Taking the dictionary meaning of society to be the civilized body of mankind – what are the relationships between society and the art or science of navigation? To define navigation itself I have used Wing Commander Anderson's definition of 1961 – ‘Navigation is the business of conducting a craft as it moves about its ways’.

A navigation system is not normally changed for social reasons. When changes are made, they are intended to meet new or more stringent requirements, to utilize technological advances, to increase efficiency, to improve safety, or to extend the functions which can be fulfilled. Innovations are evaluated according to their technical feasibility and cost. Not only have social factors failed to influence the nature of changes, but the social implications of changes have also been ignored. Yet greater benefit would often accrue from changes if their social effects were predicted and allowed for. Such predictions are usually feasible.

Social problems in navigation systems are gradually becoming more severe. In the past, man could often compensate for their effects because his role remained sufficiently dominant for him to be innovative and flexible in resolving difficulties, and he retained a full understanding of the system and control over it. More recent aids tend to curtail human communication, restrict the nature of teamwork, and reduce the social aspects of such functions as consultation, supervision, and verification. Man-machine relationships are emphasized, instead of relationships between people. Each man tends to be more remote from his colleagues, and to know less about what they are doing. These effects are generally incidental rather than the reflection of a deliberate policy.

It is of course a truism to note the profound effect that transportation has had on modern society, which is quite simply unimaginable without communications by land, sea and air. The role played by navigational science and its application has of course been somewhat different in each medium. Navigation by air, though, has a special distinguishing feature in that the aviator frequently shares responsibility for the safe and efficient conduct of his flight with another agency, the air traffic control system.

For the foreseeable future, air traffic control will have a major part to play in the navigation and safety of travel by air and so, by implication, future developments in air traffic control will have an influence on society at large.

Turning now from the general to the particular, the author would like to give an example, which may be symptomatic and serve to illustrate the magnitude of the problems that the air transport industry, including air traffic control, may face in the future.

This paper is based mainly on a study carried out in 1976/7 for the UK Department of Industry into the long-term development of air traffic control systems in Europe by a team drawn from the Civil Aviation Authority, the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment and private industry, in which Coopers and Lybrand provided the economic expertise.

Until the early 1970s, air traffic control was almost completely neglected by air transport economists. Economists contributed to the planning of airports and airline operations but not to the third facet of the air transport system. However, in 1970–1, in conjunction with a programme of expansion and improvement of the country's airports and airways, the US Department of Transportation launched a major study of the airport and airways system. This was designed to establish an equitable charging policy between the different categories of user but in the event its recommendations in this area have only recently begun to be followed.

The benefits to society that would result from the introduction of a given marine traffic management system depend directly on the scale of the system introduced. Since the cost society would be required to pay for a marine traffic management system would also vary directly with its scale, by focusing on the cost of marine accidents both from cargo pollution as well as from loss of life, a direct cost-benefit comparison can be made, indicating the benefit to society attained through a reduction in cargo pollution and loss of life per thousand pounds expenditure on control systems.

Such an analysis implies confidence in the ability to assess in monetary terms the effect of pollution on such non-economic entities as the natural ecosystem as well as the value of such supra-economic items as a human life. In presenting our estimates we not only point out their shortcomings but also admit that past research has been unable to place an economic value on some of the dimensions of the environment, and that therefore any estimates for the social cost of pollution and loss of life should be considered a conservative estimate of the true social cost.

It is only when we have reliable estimates of the social cost of marine accidents that we can proceed to assess the net benefit of a given marine traffic management system. But then further research must be undertaken on the question of just what is the nature of the relationship of controls and social costs.

Although its achievement may prove long and difficult, it is surely time to think out the lines along which future traffic systems must inevitably be developed, for we are still largely without any real rationale as to what it is we are to achieve when traffic measures are introduced, whether with IMCO agreement or nationally. We have some of the right answers but have we yet asked the right questions?

Before we can evolve any realistic strategy there must be some consensus across several disciplines; disaster seems to show itself the only effective antidote to fixed ideas. Society is not likely to tolerate this approach indefinitely and a more acceptable mode of progress must begin now, before irrational forces take charge.

The dominant factor has hitherto been safety of navigation, though navigation concerns only the ship and not her cargo, with its contractual obligations and penalties. Yet the risk to society derives almost wholly from the nature of the cargo.

