The use of radio as an aid to navigation is a matter for continual discussion within the Royal Institute of Navigation, and it is the subject of fresh papers in almost every issue of our Journal. Two notable presidential addresses by the second holder of the office, Sir Robert Watson-Watt, in the early 1950s surveyed separately the air and the shipping industries and, as was proper from one so directly associated with the origins of radar, made close reference to this form of navigation aid.

The four papers which follow were presented at the Conference organized jointly by the European and American Institutes of Navigation in Hanover from 2–5 October 1973. A summary of all the papers was given in the last number of the Journal.

Liverpool has long been a major seaport and the present centre of nautical education at the Department of Maritime Studies of Liverpool Polytechnic has developed from the Liverpool Nautical College over several decades. Most of the students have a background of experience in merchant shipping and the port industry. The courses include those for certificates of competency, the examinations being conducted by the Department of Trade and Industry. The other main courses are the B.Sc. (Honours) course in Nautical Studies, H.N.D. in Nautical Science and post-experience and special courses in radar and recent developments in ship operations. Higher degrees (M.Phil and Ph.D.) are obtainable by research and an M.Sc. course is in preparation. When qualified, the students and graduates have gone to a wide range of posts at sea and ashore in the maritime industry, the majority being actively engaged in ship operations.

The technological history of navigation and that of time measurement have proceeded side-by-side for centuries and have interacted one upon the other. Improvements in navigation sensors have stimulated corresponding improvements in chronology and, more recently, improvements in the technology of time measurement and frequency control have in turn stimulated developments in navigation techniques.

Prior to the seventeenth century the available methods of time measurement were very crude but, in terms of accuracy, were consistent with the performance of the very imprecise sensors that were available for dead reckoning. The sand-glass provided a reasonable match, in terms of accuracy, to the Dutchman's log.

Radio-navigation systems in which position is determined as the intercept of two range-difference hyperbolae require a minimum of three transmitters to provide a pair of base lines, which are inclined to each other at an angle as close to 90° as practicable. Calculation of position in such systems, e.g. Decca, Loran &c., is generally a relatively complex process as the hyperbolae intersect at a random and widely varying angle.

AS readers of the Journal will know the Department of Trade and Industry set up in 1971 a Marine Traffic Systems Steering Group, to commission and coordinate research and development relating to the problems of marine traffic behaviour and to consider practical measures which could be undertaken as regards the Dover Strait area. The Group comprises mariners, economists, scientists and administrators from the Department of Trade and Industry including the National Physical Laboratory, representatives of the Civil Aviation Authority, the Ministry of Defence and, more recently, the Chamber of Shipping of the United Kingdom and Trinity House. Hargreaves has recently described briefly some of the earlier work arising out of the Group's existence. This paper describes in more detail the activities of the Steering Group from the time of its first meeting in March 1971 to the present day (October 1973). Many of the results of this activity are already known to Members of the Institute as a result of the publication in the Journal of papers read at the Conference on Marine Traffic Engineering held at the N.P.L. in May 1972 and sponsored jointly by the Royal Institute of Navigation and the Royal Institution of Naval Architects.

In this paper the Secretary General of the French Institute of Navigation reviews the progress made in navigation in the Marine Marchande over the last twenty years. The article of course refers specifically to a particular fleet, but it gives a remarkably clear picture of the development of navigation in merchant shipping as a whole, at any rate in the western world. Professor Hugon is an Honorary Member and Gold Medallist of this Institute.

A simple inexpensive optical projection map display is described which converts the range and bearing signals available from ground-based beacon aids such as TACAN or VOR/DME into a continuous map indication of present ground position without additional computing. This provides an area navigation system from such aids within their limits of accuracy, which increases with decreasing range from a beacon.

The display, which is self-synchronous, employs a series of circular map micro-transparencies, each of which is centred on a TACAN or co-located VOR/DME beacon and which can be changed in flight. The transparencies are automatically orientated with reference to beacon magnetic north on insertion, by a notch in the rim. The transparency is rotated by the bearing signal and is translated radially by the range signal to give a continuous indication of present position.

In this paper the Lucasian Professor of Applied Mathematics in the University of Cambridge studies the role of ocean science in the service of mankind, and examines the interaction between the many disciplines which make up that science. The paper, which was written in May 1972 (and a version of which was published in the Bulletin of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications for February 1973), was presented at a conference held in Greenwich on 12–14 September 1973 to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of the Royal Naval College. (Note: the National Institute of Oceanography referred to in the text is now known as the Institute of Oceanographic Sciences.)

Criticism of the automatic (computerized) plotting systems has so far concentrated on the supposed danger of inadvertent hiding, through immaculate presentation, of the effects of radar, gyro and applied own speed errors, which could lead to false assumptions on the situation being made. However, although not stated in the criticism, the errors in question affect all methods of plotting, so that if the charge is valid it is a challenge to the usefulness of radar plotting as an aid to avoiding collision at sea.

Having read with great interest the comments of Captain F. J. Wylie in the July 1973 issue of the Journal, and moreover found himself in complete sympathy with the views expressed, the present writer, who shares Captain Wylie's disappointment and apprehension with respect to the construction of the 1972 Rules, offers some further comments as follows.

When in 1877 Clements R. Markham edited The Voyages of Sir James Lancaster Kt to the East Indies he remarked that the first log-book with printed headings was that used by Captain Reddell on his voyage in the Samuel & Anna in 1702–3. He does not say that this became standard practice in the ships of the East India Company but it would seem that some of his readers thought that this must have been the case. In The Art of Navigation in England in Elizabethan and Early Stuart Times David W. Waters refers to the Samuel & Anna log and follows it with the comment: ‘The logs of British warships were still ruled and captioned in manuscript in the eighteenth century.’

While a great many areas in the world which contain shipping focal points have been designated as routing areas, and in most cases very successfully organized to ensure a safe flow of vessels through them, one area remains outstanding without any attempt having been made to regulate or control the traffic. This is the stretch of waterway in the Malacca and Singapore Straits from One Fathom Bank, lying some 28 miles to the westward of Port Swettenham, to Remunia Shoals off the SE. corner of Malaysia, a route containing many navigational hazards ranging from shoal-water to periods of seriously reduced visibility, and being used by high density traffic including vessels of every type and size.