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A Brief History of Sailing Directions
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 November 2009
Extract
Sailing Directions nowadays implies ‘Pilots’, with which all mariners are familiar. However, the term in a broader sense embraces a wide range of printed and descriptive material of help to the seaman. In this paper, which was presented at a meeting of the Solent Branch of the Institute in December 1979, Dr Cotter traces the origins of the publications – pilot books, light lists, tide tables, and indeed charts – which are now available to the navigator. The paper has been abridged.
Men sailed the seas and made extended voyages, without benefit of instruments now considered vitally necessary, thousands of years before the invention of chart and compass, the pre-eminent instruments of navigation. To the question: ‘How did an ancient sea-trader shape his course in the confident expectation of reaching his destination safely?’ there is no complete answer. But we can be fairly certain that early seafarers learnt the techniques of their craft through observation and experience supplemented by verbal instruction and advice from their more-experienced contemporaries.
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- Marine Traffic Studies
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- Copyright © The Royal Institute of Navigation 1980
References
1 The word periplus [Greek περí = around, and πλους = voyage: περíπους = circumnavigation] was included in the titles of some early works in which geographical descriptions of coastlands were given. The Periplus of Hanno the Carthaginian is an example of this type of periplus, which was not designed specifically for navigational purposes.
2 Nordenskjöld, A. E. (1897) Periplus: An Essay on the Early History of Charts and Sailing Directions. Stockholm.Google Scholar
3 Herodotus (c. 450 B.C.). The Histories. Edited by Komroff, M. (1928) from a translation by G. Rawlinson. New YorkGoogle Scholar.
4 Herodotus, during his peregrinations in Egypt in the fifth century B.C., heard about the voyage ordered by Necho in the seventh century B.C. ‘As for Libya,’ wrote Herodotus ‘we know it to be washed on all sides by the sea, except where it is attached to Asia. This discovery was made by Nechos, the Egyptian King, who on desisting from the canal which he had begun between the Nile and the Arabian Gulf, sent to sea a number of ships manned by Phoenicians, with orders to make for the Pillars of Hercules, and return to Egypt through them, and by the Mediterranean. The Phoenicians took their departure from Egypt by way of the Erythraean Sea, and so sailed into the southern ocean. When autumn came, they went ashore, wherever they might happen to be, and having sown a tract of land with corn, waited until the grain was fit to cut. Having reaped it, they again set sail: and thus it came to pass that two whole years went by, and it was not till the third year that they doubled the Pillars of Hercules, and made good their voyage home…
5 Anon. (c. A.D. 50). The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea: Travel and Trade in the Indian Ocean by a Merchant of the First Century. Translated from the Greek and annotated by Schoff, W. H. (1912). New York and London.Google Scholar
6 It is interesting to reflect on the word ‘chart’. It stems from the Greek ‘χáρτης’ and the Latin ‘charta’, meaning ‘leaf of papyrus or paper’. In ancient times a piece of writing, especially a systematic set of rules, was known as a ‘chart’, although later the word came to be used to denote a pictorial map, or nautical chart.
7 Portolan charts are characterized by the maze of intersecting rhumb-lines that cover the sea area. The term ‘compass-chart’ is sometimes used to describe a portolan chart. It has been argued that the rhumb-lines on a portolan chart indicate that such charts were constructed on the basis of magnetic bearings; and were, therefore, invented after the advent of the magnetic compass. The earliest dated portolan chart extant is one signed by Pietro Vesconte in 1311. See Cortesao, A. (1969), History of Portuguese Cartography, vol. 1. Coimbra.Google Scholar
8 Taylor, E. G. R. (1951). The oldest Mediterranean pilot. This Journal, 4, 81.Google Scholar
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10 The word ‘roteiro’ appears to come from the same root as the French ‘route’, meaning ‘a direction taken when travelling from one place to another’. In modern Portuguese: ‘roteiro’ = ‘logbook’.
11 Quoted by A. Teixeira da Mota. See note 10.
12 Dahlgren, E. W. (1897). Sailing directions for the northern seas [in Nordenskiöld, A. E. (1897). Periplus. Stockholm.]Google Scholar.
13 See Lang, A. (1972): On the beginnings of the oldest descriptions and sea-charts by seamen from North-West Europe. Proceedings ofthe Royal Society of Edinburgh, 73. EdinburghGoogle Scholar.
14 Lang, A. (1968). Seekarten der sudlichen Nord- and Ost-see…. Hamburg.Google Scholar
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16 Waters, D. W. (1967). The Rutters of the Sea. New Haven and London.Google Scholar
17 Ruddock, A. (1961). The earliest original English seaman's rutter and pilot's chart. This Journal, 14, 409.Google Scholar
18 The kenning was a unit of distance used by early mariners, equivalent to the distance at which the shore could first be seen from the offing when making a landfall.
19 Cotter, C. H. (1979). Coastal views in the development of the nautical chart. Presented to The Hydrographic Society and to be published in the Society's Journal.Google Scholar
20 This interesting chart in colour on vellum is preserved in the British Museum [Cottonian MSS, Aug. I. i. 58.].
21 Waghenaer, L. T. (1584). Spieghel der Zeevaert, vande navigatie der Westersche Zee…. Leyden.Google Scholar [An English translation of Waghenaer's Spieghel was prepared by Anthony Ashley in 1588. It was published under the title The Mariner's Mirror.].
22 Skelton, R. A. (1965). Bibliographical note to the facsimile edition of Waghenaer, L. J. (1592), Thresoor der Zeevaert. Leyden.Google Scholar
23 Tanner, J. R. (Editor) (1926). Samuel Pepys's Naval Minutes. Navy Records Society Publication. London.Google Scholar
24 See Anon. (1920): The records of some ancient firms of chart publishers, Nautical Magazine. 104Google Scholar (Glasgow).
25 Examination of the book of signs and symbols used in Admiralty Charts, which recently replaced Admiralty Chart 5011, reveals the enormous amount of data that is given on present-day Admiralty charts, as well as the ingenuity of the cartographer in devising symbols (many of which are self-explanatory) to denote this data.