The laws concerning carriage of goods and contracts of affreightment – the province of the ship-operator and his litigation processes – can often be in direct conflict with the statutory requirements of governments relating to navigation and collision, whose theme is safety of life per se and is not concerned with efficiency. It would be reasonable to accept the proposition that the demands of society towards these problems should be solved by traffic-oriented rather than ship-oriented schemes.

The principal aim of this paper is to explore some of the wider social and economic implications of reductions in the real costs of sea transport as a result of the changes in maritime technology since about 1960. In this wider approach we have to consider shipping not as a series of mechanical links meeting with land transport at port interfaces, but as a system which has in recent years undergone processes of transformation, technically and organizationally, which have been of such fundamental significance as to affect several aspects of the spatial organization of society.

Major transport advances have had a considerable impact on society at various times in the past – the industrial revolution in Britain has equally well been described as the transport revolution; but it is always difficult at the time to discern the significance of the social and economic impact of such changes – even now there is some controversy as to whether the too early allocation of resources to railroads in America inhibited nineteenth century rates of economic growth in that country. But what have been common to all transport revolutions are the ways in which they have acted to converge time and space through increased speed of transit and reduced costs of overcoming distance. This in turn has affected perceptions of the value of places, the accessibility of resources and markets, and has influenced decisions relating to the location of mining, agricultural, and industrial activities.

There can be little doubt that the concept of using wind power for ships has a great deal to commend it and equally little doubt that the extensive use of the natural power available from wind, sea and sun in order to conserve fossil fuel resources must be urgently considered. If we leave aside sea and sun, although both are potential sources of some proportion of propulsion, and concentrate on wind power the immediate and largest problem is one of the time available. We may all believe in the principle but the problem is one of arriving at an industry with the appropriate technical ability in any short time. We know that it is possible, as witness the hovercraft industry, and this was achieved by grafting the new technology to the stem of the existing aircraft industry. It might equally have been attached to shipbuilding or boatbuilding or even the car industry. I think in fact that the right decision was made and that hovercraft have benefited from their attachment to the industry with the greatest life in it.

In this paper, which was presented at an Ordinary Meeting of the Institute in London on 23 May 1979 with S. Ratcliffe in the Chair, Dr R. L. Ford outlines proposals for an airborne traffic-situation display. By providing pilots with a visual synopsis of ATC strategy in the terminal area and a collision warning facility, the display would enable them to play a more constructive role in maintaining safety and efficiency in aircraft operations.

In this paper we shall seek to discover what information we need in order to navigate and how this information is obtained. To do this we first define what we are talking about and then, by a logical process, determine the components involved and the ways they can be measured. Efforts to discover whether another science has been approached in this basic way have failed. All that can be said with certainty is that the path is fraught with difficulties.

The word navigation has nautical origins but the scope of the discipline is far wider today. Nevertheless, a modern definition must stem naturally from marine operations. There would seem to be four factors:

(a) A ship at sea is not navigating when she is docked. There has to be motion.

(b) Rocking to and fro is not enough. The motion has to be from one place to another.

(c) Drifting helplessly before the wind is not being navigated. The motion has to be under control.

(d) The word ‘control’ has a negative and restricting connotation whereas travel has positive aims. Hence the control has to be exercised to a purpose. Steering aimlessly, however complete the control, is not navigating.

A definition of navigation should therefore include four features, motion, place, control and purpose. A possible wording might be:

‘Navigation is purposeful control of motion from place to place’.

The object of this paper is to describe, in principle, a method of reducing astronomical sights, of plotting the resulting position lines and of calculating a position from two or more sights. The method, which is thought to be new, requires neither a calculator nor extensive tables and appears to possess some advantages over more conventional methods. After a general description, and illustrations of two variations, the method is analysed in sufficient detail to indicate that its practical realization, to meet any specific requirement, is a straightforward matter of detailed design.

No attempt is here made to translate the principles of the method into a form for practical use. The paper is mainly addressed to those interested in the theory of astronomical navigation; the description, together with the analysis and the illustrations, is available for use as a basis for a practical method of sight reduction – should anyone consider that there is a requirement! The treatment is intended to be rigorous, though much elementary mathematical detail has been omitted; in a practical application some care may be required near the singularities.

