It appears the Norse myth of a 'sun stone' to aid navigation has more substance than originally thought, and is possibly the reason for their remarkable success on the high seas.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/archaeology/not-just-the-stuff-of-legend-famed-viking-sunstone-did-exist-believe-scientists-8521522.html

There is not one shred of archaeological evidence (or even in domestic literature) that such a "stone" was used.

Navigation under cloud is eminently do-able, and has been do-able for as long as boats have taken to water. Vikings, no more or less than any other seafarers, were well able to hit land over great distances in ocean-going craft more or less where they had planned to. Where cloud causes real problems is at night when the stars - the more reliable navigational aid - are unavailable for reference. Dead reckoning was the answer there and was of course the answer during poor visibility conditions in daylight also.

If you sit on a craft that rides waves, sometimes considerable waves, and therefore must compensate for the oscillation and yaw when asked to pick up a stone, hold it steady against the light source and then measure the distance and intensity of two almost invisible beams of refracted light, you would quickly employ the "sun stone" for a more practical use (ie. braining the skipper who has led you so astray and then given you a stone to play with) and revert to a known system which provides results.

nordmann wrote:

If you sit on a craft that rides waves, sometimes considerable waves, and therefore must compensate for the oscillation and yaw when asked to pick up a stone, hold it steady against the light source and then measure the distance and intensity of two almost invisible beams of refracted light, you would quickly employ the "sun stone" for a more practical use (ie. braining the skipper who has led you so astray and then given you a stone to play with) and revert to a known system which provides results.

Lol. Personally I wouldn't have gotten past the sitting in the craft and riding the waves stage, before needing to hang over the side and throw up. Little on doing anything else!

Seasoned seafarers used/use many means to get about the sea. I knew fishermen and barge helms in these waters who never had a chart or compass but who constantly zipped about, up and down and across the North Sea, who always got home for tea when they said they would.

The nature of waves, wind direction, 'feel 'of the currrent floating matter, horizen clues - by that I meanfaint light traces at pre dawn/after sunset, smell - you can sometimes smell a shore long before reaching it and often unique, then there's birds - many clues there along with shoal migration and for the real seafarer dead reckoning, tho I suspect that is based on a subconcious evaluation of all the above. Its a bit like taking a car through familiar town streets whilst holding an interesting conversation - you get to your destination with little memory of the actual journey.

However the topic - "sun stones" aside - is a fascinating one. How many nautical people these days, I wonder, could handle the discipline and trigonometrical ability required to calculate dead reckoning well, even on a short voyage? There is a multitude of recovered maritime artefacts from the seabed, in Europe as well as Asia, going back thousands of years that have been habitually misidentifed or simply not understood at all, but which make perfect sense as part of the paraphernalia one needs for this skill - abacuses being a case in point, many having been found and almost always traditionally assumed to be the property of the ship's cargo officer or equivalent, never the navigator.

I attended an exhibition many years ago in San Franciso at the maritime museum - held on board a lovely 19th century clipper - which addressed the navigator's job and his many such tools over the centuries. Japanese and Chinese artefacts recovered from well offshore wrecks included much of this detritus (as was first inagined) but which was brilliantly sophisticated navigational gear (as was subsequently identified).

Aye, an interesting subject - stars did play a great part, especially rising and setting of certain stars; it's not only 'where we are but when we are.' Despite my list of what the 'inshore' seamen used from experience and instinct born of it,yes, devices were used by those who ventured beyond the coast line in ancient times unreadable to us for the most part and doubtless designed to be used on specific craft; consistency in boat design marked the ages. The Phoenicians were the best in ancient times and were on hire to who ever paid well. Xerxes' fleet used them - and at Salamis.

The scent of land was also used to navigate. An offshore breeze bore the topology and fauna on its scent. Regular plyers of certain routes could literally navigate blindfolded, as long as the wind was the right strength and direction. In ancient Greece in fact a word used to "steer" was interchangeable with to "smell" - "εισπνοή". It is still used today to mean "sniff".

James Vth, used a "rutter" or sea route, compiled by Alexander Lindsay on his voyage to the Western Isles in 1540.

http://www.virtualhebrides.net/FJ.htm

these waters are still tricky, as evidenced by HMS Astute, the Navy's newest submarine and with all the latest navigational aids available, running aground off Skye in October 2010.

Didn't someone get sacked for that? Mark you, a friend who is a seasoned helm installed new nav sophisticated gear on his boat and insisted that they went below and allow him to take the boat using it into port 'blind.' Well they nearly all were blinded as the stone jetty apparently came out to meet them 50 yds too soon crumbling the bow most decisively with a shuddering jolt and causing the splashing of gin about the cabin in a most unseemly fashion.

