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Sailing Directions are volumes published by various National Hydrographic Offices or Coast Guard Agencies which provide essential information to support port entry and coastal navigation for all classes of ships at sea. Sailing directions are part of the carriage requirements defined by the SOLAS Convention.
Sailing Directions contain information on countries, navigational hazards, buoyage, pilotage, regulations, anchorages and port facilities, seasonal currents, ice and climatic conditions. Diagrams and photos are included to help identifying places through textual description during coastal navigation and to support the passage planning stage. This information, when used alongside official navigational charts, will provide context and can help to increase the situational awareness of the bridge team.
Sailing directions, also known as Pilots, provide the local knowledge and awareness which would typically be provided by a local marine pilot.
The oldest sailing directions, dating back to the middle ages, descended directly from the Greek and Roman periplii: in classical times, in the absence of real nautical charts, navigation was carried out using books that described the coast, not necessarily intended for navigation, but more often consisting of reports of previous voyages, or celebrations of the deeds of leaders or rulers.
They were known as Portolani (singular: Portolano) which derives from the latin word portus which means port. Their introduction dates back to the 13th century, first in Italy and then in Spain.
Unlike nautical charts, of which there are no traces in the Greek and Roman era and of which the first examples date back to the 13th century, the periplus and, subsequently, the portolani make use of an uninterrupted and substantially unchanged tradition that derives from centuries of use and experience. The oldest example of a portolano for the Mediterranean Sea is the Periplus of Scylax of Carianda.
The Compasso da navegare, created by an anonymous Italian and written in the Sabir language, the Mediterranean lingua franca, dates back to the Middle Ages. The medievalistso date it back to the mid-13th century based on philological comparisons with other versions of the same text. The term compasso probably dates back to the Latin verb compassare, or to measure in steps, while the connection to the compass (divider) itself, as an instrument for measuring distances, is not excluded.
Among the other important portolan charts created between the 13th and 15th centuries, we can mention the oldest example for offshore navigation in the Atlantic Ocean, created for routes from Scandinavia to the large islands in the north of the Ocean, dating back to the mid-13th century and belonging to the Valedemar Code; and the first French portolan chart regarding the Mediterranean Sea, called Le grant routier, and written in 1485 but then reproduced, on several occasions, until 1643.
The texts dating back to the aforementioned periods were not accompanied by nautical charts, except for some drawings of the coastal profiles, printed or inserted later between the pages. With the advent of geographical explorations in the fifteenth century in Spain and Portugal, portolan charts were covered by state secrecy.
The other nautical charts of the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, mostly handwritten on parchments called portolaniche, sometimes not bound, sometimes collected in atlases, were accompanied by extensive descriptive legends of particular features of the coast, and instructions for the seafarer. These maps were drawn without taking into account the curvature of the Earth and had rhumb lines on them: this made them unsuitable for use as a guide when crossing an ocean. They were instead useful when navigating in small seas, such as the Mediterranean and the Red Sea.
The first portolan with nautical charts is De Spieghel der Zeevaerdt, published between 1583 and 1584 by the Dutchman Lucas Janszoon Waghenaer who, in order to expand the market for his product to all the navies of Europe, translated it into French, English and German. Waghenaer's work was so well done that the English Admiralty commissioned a remake of it from Sir Anthony Ashley, who produced The Mariners' Mirrour, published around 1588 and later released in a French edition with the name Du Miroir de la navigation in 1590.
Throughout the 17th century, large portolan-atlases were used in Europe, usually of Dutch production even if derived from foreign maps, in several volumes covering the entire globe, which included a detailed description of the coasts from port to port, accompanied by rudimentary views of the coast inserted in the text, as well as nautical charts at variable scales.
Only in the 18th century was the portolano definitively distinguished from the nautical chart: the charts were mainly grouped together in atlases of regional size, and the portolano took on the value it has today, that is, a nautical document produced by official cartographic bodies.
Many nations publish Sailing Directions for their home waters and in foreign waters, where they are the designated by the International Hydrographic Organization' s (IHO) as the Primary Charting Authority. Neighbouring countries or other countries where there is a national interest are also often covered with a few Hydrographic Offices offering a worldwide coverage. Volumes are usually published in the national language but many countries publish also an equivalent English version. Some nations make their own volumes available for free download, while others sell them directly or through agents.
Depending on the producing authority, Sailing directions are available as subscriptions, hard copies or digital versions; in order to maintain compliance, the content is maintained up to date by regular updates and new editions.
The recommendations for Sailing Directions are contained under the M-3 Resolutions of the IHO publication.
The text of this article originated from sections 402 to 404 of the American Practical Navigator , a document produced by the government of the United States of America and amended by marine analysts at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. Following comments about being too specific, the article is currently (2024) being made more general by senior editors at Istituto Idrografico della Marina and the UK Hydrographic Office, avoiding references to specific products and adding the history of the product from other Wikipedia entries as well as more references.
A nautical chart or hydrographic chart is a graphic representation of a sea region or water body and adjacent coasts or banks. Depending on the scale of the chart, it may show depths of water (bathymetry) and heights of land (topography), natural features of the seabed, details of the coastline, navigational hazards, locations of natural and human-made aids to navigation, information on tides and currents, local details of the Earth's magnetic field, and human-made structures such as harbours, buildings, and bridges. Nautical charts are essential tools for marine navigation; many countries require vessels, especially commercial ships, to carry them. Nautical charting may take the form of charts printed on paper or computerized electronic navigational charts. Recent technologies have made available paper charts which are printed "on demand" with cartographic data that has been downloaded to the commercial printing company as recently as the night before printing. With each daily download, critical data such as Local Notices to Mariners are added to the on-demand chart files so that these charts are up to date at the time of printing.