A few years ago a series of papers by Frank Coffman Bell was published in this Journal suggesting how collision avoidance manoeuvres could be analysed using projective geometry. However it is probably true that most non-mathematicians have little experience of any type of geometry other than the Euclidean metric geometry which is taught in schools. Euclid's approach was to elaborate a science of the measurement of physical space and for this purpose he deduced a number of geometrical theorems starting from the intuitional ideas of point, line, distance and length. To Euclid and his followers the notion of distance was completely obvious and basic and underlay everything in geometrical science, hence the terminology that is given to this work ‘metric geometry’. Another concept of geometry was however put forward by a group of geometers of whom Pappus is one of the best known. His work shows that he was interested in theorems concerned not with distance but with such things as concurrence of lines and collinearity of points. This type of theorem may be thought of as the projective type. If for example it is assumed that any two lines in a plane meet in a point, then two parallel lines must also meet in a point which may be termed a point at infinity. In projective geometry no distinction is then made between ordinary points and points at infinity.

Shiphandling training simulators have come into use since 1967. Several such simulators, with differing technical characteristics and training goals, are now in use around the world. They are commonly used to familiarize already competent masters with new vessels, restricted water areas, or some form of standard bridge procedures. Acceptance of these simulators by highly experienced master trainees has been predominantly favourable. Ship radar simulators have been in use for a somewhat longer time. They are typically used for training entry level officers as well as experienced masters.

The aviation and nuclear reactor industries, with a greater experience of simulator technology and its training value, use simulators for both training and licensing. The military (e.g. Navy) and other government agencies (e.g. National Aeronautics and Space Administration) have extensively used simulators for training and qualification. It has been suggested (Schumacker, Madsen and Nicastro, 1972; IMCO Standards of Training and Watchkeeping Convention of 1978, Resolution 17) that simulators could be used for proficiency demonstration on the part of mariners. The US Port and Tanker Safety Act of 1978 requires standards for licence qualifications by use of simulators.

The United States Coast Guard and Maritime Administration have funded research into the role, technology, and effectiveness of ship-handling simulators. Depending partly on conclusions from this research, the Coast Guard will consider partial credit toward licences for successful completion of approved simulator training. The Maritime Administration may assist maritime training academies to design and procure simulator-based training systems.

Most lists of the seven wonders of the world include the Colossus of Rhodes. This bronze figure of Apollo, which the sculptor Chares took several years to construct, stood near a harbour on the island of Rhodes in the Eastern Mediterranean. It is reported that ships in full sail could pass between its legs whilst navigation lights were kept burning in its eyes. Whilst such descriptions are coloured by romance and myth, there is little doubt that early lighthouses were substantially tall towers supporting an open wood or coal fire. Such lights existed in Britain until as late as 1819, when Flathom light in the Bristol Channel was replaced by more modern equipment.

In time the open-flame coal brazier gave way to tallow candles. In 1696 Winstanley introduced a chandelier with tallow candles into the lantern of his famous Eddystone Tower. In 1759 Smeeton's Tower, which now stands on the Hoe at Plymouth, incorporated two superimposed iron rings that contained twenty-four candles.

By and large it was the improvements in optical systems that governed the development and introduction of oil and then, at a later date, electric illuminants.

The first attempt to intensify a lighthouse beam was in 1727 by the French at Cordouan. Mariners had complained that they could not see the light at more than 2 miles. In an attempt to improve on this, a cone of wood was covered with tin plate and suspended above the open fire.

On 18 May 1979 the Nautical Institute held a one-day meeting at Dover to discuss some of the more burning problems of traffic congestion in the Dover Strait. The meeting was attended by shipmasters, pilots, representatives of the Dover Strait Information Service, the Department of Trade, etc. The Institute was formally represented at the meeting by the Director and Captain A. N. Cockcroft. The papers had been circulated beforehand. The following contribution from Commandant Oudet was read out by Captain Cockcroft.

From about 7 years’ research work on the phenomenon of Ship Squat I have produced curves (Fig. 1) that will give predictions of maximum squat for merchant-ship types having block co-efficients, CB, ranging from 0.500 to 0.900. They are for vessels operating in ‘confined channel’ conditions and ‘open water’ conditions, i.e. those without breadth restrictions.