Marine navigation
{{Short description|Process of steering a ship from a starting point to a destination}}
{{more citations needed|date=January 2023}}
File:Table_of_Geography_and_Hydrography,_Cyclopaedia,_Volume_1.jpg of 1728.]]
Marine navigation is the art and science of steering a ship from a starting point (sailing) to a destination, efficiently and responsibly. It is an art because of the skill that the navigator must have to avoid the dangers of navigation, and it is a science because it is based on physical, mathematical, oceanographic, cartographic, astronomical, and other knowledge.
Marine navigation can be surface or submarine.
Etymology
Navigation (from the Latin word navigatio) is the act of sailing or voyaging. Nautical (from Latin nautĭca, and this from Greek ναυτική [τέχνη] nautikḗ [téjne] "[art of] sailing" and from ναύτης nautes "sailor") is that pertaining to navigation and the science and art of sailing. Naval (from the Latin adjective navalis) is that relating to ships and navigation, or particularly to the navy.Navigation: theory and practice of charting a course for a ship, aircraft or spaceship. Nautical: Relating to or involving ships or shipping or navigation or seamen. Naval: (nautical) Of or relating to ships in general.
In Ancient Rome, the navicularii conducted long-distance trade by sea.
History
Coastal navigation was practiced since the most ancient times.{{Cite web |title=15.1 The Earliest Ships and Sailors — The Outline of History by H. G. Wells |url=https://outline-of-history.mindvessel.net/150-sea-peoples-and-trading-peoples/151-the-earliest-ships-and-sailors.html |access-date=2023-01-20 |website=outline-of-history.mindvessel.net}} The biblical account of the great flood, where the Noah's Ark appears, is based both on myths and on the navigational practice of the Mesopotamian civilizations, who from the Sumerians onwards navigated their two rivers (Tigris and Euphrates) and the Persian Gulf. The ancient Egyptians did not limit themselves to inland navigation of the Nile either, and used the Mediterranean sea routes existing since the Neolithic — through which cultural phenomena such as megalithism or the metallurgy would have spread for millennia. The Cretans even established a true thalassocracy (government of the seas, attributed to King Minos) until the Mycenaean period (2nd millennium BC), when the events mythologized in the Homeric poemsMore than a thousand "concave ships" arriving on the beaches of Troy, bad fortune of the navigator Ulysses and the expertise of the "Argonauts" — among whom is the builder of the ship that bears his name, Argus ought to be placed.{{wide image|AKROTIRI SHIP-PROCESSION-FULL PANO-3.jpg|1500px|Fresco from the Western House of Akrotiri, called flotilla or "procession of boats".}}The Hittites, led by King Šuppiluliuma II faced the Cyprus in the first historically recorded naval battle (ca. 1210 BC); at the same time, all the civilizations of the Eastern Mediterranean suffered from the incursions of the denominated "Sea Peoples".
The Phoenicians — whom the Greeks considered their masters in navigation and who are also cited in the Bible —Ships from Tyre supplied King Solomon with goods from distant places, including Tarshish — Tartessos — to the same destination a Phoenician ship was carrying Jonah, until the crew threw him into the sea when they blamed him for the storm that threatened to sink them.{{Cite web |title=New Perspectives on Phoenician Sailing |url=http://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2014/assyria-to-iberia/blog/posts/phoenician-sailing |access-date=2023-01-20 |website=www.metmuseum.org}} would have been the first Mediterranean civilization to sail the high seas by sculling and sailing, guided by the sun during the day and by the North Star at night. It is recorded that, crossing the Strait of Gibraltar — the "Rock of Gibraltar", the so-called "Pillars of Hercules" in the Greek myths — they sailed across the Atlantic Ocean reaching the south to some point on the west coast of Africa and the north to the British Isles (or even beyond, to the place that the texts call Thule), but it is unclear if they circumnavigated Africa or crossed the Atlantic reaching America, something most likely achieved by the Norsemen in the 10th century.
File:Predynastic_boat_vase_opt451x456_Edgerton-1927_AJSLp121-c.jpg
File:Barque_Solaire.JPG, IV dynasty, ca. 2500 BC.]]
