understanding of the safe navigation principles. Taking into account that the authors have managed to cover more than sixty different situation, we are recommending this volume to every single trainee. Have a look and you will definitely appreciate the information and explanations contained in the book.

One more classic publication first released more than a century ago. The book was prepared and published by the Great Britain Admiralty with the intention to provide readers including future mariners with all information relating to the maritime navigation, and give it all in a single volume that can be used by all students even those having little to no skills and practical seagoing experience.

The content of the manual has been arranged in four major parts. The first part is dealing with the rhumb line and position line, it also covers finding the chronometer error as well as the times of rising/setting of the heavenly bodies. the second part of the book is mainly devoted to the pilotage and details all important matters. The third part addresses the movements of the ocean and the atmosphere - having a good understanding of the subject will play important role in provision of navigation safety.

Finally, the closing part of the manual provides readers with the clear descriptions of the instruments commonly used for maritime navigation; moreover, it also gives easily understandable explanations of how those errors can be allowed for or eliminated. Even after a century time we would still recommend this volume manual for familiarization to any mariner.

The main duty of any navigator once he has ensured that the ship under his command is on correct course, is to satisfy himself that the ship is being navigated with absolute possible and all avoids are avoided. The hazards in question can be human-made or natural, they can be of static or moving type. This requires very professional seamanship which in turn involves the ability of the navigators to be able to perform reliable and consistent assessment of the position of the ship at any given time and also know where she will be after a given interval of time.

The result obtained shall be arrived at high speed and highest accuracy. This publication will provide valuable instruction on the fundamental navigation principles and on the techniques used to put subject principles in practice. It has been designed specifically for teaching mariners the basic chartwork techniques.

Note that it mainly covers the plotting and would better be used as a supplementary training tool or as a part of training course conducted by the instructors having real seagoing experience. It covers such important aspects as the functions of the navigating officer, methods and equipment normally used for fixing the vessel together with their reliability and accuracy, fixing procedure, forecasting of the tidal stream and its assessment, meaning of the various symbols used on charts etc.