Read what the the U.S. Power Squadron and the U.S. Coast Guard trust as the definitive authority on electronic navigation, now updated with the latest electronic technologies and methods The Weekend Navigator teaches you how to navigate using today's tools and methods, including the latest technologies such as smart phones. While electronic navigation is here to stay, author Bob Sweet recognizes that they are still based on traditional charts and piloting skills, and he combines the two to pass along to you a solid understanding of all the principles of marine navigation. In addition to its continued ground-breaking instruction for the now-digital process of navigation on board power- and sailboats, Sweet helps you understand recent options for chartplotters, less expensive handheld GPS units, smart phones, and the navigation possibilities presented by phone apps. New to this edition is a section entitled "Ooops," which provides an insightful collection of boating accident tales resulting from common GPS and chartplotters no-nos. Using The Weekend Navigator, you can get on the water right away and learn to navigate in an afternoon with GPS; master chart-and-compass piloting while, not before, he or she departs; plot courses and fix positions on paper or electronic charts; and more.

Can piloting a boat really be this easy? Traditional navigation with its chart plotting, compass errors, and current vectors requires years to master. Serious boaters learn it eventually, but with $100 GPS receivers offering 50-foot position accuracy anywhere in the world, it’s no longer necessary to master the art before enjoying the sport. The Weekend Navigator is the first book to recognize that affordable, simple-to-use electronics demand a radically new approach to teaching navigation. Bob Sweet lets you find your way on the water immediately, learning by rather than before doing. This innovative guide’s quick-reference format shows you how to: Pinpoint locations at all times Determine the precise ranges and bearings of destinations Compensate for wind and current effects Avoid underwater hazards

An introduction to small boat navigation.

The operator's manual that should come with every boater's GPS receiver or chart plotter.

If you want to know where you are, you need a good clock. The surprising connection between time and placeais explored inaTime and Navigation- The Untold Story of Getting from Here to There, the companion book to the National Air and Space Museum exhibition of the same name. Today we use smartphones and GPS, but navigating has not always been so easy. The oldest "clock" is Earth itself, and the oldest means of keeping time came from observing changes in the sky. Early mariners like the Vikings accomplished amazing feats of navigation without using clocks at all. Pioneering seafarers in the Age of Exploration used dead reckoning and celestial navigation; later innovations such as sextants and marine chronometers honed these techniques by measuring latitude and longitude. When explorers turned their sights to the skies, they built on what had been learned at sea. For example, Charles Lindbergh used a bubble sextant on his record-breaking flights. World War II led to the development of new flight technologies, notably radio navigation, since celestial navigation was not suited for all-weather military operations. These forms of navigation were extended and enhanced when explorers began guiding spacecraft into space and across the solar system. Astronauts combined celestial navigation technology with radio transmissions. The development of the atomic clock revolutionized space flight because it could measure billionths of a second, thereby allowing mission teams to navigate more accurately. Scientists and engineers applied these technologies to navigation on earth to develop space-based time and navigation services such as GPS that is used every day by people from all walks of life. While the history of navigation is one of constant change and innovation, it is also one of remarkable continuity. Time and Navigation tells the story of navigation to help us understand where we have been and how we got there so that we can understand where we are going.

A mother and her adult, drug-addicted son struggle for redemption and recovery in this “dark debut” novel that “has the power to lift and inspire” (Publishers Weekly). Night Navigation opens on a freezing-rain night in upstate New York: the kindling gone, the fire in the woodstove out. Retired high-school art teacher Del Merrick’s thirty-seven-year-old manic-depressive son, Mark, needs a ride, but she’s afraid to make the long drive north to the only detox that has a bed. Through each of the four seasons, Night Navigation takes readers into the deranged, darkly humorous world of the addict—from break-your-arm dealers, to boot-camp rehabs, to Rumi-quoting NA sponsors. Mark can’t find a way to live in this world; Del can’t stop trying to rescue him. And yet, during this long year’s night, through relapse and despair, Mark and Del see flare-ups of hope as they fitfully, painfully try to steer toward the light. Told in the alternating voices of an addict and his mother, this “harrowing . . . cathartic” novel adds new depths to our understanding and literature of parents and their troubled children (Kirkus Reviews).