How to surf across the Ocean without celestial navigation

How to sail from Sunspire in the Aestrin archipelago to Happy Bay without celestial navigation: the North Star, the sunrise and the sunset are allowed. A voyage done on Jan 20-22, 2024

Weather conditions

Wind from SW or SSW, sometimes from W

The chart

The chart to be used is available here :

https://moffkalast.github.io/Sailwind-Map/

Summary

After sailing a lot with navigation tools around the ocean, I decided to do a completely crazy and hardcore experiment and to sail from Sunspire to Happy Bay without celestial navigation at all:

I used an in-game chart, the North Star, the sunrise (due East at 6 am) and the sunset ( due W at 6 pm) and a chronometer as a clock to read the time.

I had kept a quadrant and a suncompass and a compass on board just in case but I didn’t use them, they stayed in the hull all the time and of course I didn’t measure the latitude and the longitude.

The aim of this experiment was to have fun and to see if I could find the Happy Bay in the middle of the ocean just by dead reckoning and without navigation through stars. And to my great surprise, I could :)

Navigation Guide for the curious

https://sailwind.fandom.com/wiki/Navigation#Ocean_Map

Dead Reckoning technique

The provided chart gives a possibility to sail by dead reckoning:

First I measured the distance between 3 islands in the Aestrin archipelago and the distance was given by the Sailwind company office:

Fort Aestrin- Siren Song= 38 nm

Fort Aestrin – Mount Malefic= 60 nm

Which means that we can measure each of the 3 kinds of the squares visible on the chart : the small, the middle and the big ones.

Therefore:

1 small sq= 4,75 nm

1 middle sq =5 small sq= 4,75*5= 23,75 nm

1 big sq= 4 middle sq= 23,75* 4= 95 nm

Nota Bene: the comma sign “,” refers to a fraction : so 23, 75= 23 and ¾ nm

And if you use a chip log to sail by dead reckoning, please don’t forget to divide the read speed into 1,6:

True speed= chip log speed/1,6:

See here for more details on chip log use and dead reckoning:

https://sailwind.fandom.com/wiki/Chip_Log

Getting ready for the voyage: the 2 legs

My lateen-rigged Sanbuq named “Susanna” has 3 speed modes:

- Slow speed upwind, that is close-hauled into the eye, close-hauled and close-hauled beam-reach : 3-4 kts

- Middle speed beam reach: 5-6 kts

- High speed downwind, that is broad beam reach, broad reach, running broad reach and running with (before) the wind: 7-8 kts

See the points of sail here:

https://sailwind.fandom.com/wiki/Navigation_Terminology

Bearing this in mind, the idea was to make 2 legs:

- 1st leg from Sunspire to N 40 E 3,5 sailing due East: 230 nm by the chart, that is 39 h, or approx. 2 days

- 2nd leg: the point of E 3,5 is the longitude of Happy Bay on which we can change the course and sail due South, which makes 400 nm by the chart, or approx. 4 days more

Supplies taken

6 barrels of water and 5 crates of food which was cheese, salmon and pork

In fact, I took more victuals than necessary because I wanted to have some food and water in reserve just in case

As a reminder, a barrel of water is consumed for 5 days on average

Ship log day by day

1st leg:

Day 585, 4 55 pm: left Sunspire sailing due East, with wind from W-SW, broad reach, right tack. Raised all the sails during the day and only the mizzen and the blind sail during the night.

That made around 7 kts by day and 3-4 kts at night

At this stage, I tried to steer to E to have the sunrise dead ahead and the sunset dead astern and the North Star on port beam:

Cf. the image here:

https://sailwind.fandom.com/wiki/Navigation_Terminology

Day 587, 9 55 am: had already been sailing on to E for 39 h and made approx. 230 nm as planned.

Turned to SE instead of S at 12 pm since the wind was S-SW, Force 6-7. The speed dropped to 2-3 kts under the reefed main.

8 30 pm: storm from S, adrift till it was over

2nd leg:

Day 588, 3 pm: turned to SE and started sailing close-hauled, right tack, wind from S Force 5-6, making 3 kts

Not nice at all but this couldn’t be helped because the wind was still from S

At this stage, the North Star was on the port quarter and the sunset was abaft the starboard beam and the sunrise was broad of the port bow:

https://sailwind.fandom.com/wiki/Navigation_Terminology

Day 589, 1 20 am: wind change at last !

Now it was from NW-NNW Force 3-4

The stormy weather was over

Sailing on under full sails, right tack, broad reach, course S

The North Star is again dead astern

12 pm: got on the deck after resting and tried to measure my latitude with a lantern, that is by measuring the angle between the sun and the horizon and by subtracting it from 90 degrees:
I supposed it should be like 52 degrees

90- 52 = N 38

The problem was that normally one should measure the angle with a quadrant to get a precise angle but navigation tools were not allowed according to the rules of the experiment

So I figured out that I might be at around N 38 E 4

Sailing on to S

1 30 pm: a new wind change !

Oh my goodness, that was not so handy !! But what could I do?

Now the wind was from SW

Sailing on to S close-hauled, right tack under the reefed main

No possibility at all to raise the other sails because the wind was very strong, like Force 5-6 and I was afraid of capsizing or taking too much water

9 pm: the wind was still from SW, sailing on close-hauled, right tack

But it was interesting to see that it had somehow become less strong, which allowed me to unreef the main

Checked the course: the North Star was still dead astern, so we were still going due S

Day 590, 1 am: reefed the main once again, wind still from SW, right tack, close-hauled, speed 3 kts

Day 591, 7 am:

Approximate coordinates by my estimations: N 36-37 E 5

In reality, it was N 37 E 4 or E 4,5

Wind from SSW, still sailing on to S close-hauled, right tack, Force 3-4-5 depending on the hour of the day

On that day I really started worrying about getting lost: the main difficulty was that I had lost the track of my longitude and was absolutely sure not to be able to find Happy Bay later.

