Activity 7

Topic: 

 Compass, Bearing and Course,

Answer the following questions?

1.   Discuss the principles and relevance of magnetism to ship’s compasses

The Principles of the compass

A Magnetic compass is a critical piece of marine navigational equipment. Simply put, a

magnetised needle, suspended freely, points North because of the forces caused by
the Earth's magnetic field. Once North is known, the other directions are easily found.

The ship magnetic compass is usually housed on the ‘monkey island’ above the
navigating bridge and reflected into the bridge by means of a periscope like device, so a
helmsman can easily read the compass when he is steering the ship.

The true meridian is the longitude and always points True North

The Magnetic Meridian is at an angle to the True Meridian. Since the Magnetic North
and South poles of the Earth are not the same. It can be imagined as ‘magnetic
longitude’.

  2.  Determine course and bearing in a typical heading relationship

Course: (C) The direction in which a vessel is steered or is intended to be steered
(direction through the water)
Heading: The actual direction pointed by the ship's bow
Set: (SET) The direction in which the current is flowing Drift:
(DFT) The speed (in knots) of the current

The marine magnetic compass at sea is mainly used for steering a course. The
compass reading must be accurate, especially on long sea passages, because an error
of one or two degrees in a long course can make a difference of thousands of nautical
miles in reaching your destination after many days.

The compass is also used to take bearings (see article on celestial navigation) of

terrestrial and celestial objects for navigation, and errors must be minimized for this
purpose. The compass reading at sea must be therefore corrected as accurately as
possible.