You can undertand a possible origin of the phrase 'Aye, aye, captain.'

And the waters about Skye are tricky because of currents - I don't know about the 'mudscape' of the place though. Tricky currents do lead to moving shifting sandbanks..... and I have suffered on one of those.

Priscilla wrote:

Aye, an interesting subject - stars did play a great part, especially rising and setting of certain stars; it's not only 'where we are but when we are

Yes indeed, and still sometimes used by fisherman here when they are out at night. My father-in-law was a mine of information on navigating by the stars, and knew them all in all their different phases. Learnt from his father and his before him, necessary information for any islander depending on the seas to survive. Knowledge passed down the line for millenia.

I'm sorry that I didn't listen more closely, but we were in Australia then and the northern hemisphere night sky didn't mean a lot to me. And now, of course, it is too late.

"Scent of the land" interesting, but what about the scent of the sea?

We used to have a dog that laid in the back of the car all the way up the A12 from east London or Essex. But when we turned right at Ipswich to head for the coast and home. The Dog imediately got up. We always thought that it secented the sea?

All right, inshore'off/scents then. A dogmght be useful on board to smell home waters? Why not - 'reading' the waters is another way traditional fishermen found their way about - well judging the currents, anyway, just as one learns to read squall marks acoss a surface to adjust course or to trim sails for speed or racing advantage.

nordmann wrote:

There is a multitude of recovered maritime artefacts from the seabed, in Europe as well as Asia, going back thousands of years that have been habitually misidentifed or simply not understood at all, but which make perfect sense as part of the paraphernalia one needs for this skill - abacuses being a case in point, many having been found and almost always traditionally assumed to be the property of the ship's cargo officer or equivalent, never the navigator.

Here's a re-interpretation of the Danish Maritime Museum’s Uunartoq sundial fragment found in Greenland in 1948. This scientific article hypothesises that the wooden artefact is not so much a sun compass (for determining north) but rather a sun-shadow board (for determining east-west latitude) and thus invaluable to Norse sailors travelling between Norway, Iceland and Greenland etc:
   
The Viking sundial artefact: an instrument to determine latitude and local noon

The Australian navigator, Harold Gatty, produced a book during WW2, for use as a survival guide by Allied airmen downed in the Pacific.

Gatty's book was based on the methods of Polynesian mariners, using the wind, swells and the course of birds as well as the more usual sun and star observations to find land:
“Present day navigators are apt to place so much reliance on mechanical and tabular aids that we sometimes forget that primitive peoples were able to voyage over a large part of the world without any such devices. A study of these primitive methods shows that there are many valuable aids we have neglected or forgotten, and that a continued reliance on mechanical aids places us in a very helpless position when deprived of them. In the lore of the sea and the sky one can still find those fundamental and simple means which gave early man confidence and enabled him to find his way on the trackless seas.”

The Raft Book

A fuller version:

Raft Book II

from the above;

"When Floki, the Norse navigator, left the Shetlands for Iceland, he carried a number of Sea-Ravens (probably Shags).
A few days out, one of these birds was released.
It circled for altitude and seeing land astern flew towards it, thus giving Floki a back bearing on his point of departure.
Several days later, a second bird being released returned to the vessel after circling and seeing no land.
Eventually one of the birds, upon being released, took a forward course to Iceland which indicated the final direction to their destination."

No-one has yet mentioned a crucial implement - the sounding lead. Fishermen, bargees etc. could find the way around the North Sea largely by arming the lead with tallow, and casting it. Depth and sea bottom (still marked on Droggys charts in my day) gave them sufficient information. Of course, for coastal navigation, the portolan chart was indispensible.

Gil,

"Depth and sea bottom (still marked on Droggys charts in my day) gave them sufficient information"
"in my day"...
I forgot that you swam through that many waters...
You told me once...

Kind regards from Paul.

I've been reading about portolan charts:
Portolan Charts

Priscilla wrote:

Didn't someone get sacked for that? Mark you, a friend who is a seasoned helm installed new nav sophisticated gear on his boat and insisted that they went below and  allow him to take the boat using it into port 'blind.' Well they nearly all were blinded as the stone jetty apparently came out to meet them 50 yds too soon crumbling the bow most decisively with a shuddering jolt and causing the splashing of gin about the cabin in a most unseemly fashion.

You can undertand a possible origin of the phrase 'Aye, aye, captain.'

And the waters about Skye are tricky because of currents - I don't know about the 'mudscape' of the place though. Tricky currents do lead to moving shifting sandbanks..... and I have suffered on one of those.