File:Saqqara_BW_11_c.jpg at Saqqara, dynasty V, mid-3rd millennium BC.]]
File:Maler_der_Grabkammer_des_Menna_013.jpg, Tombs of the Nobles, 18th dynasty, mid-2nd millennium BC.]]
File:Antico_regno,_modello_di_nave,_da_saqqara,_01.JPG
File:Woodtrade.jpg (name given by the Greeks, because of its mascaron shaped like a horse's head) carrying wood, depicted in an Assyrian relief from Sargon's palace at Khorsabad.]]
File:AssyrianWarship.jpg flees from his city, attacked by Sargon II, in a type of Phoenician warship called dieris (bireme, with two rows of rowers). Assyrian relief from the palace of Sennacherib, ca. 700-692 BC.]]
File:MazarronIIg.jpg, 7th century BC.]]
File:Exekias_Dionysos_Staatliche_Antikensammlungen_2044_n2.jpg, 6th Century]]
File:Odysseus_Sirens_BM_E440_n2.jpg (Ulysses' companions manage to free their ship from the Sirens' trap, while their leader listens to their song tied to the mast). 5th century.]]
File:Fresco Isis Giminiana Musei Vaticani (inv, 79638).jpg. The inscriptions reflect the name of the ship (Isis Giminiana), the name of the captain or magister (Farnaces, at the helm) and the name of the owner (Arascanius, in charge of the cargo).{{cite web |title=The Rome 101 blog |url=https://rome101.com/2013/12/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161120012119/https://rome101.com/2013/12/ |archive-date=20 November 2016 |access-date=19 November 2016}}]]
File:Museum_für_Antike_Schifffahrt,_Mainz_01._Spritsail.jpg.]]
File:Byzantine_ships_-_Harbor_of_Classe_mosaic_-_Sant'Apollinare_Nuovo_-_Ravenna_2016.jpg), depicted in a mosaic of Basilica of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo, 6th century.]]
File:Le_bateau_viking_dOseberg_(4835828216).jpg, 9th century.]]
File:Tapisserie_bato1.jpg, 11th century.]]
File:Wikinger.jpg depicted in a 12th-century manuscript.]]
File:Greekfire-madridskylitzes1.jpg depicted in a 12th-century Byzantine manuscript (Madrid Skylitzes).]]
File:Galley.jpg or dromon in a Byzantine fresco from the 13th century. The design of the flags is similar to the Senyera of the Crown of Aragon, and the design of the ship can be compared to the traditional mitjana ship.]]
File:Medieval_ship_and_compass_(Mandeville).jpg
File:Musée de l'Arles antique, Arles, France (16006774188).jpg|Remains of a 1st-century Gallo-Roman ship archaeologically named Arles Rhône 3.
File:Dictionary of Roman Coins.1889 P381S0 illus385.gif|Roman ship depicted on a coin.
File:Phoenician ship.jpg|Relief of a 2nd-century sarcophagus representing a "gauloi", a trading ship.
File:Bait Al Baranda Museum-Naval battle.JPG|Model depicting a naval confrontation between a Roman ship and Omani ships in the Indian Ocean, 2nd century.
