Ship Handling & Navigation

This volume is an excellent source of practical guidelines intended to be of use for the engineers, programmers and scientists who require to be dealing with the astronomical predictions or associated calculations. The readers are actually expected to have some mathematical knowledge, more than a basical, therefore this is not the best choice for the beginners.

This cookbook of algorithms provides a huge number of numerical problems commonly coming up in astronomy. The content makes it easy for the readers to use the presented algorithms for coding. Note that you will have to study more than just one chapter of this volume to get full understanding of the astronomical problems because none of them is easy.

The author has focused on the classical math astronomy, though he has also dealt with some of the astronomy-oriented math techniques, for example fitting curves and interpolation, data sorting etc. Astrophysics has not been addressed. Obviously, not all topics of math astronomy can be covered in a single volume so the decision was made by the author to select most important and useful ones for the inclusion in his work. The material is explained in a very clear and precise way helping reader to understand the algorithms.

The present edition of the Manual has been significantly revised and its content has been seriously updated in order to keep it in line with the latest happenings in the field. It now includes all materials of the Rules of the Road that shall be learnt by heart by all people preparing to sit for the Board of Trade exams.

The seamanship itself is treated as the art of handling a vessel together with all equipment and crew members, including the navigation and pilotage matters, procedures for the ship anchoring, cargo gear arrangements, collision avoidance, etc. The theoretical basis of for the seamanship lies in physics and mathematics.

In the real life, nerve and professional judgment and, what is most importance, the practical experience are making the capable seamen. Numerous informative illustrations have been added to the text of this updated release of the volume, plus photographs.

This little yet quite comprehensive book may serve as the introductory one for the beginners and in fact it is not pretending to complete their education or supersede their practical training. In short, seven major parts of the book cover the ship construction, ropes and splicing, rigging and anchoring arrangements, sail making, fore-and-aft sailing, mechanical appliances, signaling and other relevant information.