A well thumbed copy of Emergency Navigation is on my bookshelf. It is a really fine piece of work.

Regarding native navigators, I have all the respect in the world for them but there is a frequently overlooked factor. Native navigation depends strongly on living in a given area for generations to develop a community database of local knowledge. Over many years, a native culture will start from home and trek outwards to increasing degrees, slowly building up a database that (combined with keen observation) works well for them. However that system gets derailed very quickly if the native navigator is plopped down in an area wholly unfamiliar to him, with no database and no "grandfather/teacher" community to start from.

The 'crazy white explorers' were many things but they brilliantly leveraged the technology to forge into, and back from, completely unknown areas thousands of miles from home in a timeframe unparalleled in history. The Polynesians covered a lot of distance but they couldn't pull it off in virgin territory anywhere near as fast as the English, even when you allow for the differences in transportation modes.

Previewing my post, I don't think I'm doing a good job of expressing this but it is well explained in Seidman's Essential Wilderness Navigator.



I have a good landnav library and am a complete nav geek who enjoys studying maps even of places I'll never get to visit. Yet I found Gooley's "Natural Navigator" to be horribly written. I'm sure the guy is amazingly capable and if I were in Britain I'd take one of his courses. But (IMO) that book was so poorly crafted that it may well be the one nav book in my library that I couldn't bring myself to finish. If you were my neighbor I'd just give the book to you for free... though once you read it you may charge me for the gift!

+1 on "Emergency Navigation", and I'm not even a sailor.

I can predict an interesting and robust discussion over who accomplished the best exploration - Euros vs the Polys, but my nomination for best all time navigation feat goes to.....
the Homo sapiens who found and settled Australia 40,000 years ago. Some" of the trip involved relatively "routine" island hopping, but I understand there were stretches of open water that had to be crossed. Considering the technology available and the time differential, I am impressed. They put the "sapiens" in Homo sapiens.

I would comment that local knowledge helps,and can be crucial, even when you have all the modern high tech goodies.

I would be willing to bet that those dauntless European navigators got some helpful information from the resident native navigators. I wouldn't disparage the feats of the Euros, by any means. The casualty rates on many of the voyages exceeded 50%. Magellan himself was a DNF.....


Has this thread drifted, or what? Who's in charge of navigation here?

Drifting are we? A good navigator must always allow for the effect of winds and tides!

Heaven knows we have plenty of wind....

Well I'd ded-reckon so!