In the Indian and Pacific oceans, the oceanic navigations made it possible to populate all the archipelagoes (Polynesian navigation). However, the possibility of reaching South America is still a matter of debate — the settlement of the Americas through the Bering Strait would not have required navigation, or in any case, coastal navigation would have sufficed — as well as other possible pre-Columbian transoceanic contacts. In the first quarter of the 15th century, the Chinese expeditions led by Zheng He reached the African coasts of the Indian Ocean. It has been proposed that they might have reached the South Atlantic and even America and Europe, but this proposal has not been accepted beyond mere speculation.{{wide image|Mokoshuraiekotoba.jpg|700px|Naval combat between Chinese junks employed in the foiled Mongol invasions of Japan, and samurai defenders, ca. 1293.}}Mediterranean navigation, which the Romans had come to control (undisputed Mare Nostrum since their victories over the Carthaginians in the Punic Wars [264-146 BC], the Egyptians during the Battle of Actium [31 BC], and pirates), was once again a contested environment in the Middle Ages, from the moment the Vandals managed to attack the Italian coasts from the sea. In the 6th century, the Byzantines managed to regain control, and in the 7th century it was the Arabs who ended up dividing the Mediterranean area,{{Cite journal |last=Pirenne |first=Henri |date=1922 |title=Mahomet et Charlemagne |url=https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Mahomet_et_Charlemagne |journal=Revue belge de philologie et d'histoire |volume=1 |pages=77–86|doi=10.3406/rbph.1922.6157 }} which even the Vikings and Normans were able to access. Since the time of the Crusades, Venetian,Venetian navy GenoeseGenoese navy and Crown of Aragon{{Cite journal |last=Salabert |first=Vicente |date=1970–1971 |title=La expansión catalano-aragonesa por el Mediterráneo en el siglo XIV |journal=Anuario de Estudios Medievales |language=es |issue=7 |issn=0066-5061}} navigators also had a strong presence. Knowledge of the compass, transmitted to the Europeans by the Arabs (who in turn had obtained it from the Chinese), together with other improvements in astronomical techniques (astrolabe, Jacob's staff, sextant, cartographic techniques (portulan and shipbuilding (caravel, nau, galleon), made the Age of Discovery — initially led by the Portuguese and Castilians — possible, especially after Henry the Navigator impulsed the school of Sagres. In 1492, the first voyage of Christopher Columbus took place. In 1488, Bartolomeu Dias rounded the Cape of Good Hope, which opened the route to the Indian Ocean — Vasco de Gama reached Calicut (India) in 1498. Between 1519 and 1521, the Magellan-Elcano expedition circumnavigated the world — measuring the geographical longitude with the method of its scientific organizer, Rui Faleiro. Until the 6th century, the Spanish-Portuguese hegemony in navigation was patent in fields such as geography and cosmography. Both English and French pilots learned to navigate from the texts of Pedro de Medina, Martín Fernández de Enciso and Martín Cortés, among others.{{Cite book |last=Picatoste |first=Felipe |title=Apuntes para una biblioteca científica española del Siglo XVI: estudios biográficos y bibliográficos de ciencias exactas físicas y naturales y sus inmediatas aplicaciones en dicho siglo |year=1891 |language=es}}Diccionario enciclopédico popular ilustrado Salvat (1906-1914) The conjunction of "cannons and sails" has been argued to have given European states the advantage to prevail over the rest,Cipolla, Carlo Maria, Cañones y velas en la primera fase de la expansión europea, 1967. launching the modern "world system".Fernand Braudel, Immanuel Wallenstein.
File:The Four Voyages of Columbus 1492-1503 - Project Gutenberg etext 18571.jpg|Navigation of Columbus' four voyages to America, 1492–1504.
File:Gama route 1.svg|Navigation of Vasco de Gama first voyage, 1498.
File:Detail from a map of Ortelius - Magellan's ship Victoria.png|The Victoria, ship of the Magellan-Elcano expedition (1519-1521), in an illustration of a map by Abraham Ortelius, 1590.
File:Museo Marítim de Barcelona Real 17-05-2009 13-09-59.JPG|Model of the galley Real, flagship of the Christian navy in the Battle of Lepanto (1571).
File:Vroom Hendrick Cornelisz Battle of Haarlemmermeer.jpg|Dutch gueux de mer engage the Spanish at the battle of Haarlemmermeer, 1573; painting by Hendrick Cornelisz Vroom, ca. 1621.
File:Boazio-Sir Francis Drake in Santo Domingo.jpg|Francis Drake's fleet in front of Santo Domingo in 1585.
File:Routes of the Spanish Armada-es.svg|Navigation of the Spanish Armada, 1588.
