Compass Headings and soundings

[dunedin]

What the hell is a compass?

Yours,
Fred
A marina somewhere.

Optional page screen on your digital instruments?

 

[requiem]

The bearings I don't know use colours, eg 'Red ten-oh', shouted by John Mills on a destroyer's bridge! A dumbing-down for wartime ratings perhaps?

Or, a long overdue spring cleaning to refresh a system burdened by centuries of accumulated cruft?

It's also far more concise when time may matter.

 

[AntarcticPilot]

I can box the compass - it's all perfectly logical once you've worked out the system. But I can't do it quickly and have to think for a moment when hearing or reading a bearing given in compass points, unless it's cardinal points. But equally, I sometimes convert angular bearings to compass points because they make more sense in terms of the relationship to a chart. N, S, E, W, NE, SE, SW, NW all mean more to me than 0, 180, 90, 270, 45, 135, 225, 315 do.

 

[johnalison]

I seem to remember that there was yet another way of expressing bearings, still current fifty years ago in places. Bearings such as 'North 15 degrees East' or 'South 40 degrees West' were occasionally seen, and quickly ignored.

 

[Gary Fox]

I seem to remember that there was yet another way of expressing bearings, still current fifty years ago in places. Bearings such as 'North 15 degrees East' or 'South 40 degrees West' were occasionally seen, and quickly ignored.

That sounds fairly straightforward on the face of it.

 

[Skylark]

I seem to remember that there was yet another way of expressing bearings, still current fifty years ago in places. Bearings such as 'North 15 degrees East' or 'South 40 degrees West' were occasionally seen, and quickly ignored.

Known as the quadrant system (I think). Expressing a bearing this way is required to use Traverse Tables or, if you are so inclined, using Trig Tables to determine dLat, dLong and Departure when estimating Dead Reckoning position by Plane Sailing.

 

[johnalison]

Known as the quadrant system (I think). Expressing a bearing this way is required to use Traverse Tables or, if you are so inclined, using Trig Tables to determine dLat, dLong and Departure when estimating Dead Reckoning position by Plane Sailing.

They used to have traverse tables in Reeds. I used to plan my trips to Ostend with them when I had nothing better to do.

 

[AntarcticPilot]

I seem to remember that there was yet another way of expressing bearings, still current fifty years ago in places. Bearings such as 'North 15 degrees East' or 'South 40 degrees West' were occasionally seen, and quickly ignored.

It's the conventional system in surveying, but not usual at sea.

 

[AntarcticPilot]

I seem to remember that there was yet another way of expressing bearings, still current fifty years ago in places. Bearings such as 'North 15 degrees East' or 'South 40 degrees West' were occasionally seen, and quickly ignored.

It's the conventional system in surveying, but not usual at sea.

 

[Hydrozoan]

I can box the compass - it's all perfectly logical once you've worked out the system. ...

Further back in history and in different cultures, the naming of compass points is complicated with (for example) some languages having distinct (rather than compound) names for the intercardinals, and others having different orders for compounding.

Fortunately for the Romans, given their long cardinal names - Borealis or Septentrionalis, Australis or Meridionalis, Orientalis and Occidentalis - 'boxing the compass' for them meant reciting the Latin equivalents of the Greek 12-point wind rose.
Roman 12-wind rose - Compass rose - Wikipedia

 

[alan_d]

Further back in history and in different cultures, the naming of compass points is complicated with (for example) some languages having distinct (rather than compound) names for the intercardinals, and others having different orders for compounding.

Fortunately for the Romans, given their long cardinal names - Borealis or Septentrionalis, Australis or Meridionalis, Orientalis and Occidentalis - 'boxing the compass' for them meant reciting the Latin equivalents of the Greek 12-point wind rose.
Roman 12-wind rose - Compass rose - Wikipedia

Oh, I do like this forum.

 

[CFG98]

Penberth 3 beat me to it, with an excellent diagram of an old compass card too.

If that diagram is old, so am I.

 

[LittleSister]

Who can box the compass verbally? I can, but quite slowly.

I used to be able to reel it off, but would have to think my way through it now.

Further back in history and in different cultures, the naming of compass points is complicated with (for example) some languages having distinct (rather than compound) names for the intercardinals, and others having different orders for compounding.

Fortunately for the Romans, given their long cardinal names - Borealis or Septentrionalis, Australis or Meridionalis, Orientalis and Occidentalis - 'boxing the compass' for them meant reciting the Latin equivalents of the Greek 12-point wind rose.
Roman 12-wind rose - Compass rose - Wikipedia

I would like to see all future references to compass bearings on the YBW forum use the Greek or Roman names!

 

[Alan S]

And of course “ the helm was put hard-a-starboard” in order to turn the boat to port, even though steering was by a wheel.

Back to the OP.
So if the Officer of the watch orders f or example "Hard a- starboard" was the helmsman expected to turn the wheel to port (anti-clockwise) moving the tiller to starboard and the ship to port?
Sounds like a recipe for disaster...

 

[penberth3]

Back to the OP.
So if the Officer of the watch orders f or example "Hard a- starboard" was the helmsman expected to turn the wheel to port (anti-clockwise) moving the tiller to starboard and the ship to port?
Sounds like a recipe for disaster...

I'm sure it was, during the transition period.

 

[requiem]

During their transition periods (two decades apart), both the UK and the US incorporated "right" and "left" as well as making the reference to the rudder direction more explicit. Various other European countries had made the change from tiller to rudder orders in the 1870s.

Some notes:

• Admiralty Fleet Order regarding change from 'helm' to 'rudder' orders - SNR
• https://www.cambridge.org/core/serv..._on_helm_orders_after_the_coming_of_steam.pdf

 

[Alan S]

During their transition periods (two decades apart), both the UK and the US incorporated "right" and "left" as well as making the reference to the rudder direction more explicit. Various other European countries had made the change from tiller to rudder orders in the 1870s.

Some notes:

• Admiralty Fleet Order regarding change from 'helm' to 'rudder' orders - SNR
• https://www.cambridge.org/core/serv..._on_helm_orders_after_the_coming_of_steam.pdf

Interesting indeed. Thanks for that information.

 

[Buck Turgidson]

Funny reading this thread having motored slowly in circles for 2 hours this afternoon calibrating 2 tiller pilots and 2 heading sensors including a garmin steady cast that took an hour to play ball. All the time I recited the compass points as they past.