The paper by Captain Cotter on Edward Johnson and the early history of ship's magnetism published in the September Journal sets the scene for the birth, in 1842, of the Compass Department of the Admiralty. Commander Fanning, a former Deputy Director of the Admiralty Compass Observatory, as it later became, here relates its subsequent history. The paper was presented to an Ordinary Meeting of the Institute held in London on 19 December 1979 with Dr J. F. Kemp in the Chair.

This paper traces the fortunes and development of a small department, one of the oldest Admiralty technical departments, from its early struggles with the magnetic compass, through many vicissitudes, economies, defence cuts, wars, intrigues, take-overs and even human frailties. We shall see how technical advances have led to ever more demanding requirements and I hope to show how, by meeting each new challenge, there has emerged the lively, forward-looking organization that today is still responsible for ‘everything that matters’ in navigation equipment, as it was at its inception in 1842.

In this paper some interesting properties of circular orbiting satellites' ground traces are pointed out. It will be shown how such properties are typical of some spherical and plane curves that look like flowers both in their name and shape. In addition, the choice of the best satellite constellations satisfying specific requirements is strongly facilitated by exploiting these properties.

An application of the model to manoeuvre ships based on the range to domain over range rate (RDRR) concept is described. A simulation of a training simulator has been set up on which the target ships manoeuvre by the RDRR model in response to mariner controlled ships. Results of experiments show that the RDRR model manoeuvres targets realistically. The applications are reduced instructor work load and increased simulator reality. The method has the potential for development to manoeuvre ships at sea.

B. A. Colley is now with Plessey Marine, R. G. Curtis is with the Department of Trade and Industry and C. T. Stockel is at Plymouth Polytechnic.

Reference to a chart of the Thames Estuary will show that the dominant feature of the submarine morphology is the series of elongated banks, of which the Barrow, Sunk and Long Sand are the most important. Between these banks, and with the same north-east to south-west trend, are the navigable channels of the Swin, Barrow and Black Deep (Fig. 1).

The alignment of the channels suggests that they originated as a result of tidal-stream scour of a fairly uniform sheet of fine silt and sand. In each tidal period, streams enter the estuary from the north and flow on the flood in a south-westerly direction parallel to the Essex coast. After about six hours they slacken, turn and flow out of the estuary in the reverse direction. This continuous flood and ebb stream action, with a maximum velocity varying from 2·3 to 2·9 knots depending on whether the tide is neap or spring, has apparently scoured out channels to depths which exceed 10 fathoms in places. If the channels largely arose in this way, the banks represent the modified remnants of the initial surface. These banks are constantly being extended seaward as more riverine silt is emptied into the estuary by the Thames, Medway and the rivers of Essex. The distal end of Long Sand alone has grown almost ½ mile in the past 100 years (see Figs. 1 and 4).

Weather routeing of ships has taken roughly three chronological steps. Originally, seasonal climatological weather charts, bearing little resemblance to actual conditions, gave standard routes. This somewhat passive activity was superseded by the measurement and subsequent forecasting of atmospheric and oceanographic data. Weather routeing became more complex as telex and radio facsimile routeing messages could be regularly transmitted to the ship. This form of routeing is still operational; masters can obtain radio facsimile sea and pressure charts and perform their own routeing, or employ specialist organizations which transmit the relevant routeing advice.

Because of the greater speed of modern aircraft and the increasing complexity of air-traffic systems, air navigation is changing and breaking away more surely from its marine counterpart. This divergence means that navigational equipment designed for marine navigation is becoming less and less suitable for use in the air, and the special needs of air navigation are slowly gaining recognition. This paper concerns air navigation charts; its aim is to show the shortcomings of the charts at present in use, and to suggest a specification for a new style of chart that will meet modern requirements.

At the beginning it is well to define exactly what is meant by the word ‘Chart’. In I.C.A.O. terminology it is widely defined and includes amongst other things maps; but maps are a special case and their use is limited to visual flight. In this paper, therefore, the word is used in its older sense of a sheet upon which the actual navigation is performed.

As a result of the loss of the French passenger liner Antilles after grounding on an uncharted rock in the Grenadine Islands in the West Indies, on 8 January 1971, the owners of the ship filed a petition for limitation of or exoneration from liability in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. A number of claimants against the owners, chiefly passengers in the ship at the time of loss, entered the limitation proceedings and moved the New York Court to transfer the case to the District of Puerto Rico. After the case had been so transferred, several claimants filed direct action suits against the owners and their insurers; these suits were stayed pending the outcome of the limitation proceedings.

