American practical navigator
by Nathaniel Bowditch, Philip Henry Cooper, United States. Bureau of Naval Personnel, George Wood Logan, United States. Navy Dept. Bureau of Equi, National Imagery and Mapping Agency, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (U.S.), Jonathan Ingersoll Bowditch, Nima, United States Navy Department Hydrographic Office · first published 1802
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I was an OS in the Navy and The American Practical Navigator: Bowditch is a fantastic reference.
on “Collection of US Navy Training Courses Developed” ↗…the PDF here: https://www.celnav.de/page2.htm Besides that, you'll obviously need a Nautical Almanac for the current year (you can find a PDF online), and you'll probably want a copy of: - Bowditch (American Practical Navigator). This is the definitive reference for anything navigation, it's published by the USCG and you can also download it for free: Part 1: https://thenauticalalmanac.com/2024_Bowditch-_American_Pract...…
on “Everything Is Logarithms” ↗The US Power Squadron back in the pre-GPS 1980s used 'The American Practical Navigator-An Epitome of Navigation (1966)' as their primary reference book. My grandfather ran one of the courses. Amazon(US) has a reprint of the 2002 version: http://www.amazon.com/The-American-Practical-Navigator-Bowdi...…
on “Seeing stars again: Naval Academy reinstates celestial navigation” ↗Same here: haversines seemed normal to me since I was trained as a merchant marine officer and we used them in Great Circle calculations. I still have my old copy of American Practical Navigator ("Bowditch") with pages and pages of trig tables.
on “Obsolete trig functions and why we don't use them anymore (2013)” ↗>As The American Practical Navigator (aka “Bowditch”) states, “No navigator should ever become completely dependent on electronic methods. The navigator who regularly navigates by blindly pushing buttons and reading the coordinates from…
on “Ships must practice celestial navigation” ↗