Navigation & Seamanship

The volume has been intended to provide a thorough professional analysis of the navigation regime in its historical relation to the UNCLOS, standing for the UN Convention of the Law at Sea, as well as a detailed analysis of the concepts of international straits. Ana Martin, the author of this title, is examining eight major categories of the straits as they are laid out in the above stated Convention.

The content of the volume also provides the discussion or the transit passage regime and innocent passage, navigation systems in the international straits, presenting the domestic legislation plus TSS, i.e. traffic separation schemes applying to international straits. In addition, the content f the work includes a full catalogue of international straits in accordance with the respective articles of the UNCLOS Convention.

It is a brilliant product of renewed professional efforts to understanding the current status of active rules and current practices that are surrounding international straits. The book is universally useful and practical to many categories of readers. The way of explanation makes the content accessible even to non-professionals and for the specialists of the maritime industry this is a real treasure as they will definitely have the information very useful for their day-to-day work.

This title is mainly intended to serve as a practical guidance to measures to be taken in order to evade the Tropical Revolving Storms and how to "ride out" with the minimum possible damage in case you have found yourself in the centre or near such storm. This book by P. Vergroesen is intended to provide mariners with all required information.

All navigators shall know which exactly information they require; however, it appears to be quite time consuming and also difficult to compile all relevant technical information and draw correct conclusions.  Trying to make this a bit easier, the author of the present booklet has brought all of the information and regular cyclone tracks in one monthly chart for all areas.

The mariners can determine both storm track and speed using the results obtained during the consecutive observations. The first part of the book provides general information and addresses preparations to be made in advance, while the second is dedicated to the cyclonic areas, making closer examination of the strategic courses, weather reports and safety matters in different marine harbors.

The remaining parts of the booklet deal with detecting/plotting of the tropical cyclones, illustrated divergents, cyclone navigation, defining the distance to and direction of the center, plus provides advice on what shall be done at ports when cyclone is passing.

As it is clear from the title, this book is fully dedicated to the squat interaction; the interaction at sea has some resonances with same effects on land. For example, you must have noticed the sway that is usually felt when a car either passes or is passed by a large truck on a road, or the suction that is always created by high speed trains when they are passing through the stations as well as the ground effects usually experiences by the airplanes taking off/landing.

In the marine sphere, the interaction is commonly caused at the time of the interaction between the pressure fields around the vessels. All ships on the water are in a state of balance and they are held at rest by the hydrostatic pressures; once the vessels starts moving, the dynamic pressures are added. When the ship is moving through the calm water, the transverse and diverging wave systems are generated caused by the dynamic pressures.

When the pressure systems acting over the underwater hull of the vessel are affected in any was, the state of balance will change. The ship may go slower or faster, move off her course, rise on to the surface of the water, i.e. squat, or sink deeper into it. When a vessel moves from deep to shallow water, the closeliness of the seafloor will have direct effect on the ship hull pressures as the water gets more and more shallow...

Since the time of the initial publication of this title nearly thirty years ago, the marine navigation has undergone numerous significant changes, and this edition of the book has been revised in a thorough way in order to meet all expectations of the readers as well as the requirements of the maritime industry.

Some of the changes were dictated by the climate change effects on the weather, on the basis of the data collected in the course of the meteorological observations from satellite stations. The sailors working all around the world have found this volume very useful and practical; it may be treated as a go-to book for all offshore sailing expeditions as the content of the volume includes the information covering the shipping routes, safety at sea, weather and seasons, currents - in fact, everything they need to know to make their voyages safe.

The publication has been deservedly considered a must-have one on board every vessel planning any long-distance sailing. It stands alone as the real icon of ship routing information for the cruisers. The author offers different choices of the routes including valuable waypoints specifying the latitude/longitude.

It is a good roadmap to the oceans and seas of the world, providing extensive data on the various shipping routes supplemented with the advisable landfalls plus marinas, i.e. it is an excellent practical reference for sailors.

Seamen are forming one of the integral and critically important parts of the Navy's backbone; most seafarers are commonly assigned to particular duties on board vessels; this course is mainly aimed to address this matter. And, should seafarers decide to get themselves enrolled in the present self-study training course, we will consider this as their desire to improve both skills and Navy.

During the training process, they will be prompted as necessary to demonstrate and prove a knowledge of the important matters covered within its scope by answering the questions relating to the different shipboard watches and equipment to be possessed and duly utilized by the watchstanders, basic knowledge of the marlinespike navigation, boat seamanship and deck seamanship, gunnery of the ships and their ammunition plus very fundamental principles of the Navy gun systems and ammunition safety. The original intention of subject questions was to help trainees better understand the training material.

Trainees who successfully complete this course and correctly answer all control questions, will definitely get their professional plus military knowledge significantly improved. A very useful glossary of the professional terminology used in the content of this plus all relevant training courses is provided for ready practical reference.

Another non-resident NAVEDTRA Quartermaster course. The main content is starting with the introduction to navigation providing the enrolled trainees with the required fundamental info directly related to the basic navigation. As quartermasters, seamen are commonly engaged in many various aspects of marine navigation. Subject discipline is looked at as both art and science; it actually means that basic knowledge of math will be considered a must to suffice the navigator's needs, because in the real life there can be no feeling that can ever be compared to knowing in case you form a part of the team responsible for the safe navigation of your vessel.

The training material contained in this part of the training volume will enable all trainees to describe the TCS, standing for the "terrestrial coordinate system", dead reckoned track, correctly interpret the symbology of the navigation charts and be able to determine their accuracy, plot the directions and positions, measure the distances, properly describe the CCS, i.e. "chart correction system" and get the nautical charts corrected using information contained in the Notices to Mariners plus, of course, order the charts, label them and stow as per established procedures. References and glossary are there at the end.

The authors have decided against updating its contents since the fundamental theoretical principles of Parallel Indexing don't change with time. Nowadays, many marine navigators are still not utilizing the Parallel Indexing technique to monitor their ship's progress and their ship is going aground simply because the bridge team doesn't know the exact and correct position of the ship at all stages of the navigational passages.

And the vast majority of the modern rasterscan radar/ARPA displays have electronic parallel indexing lines available for use, similar to the type described in Annex 3. Unfortunately we have already had GPS assisted groundings due to inability of the navigators to correct the GPS displayed position using the datum corrections required before plotting the corrected position on the chart A.

Jet fighter pilot recently said that the major problem with GPS is that I know where my aircraft is, but where is the position of the airfield? Thus Parallel Indexing used in conjunction with keeping a due visual lookout supplemented with the various electronic navigational aids that are readily available, will continue for future years to provide the prudent navigator with that critically important piece of practical navigational information, the position of the vessel now.

Every sailboat underway requires some form of auto-steering for the short-handed boat crew to be released from steering every minute during the voyage. The electronic pilots used for this purpose are the common choice for the coastal cruising and weekend voyages. The intention of Peter Forthmann, the author of the present title, was to explain all important aspects of the automatic steering together with the associated electronic equipment, and fill in the huge gap existing there in the marine literature.

There has been nothing like this book available on the marine literature market for decades. The readers of the book have found the content really excellent and informative. The information and materials selected by the author for the inclusion in his work, will definitely provide all interested readers with the deep technical understanding of the most important things, such as the adjustable power arms and bevel gears for the yaw damping.

Note that all information contained has been presented in a very easy-to-follow manner making the volume so popular among the readers of different categories and practical experience - it will be equally useful to all of them. One of the best sources covering the wind-steering and auto-piloting.