Until 1950 the largest ships of the merchant fleet and the major warships had the same draught, about 12 m. Hydrographic offices concentrated their efforts on those areas likely to contain hazards to such vessels, that is to say the areas extending from the shallow waters to the 20 m contour line. The maximum draught of warships has been stable whereas the draught of merchant vessels increased considerably up to 30 m in recent years. A VLCC may risk grounding after having crossed the 30 m line or even the 40 m line. Nowadays, the part of the continental shelf which is best known is the part in which the largest vessels are unable to operate.

Instrument landing systems (ILS) and the upcoming microwave landing systems (MLS) are (or are planned to be) very important navigational aids at most major airports of the world. However, their performance is directly affected by the features of the site in which they are located. Currently, validation of the ILS performance is through costly and time-consuming experimental methods. This paper outlines a powerful and versatile analytical approach for performing the site evaluation, as an alternative to the experimental methods. The approach combines a multi-plate model for the terrain with a powerful and exhaustive ray-tracing technique and a versatile and accurate formulation for estimating the electromagnetic fields due to the array antenna in the presence of the terrain. It can model the effects of the undulation, the roughness and the impedance (depending on the soil type) of the terrain at the site. The results computed from the analytical method are compared with the actual measurements and good agreement is shown. Considerations for site effects on MLS are also outlined.

This paper was presented at a seminar entitled a European Concerted Approach to Vessel Traffic Services for Safe Navigation – EEC Project COST-301, sponsored jointly by the Institute's Netherlands branch and the Royal Institute of Engineers, Delft University of Technology and the Netherlands Directorate General for Shipping and Maritime Affairs held in Delft on 20 January 1986. It was published under the auspices of the European Environmental Bureau, an independent coalition body of leading environmental organizations in all the European Economic Community countries (with a total membership of over 10 million). The paper, of which the following is a condensed version, seeks to comment on the implications for environmental protection of the various COST-301 research programmes, and to assess the contribution which the findings resulting from them may make to future European coastal state policy and international measures.

Aline De Bièvre is with the European Environmental Bureau and John Kemp is Professor Emeritus at the City of London Polytechnic.

The principal aim of this paper is to explore some of the wider social and economic implications of reductions in the real costs of sea transport as a result of the changes in maritime technology since about 1960. In this wider approach we have to consider shipping not as a series of mechanical links meeting with land transport at port interfaces, but as a system which has in recent years undergone processes of transformation, technically and organizationally, which have been of such fundamental significance as to affect several aspects of the spatial organization of society.

Major transport advances have had a considerable impact on society at various times in the past – the industrial revolution in Britain has equally well been described as the transport revolution; but it is always difficult at the time to discern the significance of the social and economic impact of such changes – even now there is some controversy as to whether the too early allocation of resources to railroads in America inhibited nineteenth century rates of economic growth in that country. But what have been common to all transport revolutions are the ways in which they have acted to converge time and space through increased speed of transit and reduced costs of overcoming distance. This in turn has affected perceptions of the value of places, the accessibility of resources and markets, and has influenced decisions relating to the location of mining, agricultural, and industrial activities.

It does indeed give me great pleasure to have been honoured by the request to give this lecture. And it is with a little trepidation that I have chosen my subject, the very title of which could frighten off many people, and I am very glad to see that your Institute consists of people made of sterner stuff. On the other hand, I did feel that the subject in question met the nature of this lecture. It was generally cultural and it relates to navigation. And so let me start on this subject which has a reputation for being difficult. And let me assure you that Einstein's work on relativity is not at all difficult. It is very simple. But it rests on the extremely difficult, abstract theories that we owe to Galileo and to Newton.

The transmissions from GPS and GLONASS navigation satellites include information about the state of those transmissions as perceived by the control centre. In the case of GPS, for example, this information is contained in the data stream in Subframe 1 Word 3. However, with some of the failure conditions that can arise there is a delay of the order of half an hour before this message is altered to signal that a failure exists. A situation can therefore arise when the satellite signals that all is well, whereas in fact it is not. The very high levels of integrity which civil aviation require before satellite navigation can be used with confidence therefore means that the warning messages from the satellite must be augmented by some other form of monitoring. Two alternatives exist: (1) to have a monitor at some fixed and surveyed ground location which broadcasts a warning to the navigating aircraft when there is a malfunction (ground monitoring), or (2) to arrange for the navigating receiver to perform its own internal monitoring, known as receiver autonomous integrity monitoring (RAIM). Each alternative is beneficial in its own way.