I know Priscilla's comment is from 2013 but it made me think of a radio series from my teenage years The Navy Lark where the incompetent person played by Leslie Phillips used to say "Left hand down a bit" and nearly always bumped into the side of the dock.  It was a wonder that the ship "Trotubridge" was still afloat.

But what led me here was that I remember somebody saying when I was a child that there used to be a canal ("used to be" as at a time before my childhood which was in the 1950s) going into the town.  I always dismissed it but I was looking for something else (I was looking to see if I could find pictures of the "salt bridges" that went over the river Sow and the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal - no luck but I did find mention of the canal.  The arm of the Staffordshire and Worcestershire that was for bringing coal into Stafford fell into disuse years ago - about the 1920s though of course the main canal is still in existence.  The photograph in the link is more of the site showing the Sow which apparently was straightened.  [url=https://www.waterways.org.uk › Join IWA › Join Today]https://www.waterways.org.uk › Join IWA › Join Today[/url]  Not far from where I live the Rivers Sow and Penk used to converge but some years ago the Penk was diverted to join further downstream to try and avoid flash flooding.  However the river valley can still flood if there is very bad rain even though the rivers are quite small.

A picture of the (now non-existent) ladder bridge where canal men used to gather to go down the coal arm of the Staffs and Worcs Canal https://www.search.staffspasttrack.org.uk/details.aspx?ResourceID=2261...2...   Where it used to stand is quite near where I live.  There is a photograph of a postcard (circa 1910) showing the town end of the now disappeared coal arm of the canal but I can't link it.  Where the town end of the wharf would have been has always been buildings in my lifetime.  There were shops there at one time but recently a brand new Odeon cinema has been built (not yet opened).

I realise this defunct canal arm was never exactly the Canal du Midi!

LadyinRetirement wrote:

A picture of the (now non-existent) ladder bridge where canal men used to gather to go down the coal arm of the Staffs and Worcs Canal https://www.search.staffspasttrack.org.uk/details.aspx?ResourceID=2261...2...   Where it used to stand is quite near where I live.  There is a photograph of a postcard (circa 1910) showing the town end of the now disappeared coal arm of the canal but I can't link it.  Where the town end of the wharf would have been has always been buildings in my lifetime.  There were shops there at one time but recently a brand new Odeon cinema has been built (not yet opened).

I realise this defunct canal arm was never exactly the Canal du Midi!

The link just takes me to the search page. The round trip down the Sow to Shugborough then back up the cut through Tixall Wide was one I and my late father did several times, by canoe and by punt (specifically built with camping hoops a la "3 men in a boat" for a boat rally at Radford wharf)

The website Staffordshire Past Track administrators have (rightly) copyrighted their images, many of which have been privately donated and shown by the site in a position of trust placed in them by the owners that they will not be used commercially or allowed to be freely distributed electronically.

The site has three images of a truss ("ladder") bridge over the Penk, one of which can be seen here. Maybe not the one you meant, LiR, but in the same area and one, I'm sure, of many such structures spanning smaller rivers and canals during the period. They were often "unofficial" constructions (though woe betide any local authority who elected to demolish them) and built using local "expertise" and labour to answer a local economic need. They were therefore often not marked on ordnance survey maps and can be very difficult to track down location-wise, even when images exist, so it's good that you know the precise location of the one nearest where you live. These things can so quickly disappear from communal memory, despite their huge importance to local communities at one time.

A great website, LiR. A similar collection of old images privately donated to the Oslo Municipality site often traps me for hours at a time ...

Sorry the links didn't work folks - I'm sure I copied the right part but probably Nordmann has it right and the site diverts to the search page (the Inland Waterways one did the same) because of copyright issues.  I know the location of the bridge (sort of) because there is now a steel bridge there, though it no longer crosses the Penk which was diverted into what was previously called the Deepwood Drain some decades ago.  Apparently there has been some talk (which I didn't know) of restoring the Stafford arm of the Staffs and Worcs canal.  They'd have a job taking it into town to where the coal wharf used to be because that area is now built on (I can remember when it - or some of it was a car park) and some of the route goes through sports fields.  If it were to be restored it would have to be curtailed in length at least.

GG, I still see a few canal boats on the Staffs and Worcs though I haven't noticed so many canoeists on the river of late (doesn't mean there aren't any, I just may not have seen them).  When I go to the launderette I sometimes meet people who live on canal boats (a few from "Haywood") and though I haven't seen them for some time there used to be a couple who had lived on a working canal boat back in the day i.e. came from canal stock.