{{wide image|La sevilla del sigloXVI.jpg|700px|View of Seville, attributed to Alonso Sánchez Coello (ca. 1576-1600).{{Cite web |title=Red Digital de Colecciones de Museos de España - Museos |url=http://ceres.mcu.es/pages/ResultSearch?Museo=MAM&txtSimpleSearch=Vista%20de%20Sevilla&simpleSearch=0&hipertextSearch=1&search=simple&MuseumsSearch=MAM%7C&MuseumsRolSearch=11&%20Ficha%20en%20Ceres-Ministerio%20de%20Cultura-Museo%20de%20Am%C3%A9rica |access-date=2023-01-19 |website=ceres.mcu.es |language=es}}}}{{wide image|16th century Portuguese Spanish trade routes.png|700px|Permanent navigation routes of the Spanish (in white) and Portuguese (in blue) fleets since the 16th century. The Spanish treasure fleet crossed the Atlantic, the Manila Galleon the Pacific; the India armada circumnavigated Africa.}}
File:The conquest of the great Northwest; being the story of the Adventurers of England known as The Hudson's Bay Company. New pages in the history of the Canadian Northwest and Western States (1908) (14778654772).jpg|Navigation of Henry Hudson in search of the Northeast Passage, 1607–1608.
File:Wasa, Seitenansicht.jpg|Vasa, flagship of the Swedish navy, sunk on her maiden voyage, 1628.
File:AMH-6135-NA View of Batavia.jpg|Dutch ships of the VOC (Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie, United East India Company) in Batavia (today Jakarta), 1665.Since the 18th century, England exercised maritime hegemony, a fact that was confirmed in the early 19th century with the Battle of Trafalgar (1805). Among the main English expeditions of the time were Captain Cook's (1768-1779), also the second expedition of the Beagle (1831-1836) — which was of great importance for the later development of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. Already fully in the age of steam navigation, techniques and vessels continued to be perfected in transoceanic sailing (clipper), that did not become obsolete for commercial navigation until the 20th century — especially after the opening of the Panama Canal. Even then, the unbridled optimism that characterized the naval design of the time suffered a severe blow with the sinking of the Titanic (1912).
File:"Toma" de Cartagena por Vernon.jpg|Medal used by the British navy to celebrate the capture of Cartagena de Indias, that did not take place (1741).
File:Endeavour, Thomas Luny 1768.jpg|Endeavour (Captain Cook's ship) leaves Whitby harbor in 1768.
File:Francesco Guardi - The Doge on the Bucentaur at San Niccolò del Lido - WGA10850.jpg|Venetian ships (including the Bucentaur) at the feast of the Ascension, painting by Francesco Guardi, ca. 1775.
File:Expédition de La Pérouse.jpg|Expedition of Jean-François de La Perouse, 1785–1788.
File:Slaveshipplan.jpg|Arrangement of a slave ship for the slave trade in 1788. The triangular trade crossing the Atlantic between Europe, Africa and America constituted the most important shipping routes at the time.
File:Descubiertaatrevida.jpg|The Descubierta and the Atrevida in the Philippine island of Samar, during the Malaspina expedition, 1789–1794.
File:Real Expedición Filantrópica de la Vacuna 01.svg|Navigations of the Royal Philanthropic Vaccine Expedition, 1803–1814.
File:Turner, J. M. W. - The Fighting Téméraire tugged to her last Berth to be broken.jpg|The Fighting Temeraire tugged to her last berth to be broken up, by J. M. W. Turner, 1838.
File:London and the River Thames seen from the south, from Wellcome L0023697.jpg|Active navigation on the Thames in the mid-19th century, in an engraving by Frederick James Smyth. Tall-masted ships crowd downstream, while barges and steamboats with smoking smokestacks are allowed to cross London Bridge.
File:Jack Spurling - ARIEL & TAEPING, China Tea Clippers Race.jpg|The "Ariel" and the "Taeping" contesting the Great Tea Race of 1866, depicted in a painting by Jack Spurling.
File:The destruction of Russian destroyers by Japanese destroyers at Port Arthur.jpg|Naval engagement between Russian and Japanese destroyers at Port Arthur during the Russo-Japanese War, 1904.