So I just decided to keep sailing to S or SSW to come to the Eastern Trade Winds area on N 32 and said to myself that fortunately I had taken 6 barrels water and each barrel was consumed for 5 days, so that it would have allowed me to be autonomous for 30 days at sea

And then I would have gone to the Emerald Archipelago using the Eastern Trade Wind blowing from the stern, that is going broad reach or running with the wind. In this situation I would have reached the EA in 3-4 days later on.

Cf. the screenshot:



9 am: wind change, now it was from NW at last

Really nice sailing conditions: going on and on to S-SSE, broad reach under full sails, right tack, at 7-8 kts

2 pm: the 1st barrel of water was finished

Day 592:

Approx. coordinates: N 35 E 6 -7 by my estimations

In reality it was N 36 E 4 : no land in sight

And Happy Bay is located at N 35, 5 E 3,5

So I asked myself: “Where is Happy Bay”?

I thought then that I had no other choice but to keep sailing to S to profit from the Eastern Trade Wind and to come to the EA as described above and to buy some more water and food and to go back N to Happy Bay afterwards.

As I estimated my longitude to be E 6-7, I decided that I had gone too much to SE because of the constant previous wind from SW or W

Course still S, running with the wind from N Force 5 like a crazy horse, at 7-8 kts, under full sails

Day 593, 1 30 pm: the water had just turned green instead of blue = > approx coordinates N 33 E 7 ?

In reality it was N 36 E 4,5

Still sailing S, broad reach, right tack

Wind from NW Force 5-6

cf. the screenshot:



Day 594, 3 20 am

After observing the North Star whose latitude it was prohibited to measure according to the conditions of the experiment, I thought that it would have been nice to change the course to SSW to make up for my supposed false longitude E 7

So, I altered the course to SSW enjoying very nice wind from N, right tack, broad reach

The North Star was naturally broad on the starboard quarter.

5 40 am: sunrise

Land in sight to the E !!!

At last some land visible due E and I thought first that it should be New Port in the Emerald Archipelago

Cf. the screenshot:



Changed course to E of course.

I was really feeling like a Columbus discovering some unknown new world full of adventures :)

7 40 pm: I finally understood on coming closer that it was Happy Bay !

Because I couldn’t see anything else: there were neither Dragon Cliffs nor other small islands.


I was really surprised but it turned out that we had somehow made it !

No compass, no quadrant, no chip log and no suncompass

I had measured neither the latitude, nor the longitude, nor even my speed with the tools: it was all by the sunset, the sunrise, a chart, a clock and the North Star.

And by my assumptions.

Great job :)

Day 595, 1 10 pm: docked at Happy Bay.

Mission completed

Conclusions

The experiment showed that this kind of hardcore sailing without celestial navigation is really possible if you plan it well in writing in advance and if know your average speed in 24 h and if you use dead reckoning.

By my observations, it’s quite normal to cover 1 degree of latitude or longitude in 24 h, that is about 100-120 nm.

To be noted that sailboats make 120-140 nm in 24 h at 5-6 kts in real life

Besides this, we have already seen above in 5. Dead Reckoning technique that:

1 big sq= 4 middle sq= 23,75* 4= 95 nm = 1 degree

Still, I think that it is safer to stick only to 1 particular degree of latitude to cover 1 leg and then to another 1 particular degree of longitude to cover another leg. In this way, getting lost will be much less probable and the whole track will make an angle of 90 degrees:

For example:

- First sailing due E along N 40 till E 3,5

- Then sailing due S along E 3,5 till N 3,5

The advantage of this navigation trick is that you always know your latitude or your longitude without measuring anything. That's why it was used in the Age of Discovery when sailors knew how to measure the latitude but not the longitude. The longitude was a big problem for them until the chronometer was invented by John Harrisson in 1730 in the UK:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronometer_watch

Thus, sailors would go down to a particular latitude and stayed on it sailing due East or due West and counting the covered distance by dead reckoning because they couldn't calculate their longitude without a precise clock that would have worked at sea. This is what I did too.

But you can also risk sailing directly to your destination just by dead reckoning if you need to.
I might do it myself later.

That having said, I will now continue my route to the Emerald Archipelago using the compass, it’s much simpler.

Supplies consumed:

Nearly 2 barrels of water out of 6

And 1 crate of salmon and 1 crate of cheese out of 5

Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to fish at all because I had to be working with the sheets all the time because of the constant wind changes day and night

So, finally we made it in 10 days instead of 5-6 but it doesn’t matter much. What matters is that dead reckoning really works even though it is much safer of course to use celestial navigation in parallel just as it was done in real life before GPS and satellites.

Thank you for your attention and fair winds :)

[Dmitry]

Hi Laundry, thank you !

Yes, it was very similar to real life sailing but the difference is that the rigging is simpler: you have only 2 lines to handle your sail, that is a haylard and a sheet, but I think it's a sound compromise to make it easy to handle and yet realistic.

What helped me is my real life sailing experience and there are also 2 good sailing simulators to brush up your skills that you already know about, which are eSail and Sailaway. The former is much more in-depth and optimal to learn it fast.

I agree with you about the sextant but the Sailwind only offers a quadrant or a chronocompass which is more expensive.

Have fun in the game, thank you for reading and for your feedback:)

[Laundry Bear]

Wow! Good read bud. I might try this myself when I get a bit more experience in the game. I didn't know there was so much stuff from real life that was useful in the game, really cool to see as a real sailor, albeit an officer on a container ship and not a sailboat. Would be cool to see a sextant at some point. Happy sailing!