Modern Nautical Tables

Extract

H.M.S. Dryad's memorandum (Journal, 9, 444) speaks of ‘only those tables required’. But what this word ‘required’ does or should mean could be debated ad infinitum. The main division comes as between a set of tables intended to be an instrument of practical navigation and one intended to be an instrument of technical education, and the dividing line between the two would be a very blurred and disputable one indeed. My own set of nautical tables came into existence because I was convinced at the time that a set of tables, ‘streamlined’ for sea use was urgently needed, and in so far as logarithmic methods may be still used I still consider that my first edition was a better instrument of navigation than any of the four later ones. But whereas I knew that I wanted such a set of tables for my own use, and was of the opinion that everybody else did (or should), I became aware that I was in a comparatively minute minority. In fact it became slowly and painfully borne in upon me that something like 90 per cent of all navigators would use all their sea-going lives the tables they were first taught on. This meant that I had to consult the schools and examining authorities and include all their academic needs, and so my streamlined volume soon began to develop a corporation. I did, of course, try again with my Four-Figure Navigation Tables, but that is another story.