File:Aan de Zuidpool - p1913-164-1.jpg|Amundsen expedition to the South Pole, 1913.
File:Stöwer U-Boot Truppentransporter.jpg|Sinking of an enemy ship by a German "U-boat" in 1917. In addition to submarine warfare, submersible vessels have had all sorts of uses, including mail,{{Cite web |title=Correo submarino - Marinos Mercantes |url=http://www.webmar.com/foros/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=4991%20%27%27Correo%20submarino%27%27,%20en%20Marinos%20Mercantes |access-date=2023-01-19 |website=www.webmar.com}} the oceanography or polar exploration.{{Cite news |date=2007-08-02 |title=Rusia planta su bandera en el Ártico |language=es |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/spanish/international/newsid_6927000/6927179.stm |access-date=2023-01-19}}
File:The Royal Navy during the Second World War- Operation Overlord (the Normandy Landings)- D-day 6 June 1944 A24096.jpg|The Operation Overlord (June 1944) was the largest naval operation in history, in a relatively small maritime environment (the English Channel).
File:USS Flint (CL-97) at anchor in March 1945 (80-G-K-3813).jpg|The United States Fifth Fleet departs for Okinawa in March 1945, in the final stages of the War of the Pacific.
Contemporary shipping has massively ceased to perform one of its traditional functions and has been replaced by aviation, such as passenger transport, although with two important exceptions: leisure travel (tourism by cruise ships) and irregular traffic of people (irregular immigration). Since the Second Industrial Revolution, the main volume of freight transport has been hydrocarbons (oil tankers and gas tankers). Other raw materials are also transported in bulk on cargo ships, but from 1956 onward, a large part of goods of all kinds were adapted to standardized containers that speed up loading and unloading, allowing a combination with land transport (hub). Highly technological navigation has reduced crews and increased the size of ships. For example, in deep-sea fishing, which locates its prey with sophisticated means and lasts indefinitely in time — freezer ships or factory ships — which in some circumstances has made them vulnerable to new forms of piracy.
File:Calypso51-73.jpg|Routes of the Calypso, research ship of Commander Cousteau.
File:Port Havre 2.jpg|Cargo vessel using the appropriate facilities for container traffic (container cranes) at the port of Le Havre.
File:Cayuco approached by a spanish Salvamar vessel.jpg|Boat overloaded with illegal immigrants, alongside a Spanish coast guard.
{{wide image|Hellespont_Alhambra-223713_v2.jpg|500px|Hellespont Alhambra, a TI-class supertanker that is considered among the largest ships in the world in dimensions, displacement and cargo capacity.}}
Methods and techniques
These are the methods used in maritime navigation to solve the three problems of the navigator:
- Determining and maintaining the "course".
- Determining the "time", the "speed" and "distance", for the duration of the voyage.
- Knowing the "depth" in which one is sailing so as not to run aground.
Iconography
The harbinger of a successful navigation was the dolphin, which is why its representation became the symbol carried by all ships.
More recently, navigation was represented as a woman crowned with ship's sterns whose clothes are agitated by the winds. She rests one hand on a rudder and the other holds the instrument for measuring height. At her feet, the ampoule, the compass, the trident of Neptune and the riches of commerce, while the sea can be seen on the horizon, completed by a lighthouse and traversed by ships at full sail.
See also
Notes
References
External links
{{Commons|Navigation}}
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{{Wikisource|Portal:Navigation}}
{{Wikivoyage}}
- {{ExternalLink|https://web.archive.org/web/20071101051158/http://www.geocities.com/alfgon.geo/cnhist-es.htm|Historia de la navegación astronómica}} {{in lang|es}}
- {{ExternalLink|https://web.archive.org/web/20050727082422/http://www.atna.com.ar/|Amigos de la tradición náutica argentina}} {{in lang|es}}
- {{ExternalLink|https://web.archive.org/web/20090422184846/http://br.geocities.com/simaowilson/navisfera.html|Esfera armilar, aplicada em navegação}} {{in lang|pt}}
{{Seamanship}}
{{Ancient seafaring}}