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Originally Posted by Pblais  Well those skill all pay off well. North is still where it used to be. The charts are bit different but not in ways you can't pick up quickly. Navigation involves math many never really understand. |
Paul, one thing I picked up on in one of John's video shorts about navigation was that the compass rose on the map was aligned to "magnetic" north. Maybe that was a mistake...it was different from what I am used to in aviation.
Edited to add: thinking about it, in sailing, you're not so much concerned with winds (except those to make you move), but with currents. And air and water are a medium that move across the surface of the earth. Since you don't have any landmarks in the middle of an ocean to confirm position, without radio/sat navigation, you'd have to take frequent position fixes. BTW, has Loran been phased out yet?
In aviation, all tracks on sectional (1:500 000) or WAC (1:1M) charts, are "true". Winds from the weather station are "true" providing a "true heading" and when the "variation" is taken into account, it then provides a "magnetic heading"...and finally, when "compass deviation" is taken into account, one arrives at a "compass heading" which of course is transferred to a stable heading indicator (a gyro).
The math is nothing more than some vector diagrams. In aviation, students learn to do both; the second is using an
E6B computer which when used is just that...a vector diagram.