In a recent paper in this Journal the Director of the Royal Institute of Navigation describes some methods of navigating small vessels; he rightly includes classical astronomical navigation and describes some speedy and well-known methods of solution. In spite of the availability of such tables and mechanical devices the solution is not within everybody's reach because nautical ephemerides are always necessary; convenient tables are the Sight Redaction Tables for Air Navigation (A.P. 3270) from which the elements for tracing out the lines of position through the intercept method can easily be extracted. The simpler tables here proposed present the following advantages:

(i) the ephemeris is not required

(ii) the observed sextant altitude need not be corrected for refraction and dip.