Anthropologists tell us that over 500000000 years ago the seas swarmed with some type of marine life and that during the Devonian period of 350 0000 000 years ago we could find the first species of monk fish that is now in high demand on the fish market place and sought after in strange hostile waters by European fishermen. The sharks were introduced to the planet at about this time and until this day have had the reputation of being the ocean's most voracious predators.

Although the merchant navy is one of the earliest users of navigation, it is today by no means the most spectacular user, especially in comparison with present-day hovercraft and the coming supersonic civil aircraft. This absence of the spectacular is, however, not due to lack of imagination or progressiveness, but stems from very natural circumstances. These circumstances are the relatively low-if not the lowest-transportation speed, the application of the laws of Archimedes to obtain the required carrying capacity, and the laws of economics which dictate a delicate balance between investments and net revenue.

It is over 10 years since this ill-fated Fastnet Race claimed the lives of fifteen yachtsmen and the total loss of five yachts. A total of twenty-four crews abandoned their yachts and in all, 136 people were saved by being winched into helicopters and taken on board merchant and naval ships as well as other yachts. Some eighteen yachts needed the assistance of lifeboats because they had lost their rudders.

The annual total losses of trading ships as a result of collision and wreck were considered in a previous paper for the purposes of comparing the safety records of different flag groups. Losses up to the year 1979 were included in the tables. In order to assess whether there has been an improvement, the losses for the 5-year period 1980–4 will now be considered and compared with losses in previous years.

ROMANSE — Road Management System for Europe — is multi-million pound pilot project based in Southampton. It aims to use Advanced Transport Telematics (ATT) to develop the city as a model for transport management systems across Europe. ROMANSE achieves this by providing realtime traffic and travel information to influence travel behaviour, increase the use of public transport, maximize the efficiency of the transport system and provide high-quality information for use in strategic policy decisions.

Orientation within orienteering is dependent on the use of two basic strategies; that is, either a compass or Magnetic-North-based strategy, which relies on the use of one set of information; or the use of a map and landmark-based strategy which relies on the use of at least two sets of information. Walsh and found that, when given the choice, young children use the compass-based strategy when following complex potentially disorientating routes.

The efficacy of these two basic orientation strategies was investigated within three different orienteering environments: (1) a familiar known environment; (2) a familiar unknown environment and (3) an unfamiliar unknown environment.

Subjects, age range from 9 to 10·5 years, completed an appropriate orienteering route in each of the environments. Individual mini-cassette recorders and tie-pin microphones were used to record data using a ‘think aloud’ technique as subjects followed their selected routes. Transcripts of the taped data produced a total number of uttered statements for each subject within each environment. A qualitative analysis of these statements identified the following groups of statements expressed as percentages of the total number of statements (as reported by Thorndyke and Stasz): (a) Orientation statements; (b) Relocation or error correction statements; (c) Statements about distractions; (d) Self-efficacy statements.

There was a higher reported use of the compass-based strategy for orientation within the familiar known environment which supported the earlier findings of Walsh and Martland. Although the percentage of compass-based orientation statements was smaller in the familiar unknown and the unfamiliar unknown environments, there was a pattern in the use of orientation strategies within these two environments. Typically, the compass-based orientation strategy was used for initial orientation at the beginning of the route and at the pre-defined control points along the route, whilst the landmark and map-based strategy was used as a means of maintaining and reinforcing orientation within the route. Relocation statements typically reported an awareness of disorientation and were generally followed by attempts to reorientate. Whilst none of the subjects used relocation statements within the familiar known environment, relocation statements were used within the familiar unknown and the unfamiliar unknown environments.

This evidence suggests that both orientation strategies are used in orienteering routes, but that each strategy is used selectively depending on the environment. These findings clearly have implications for the sport of orienteering – particularly the introduction of basic skills to young performers. They support the argument that is essential to introduce the map and compass simultaneously and that relocation and orientation skills should be coached concurrently.