Recommended Web Links

I think these are useful/informative sites for anyone interested in the sea and seafaring. I will add to the list from time to time. Let me know if 'link rot' sets in and I'll make corrections.

The Maritime History Archive

Memorial University of Newfoundland

http://www.mun.ca/mha/

Some very detailed archives here which provide a fascinating insight into Canadian maritime history. The site contains a lot of genealogical data which sits nicely side-by-side with the naming of local skippers so, if (like Joshua Slocum) you come from that part of the world, you could do the 'roots' thing.

National Maritime Museum

Royal Observatory Greenwich

http://www.nmm.ac.uk/

The Museum and the ROG share this excellent web-site. The Museum is located at Longitude 0° 0' 0", Latitude 51° 28' 38" and is, therefore, the perfect place for navigator-pilgrims to visit the Prime Meridian. Also some good stuff on John Harrison -- the museum has all his clocks (H1 to H5) on display as well his first clock, which was made entirely of wood.

US National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA)

http://www.nima.mil/

NIMA Digital Navigation Publications

http://pollux.nss.nima.mil/pubs/

NOTE: This site can sometimes be very slow.

The NIMA site is the place for one of the best free downloads on the Web: Bowditch's The American Practical Navigator. This is perhaps the definitive book on navigation at sea and no, you don't have to be American to use it. NIMA acquired the copyright some time ago and regularly publish new editions. Now I have some bad news and some good news. When I visited the NIMA site to check this link, I couldn't find Bowditch. It may have been me on a bad day but, ironically, I was having trouble navigating my way to 'publications'. To save you the trouble, click here: http://pollux.nss.nima.mil/pubs/pubs_j_apn_sections.html?rid=187.

That's not the good news... the good news is that you can download this massive illustrated tome (in .pdf format) free and quite legally. It helps to have a friend with broadband access to the web, but the book is broken down into chapters.

The link for the main publications page is shown at the left. Here you will find links to: Chart No. 1 which tells you how to read nautical charts; the International Code of Signals (which does what it says on the can); the World Port Index and lots of other useful publications, many of them free to download.

William Falconer's Dictionary of the Marine

www.jcu.edu.au/aff/history/southseas/refs/falc/title.html

This dictionary was originally published in London in 1780 under the full title of: An Universal Dictionary Of The Marine:
Or, A Copious Explanation Of The Technical Terms And Phrases Employed In The Construction, Equipment, Furniture, Machinery, Movements, And Military Operations Of A Ship. Illustrated With variety of Original DESIGNS of SHIPPING, in different Situations; Together with separate VIEWS of their Masts, Sails, Yards, and Rigging. To which is annexed, A translation of the FRENCH Sea-Terms and Phrases, collected from the Works of Mess. DU HAMEL, AUBIN, SAVERIEN, &c.

The South Sea Project of James Cook University in Australia have turned this work into an interactive, searchable web site, a considerable task for which they must be commended! If you are interested in really old English and French nautical words pay the site a visit and have a browse. Fascinating stuff.

The South Seas Project

James Cook University, Australia

http://www.jcu.edu.au/aff/history/southseas/

An excellent collection of primary source material, mostly concerning the 18th century exploration of the South Pacific by the British. It includes meticulous transcriptions of the journals of Captain James Cook, Joseph Banks, John Hawkesworth, Samuel Wallis, Sidney Parkinson, James Morrison, and Henry Brook Adams.

A History of the International Date Line

http://www.phys.uu.nl/~vgent/idl/idl.htm

This is one huge illustrated web page containing everything you would want to know about the International Dateline. It was written by the Dutch astronomer Robert van Gent who has lots of other interesting pages that you can reach from his home page at: http://www.phys.uu.nl/~vgent/homepage.htm.

Columbus and Celestial Navigation

http://www1.minn.net/~keithp/cn.htm

Although Columbus was primarily a dead reckoning navigator, he did experiment with celestial navigation techniques from time to time. However, these experiments were usually unsuccessful -- and in some cases, actually fraudulent.

If Keith Pickering's introduction to this interesting page doesn't get your heart beating, nothing will. For more about Columbus -- especially his likely landfall -- start here: http://www1.minn.net/~keithp/.

A History of Navigation

www.bbc.co.uk/history/discovery/exploration/

This animated lecturette from the BBC is very much a potted history of navigation, but an excellent overview nonetheless.

Her Majesty's Nautical Almanac Office

http://www.nao.rl.ac.uk/

The NAO has been around since 1675 and, although their web site looks like it was designed in 1676, it is a convenient way of ordering their essential (for the astro-navigator) publications.

Marine Navigation Course

University of California at Berkeley

http://navsci.berkeley.edu/ns12A/Lessons.htm

I can't remember how I stumbled across this site but, if you are a learning navigator (rather than a recovering navigator like me) you might want to take a look. The course seems to be oriented to merchant marine navigators but that's not really a problem. You can either download the lessons or view them in your browser while on-line. The Power Point (.ppt) Format is used.

Mappe Che Rappresentano Regioni O Zone Geografiche

http://digilander.libero.it/capurromrc/mappegeo.html

This Italian site contain quite a large number of old maps and charts. Fascinating -- if you like old maps.

The Astrolabe

http://astrolabes.org/

An instrument with a past and a future it says at the top of the page.

Start here to get yourself well-briefed on this venerable old navigation instrument.

The History of Cartography

University of St Andrews, Scotland

www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/HistTopics/Cartography.html

This first class review of chart-making is part of St Andrews University's excellent site on the history of mathematics.

Determination of Latitude by Francis Drake on the Coast of California in 1579

http://www.longcamp.com/portus.html

Another site for those of you interested in the history of navigation. This has a practical orientation for folks living in Northern California because you can make a field trip (by land or sea) to Bodega Harbor and other locations that are candidates for the site of Drake's landfall.

Highly recommended -- especially for children.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)

http://www.noaa.gov/

This is a very professional-looking site with massive content (including a library of 20,000 public-domain photographs).