A hydrographic office is an organization which is devoted to acquiring and publishing hydrographic information.
Piloting or pilotage is the process of navigating on water or in the air using fixed points of reference on the sea or on land, usually with reference to a nautical chart or aeronautical chart to obtain a fix of the position of the vessel or aircraft with respect to a desired course or location. Horizontal fixes of position from known reference points may be obtained by sight or by radar. Vertical position may be obtained by depth sounder to determine depth of the water body below a vessel or by altimeter to determine an aircraft's altitude, from which its distance above the ground can be deduced. Piloting a vessel is usually practiced close to shore or on inland waterways. Pilotage of an aircraft is practiced under visual meteorological conditions for flight.
Portolan charts are nautical charts, first made in the 13th century in the Mediterranean basin and later expanded to include other regions. The word portolan comes from the Italian portolano, meaning "related to ports or harbors", and which since at least the 17th century designates "a collection of sailing directions".
A notice to mariners advises mariners of important matters affecting navigational safety, including new hydrographic information, changes in channels and aids to navigation, and other important data.
A local notice to mariners is an authoritative instruction issued by a designated official, typically the harbormaster.
United States Coast Pilot is a ten-volume American navigation publication distributed yearly by the Office of Coast Survey, a part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Ocean Service. The purpose of the publication is to supplement nautical charts of the waters of the United States.
Nautical publications is a technical term used in maritime circles describing a set of publications, either published by national governments or by commercial and professional organisations, for use in safe navigation of ships, boats, and similar vessels. Other publications might cover topics such as seamanship and cargo operations. In the UK, the United Kingdom Hydrographic Office, the Witherby Publishing Group and the Nautical Institute provide numerous navigational publications, including charts, publications on how to navigate and passage planning publications. In the US, publications are issued by the US government and US Coast Guard.
Lucas Janszoon Waghenaer was a Dutch cartographer and a notable figure of the Golden Age of Netherlandish cartography, known for his pioneering contributions on the subject of nautical cartography.
"Majorcan cartographic school" is the term coined by historians to refer to the collection of predominantly Jewish cartographers, cosmographers and navigational instrument-makers and some Christian associates that flourished in Majorca in the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries until the expulsion of the Jews. The label is usually inclusive of those who worked in Catalonia. The Majorcan school is frequently contrasted with the contemporary Italian cartography school.
The Carta Pisana or Carte Pisane is a map probably made at the end of the 13th century, about 1275–1300, currently conserved in the Département des cartes et plans at the Bibliothèque nationale de France. New research suggests that it was made a century later. It was found in Pisa, hence its name. It shows the whole Mediterranean, the Black Sea and a part of the Atlantic coast, from the north of present-day Morocco to the present-day Netherlands, but the accuracy of the map is mostly limited to the Mediterranean. It is the oldest surviving nautical chart. It is a portolan chart, showing a detailed survey of the coasts, and many ports, but bears no indication on the topography or toponymy of the inland. On the map, North is on the top, in contrast to other maps of the same period such as the Hereford Mappa Mundi, where East is on the top.
The Tammar Luxoro Atlas, or Atlante Luxoro, is an anonymous collection of Italian portolan charts from the early 15th century, currently held at the Biblioteca Civica Berio in Genoa, Italy. The author is unknown, although believed to have been made by Francesco de Cesanis of Venice.
The Cornaro Atlas is an extensive Venetian collection of nautical charts and tracts, currently held in the Egerton Collection of manuscripts of the British Library.
A rutter is a mariner's handbook of written sailing directions. Before the advent of nautical charts, rutters were the primary store of geographic information for maritime navigation.
The rule of marteloio is a medieval technique of navigational computation that uses compass direction, distance and a simple trigonometric table known as the toleta de marteloio. The rule told mariners how to plot the traverse between two different navigation courses by means of resolving triangles with the help of the Toleta and basic arithmetic.
A rhumbline network is a navigational aid consisting in lines drawn from multiple vertices in different directions forming a web-like mesh. They were featured on portolan charts and other early nautical charts used in the medieval age and age of exploration in marine navigation.
Australian Pilot is a series of editions of Sailing Directions to navigators in Australian coastal waters.
The Hydrographic Institute of the Republic of Croatia is a government agency responsible for providing hydrographic and marine geospatial data for the Republic of Croatia. The institute is located in Split, and covers scientific research and development, services related to the safety of navigation, the hydrographic-geodetic survey of the Adriatic sea, marine geodesy, design and publication of nautical charts and books, oceanographic research, and submarine geology research. The Croatian Hydrographic Institute is responsible for the development of navigational safety service in the Adriatic, within the worldwide navigational safety system, and in cooperation with the Ministry of the Sea, Transport and Infrastructure, port authorities, the Croatian Navy, lighthouse authorities, and hydrographic offices of all maritime countries, following internationally agreed standards.
Portuguese nautical science evolved from the successive expeditions and experience of the Portuguese pilots. It led to a fairly rapid evolution, creating an elite of astronomers, navigators, mathematicians and cartographers. Among them stood Pedro Nunes with studies on how to determine latitude by the stars, and João de Castro, who made important observations of magnetic declination over the entire route around Africa.
| General references |  | |
|---|---|---|
| Nautical charts | ||
| Lights and buoys | ||
| Geographic information | ||
| Celestial navigation | ||
| Tidal information | ||
| Radio information | ||
| Periodicals | ||
| See also | ||
