What is composite sailing? - Project Sports
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What is composite sailing?

3 min read

Asked by: Katie Hedberg

Definition of composite sailing : a combination of great circle and parallel sailing in navigation.

Why do we take a composite circle sailing?

In many ocean routes, especially in the South Pacific, a vessel following a great circle route could be carried into unnecessarily high latitudes, or indeed theoretically pass over land. In these cases, a composite route may be used.

How do you solve composite sailing?


These two here you'd be going on an east east west course okay. So with composite great-circle then your voyage is in three parts. So you've got right-angled sprayable triangles. Any first part PA v1.

What is parallel sailing?

Definition of parallel sailing



: spherical sailing in which the course is along a parallel and departure is the product of cosine latitude times the difference of longitude —opposed to meridian sailing.

How do you do a great circle sailing?

To plot a great circle track on a Mercator chart the navigator joins his point of departure and his point of arrival by a straight line drawn on a gnomonic chart, and then transfers a series of positions on this straight line—read off in latitude and longitude—to his Mercator chart.

What is Traverse sailing?

Definition of traverse sailing



: plane sailing in which a ship follows two or more courses in succession with the difference in latitude and departure being added algebraically to find a single resultant course and distance.

What is Mercator sailing?

Mercator Sailing is another method of Rhumb Line Sailing. It is used to find the course and distance between two positions that are in different latitudes from the large D. Lat. and distance. It is similar to plane sailing, except that plane sailing is used for small distances.

What are the disadvantage of the great circle sailing?

The advantage of a great circle is obvious, the shorter distance. The disadvantages, depending on latitude, could be quite a few. Colder weather, stronger winds, higher seas and perhaps even icebergs.

Why great circle routes are the shortest?

(iii) Great Circles are the shortest routes between two places as we can connect any two places on the earth’s surface by the curvature line of the great circle. And this curvature is the smallest possible route between those two places, because this curvature directly connects those places or points.

What is rhumb line sailing?

In navigation, a rhumb line, rhumb (/rʌm/), or loxodrome is an arc crossing all meridians of longitude at the same angle, that is, a path with constant bearing as measured relative to true north.

Why is great circle shorter than rhumb line?

Rhumb lines have constant bearings and cross all meridians at the same angle. Despite how rhumb lines look as if they are the shortest distance in certain map projections, they aren’t when traveling long distances on a sphere like the Earth. This is because the shortest distance is that of a great circle.

Is parallel sailing a rhumb line sailing?

All parallels, including the equator, are rhumb lines, since they cross all meridians at 90º.