NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Columbus's navigational techniques
From: Lu Abel
Date: 1999 Sep 07, 8:51 PM
From: Lu Abel
Date: 1999 Sep 07, 8:51 PM
The question of what navigational techniques Columbus used has been brought up in this newsgroup several times. I just surfed into an interesting and very thoroughly researched site on Columbus's navigational techniques: http://www1.minn.net/~keithp/index.htm. For example, the oft-discussed issue of whether Columbus used celestial in addition to DR is explored with data from Columbus's actual logs. Apparently Columbus had no skill at it. At one point he tried to measure his latitude while at anchor in Cuba (approx 19N) using two different techniques and came up with 34 and 42 degrees respectively!! DUH! An enjoyable site to visit! Lu Abel