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1.5 Mercator Sailing

The document provides an overview of Earth's shape as an oblate spheroid and details the Mercator projection, emphasizing its characteristics such as straight lines for latitudes and longitudes, and the representation of rhumb lines. It explains the concept of meridional parts for measuring distances on a Mercator chart and outlines the calculation of differences in meridional parts (DMP). Additionally, it includes numerical examples related to Mercator sailing and navigation.

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0% found this document useful (0 votes)
13 views19 pages

1.5 Mercator Sailing

The document provides an overview of Earth's shape as an oblate spheroid and details the Mercator projection, emphasizing its characteristics such as straight lines for latitudes and longitudes, and the representation of rhumb lines. It explains the concept of meridional parts for measuring distances on a Mercator chart and outlines the calculation of differences in meridional parts (DMP). Additionally, it includes numerical examples related to Mercator sailing and navigation.

Uploaded by

rnpvt02
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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NAVIGATION I: TERRESTRIAL &

CELESTIAL

UD11T4104

MARITIME ACADEMY
Unit – 1 EARTH

Earth’s shape – Oblate Spheroid (Geoid)


• Polar Radius - 6357 Kms
• Equatorial - 6378 Kms
• Diff – 21 Kms
• Compression – 0.33 %
• Circumference (Eq) – 40075 kms
• Circumference (Polar) – 40008 kms

• For navigational purposes can


be considered as perfect sphere

AEMA © JANUARY 2019


Mercator Projection

AEMA © JANUARY 2019 3


Mercator Projection
• All Latitudes are straight lines and parallel to each other
• All Longitudes are straight lines and parallel to each other
• Meridians are equidistant; distance between consecutive
parallels increases as latitude increases
• Latitudes & Longitudes always intersect at right angles

AEMA © JANUARY 2019 4


Mercator Projection
• One minute of D’long is of same size anywhere on chart
• One minute of D’lat increases in size as we go away from
the equator
• Both the meridians and parallels are expanded at the same
ratio with increased latitude.
• Longitudes which actually converge at POLES on Earth remain
parallel to each other on Mercator chart. This means that there is a
horizontal (East-West) distortion. In order for chart to be
orthomorphic, there has to be proportional stretch in the vertical

(North-South) direction.
AEMA © JANUARY 2019 5
Mercator Projection
• Orthomorphic or Conformal Projection

• A projection in which the scale, although varying throughout the map, is the
same in all directions at any point, so that very small areas are represented
by correct shape and bearings are correct.
• The expansion is equal to the secant of the latitude, with a small
correction for the ellipticity of the Earth. Since the secant of 90° is
infinity, the projection cannot include the poles.

• (Lat Scale = Long Scale x Sec Latitude)


• Rhumb lines appear as straight lines, the directions of which can be
measured directly on the chart. (refer RL next slide)

AEMA © JANUARY 2019 6


Mercator Projection
• Rhumb lines are imaginary lines on the earth's surface cutting all
meridians at the same angle.

• used as the standard method of plotting a ship's course on a


chart.
• On a Mercator chart these are straight lines joining any two
positions
• On earth’s surface, these are spirals, continuously curving
towards the pole of the hemisphere as all meridians converge
at the poles

AEMA © JANUARY 2019 7


Mercator Projection
• Distances can also be measured directly if the
spread of latitude is small.
• Great circles, except meridians and the equator,
appear as curved lines concave to the equator.
• Great circle path always lies on the poleward side
of Rhumb line
• Poles do not appear

AEMA © JANUARY 2019 8


Meridional Parts
• It is a length unit for measuring separation
(distance) of parallels from Equator on a Mercator
chart
• A meridional part is equal to length of 1’ of D’long
on a given Mercator Chart
• Meridional parts are tabulated in Nautical tables;
Values are given for all Latitudes starting from 0
o

upto 89 59’ at each minute interval


o

AEMA © JANUARY 2019 9


Difference in Meridional Parts (DMP)
• DMP between two places is the north-south separation between their
parallels of latitude expressed in minutes of longitude (i.e. in meridional
parts), measured along the longitude scale of the chart.
• Calculation of DMP

• Check values of MP for both latitudes from Nautical Tables


• To get DMP, add MP values if latitudes have opposite name and subtract MP
of smaller Latitude from MP of bigger Latitude if latitudes have same names

AEMA © JANUARY 2019 10


Steps to solve – Type 1

AEMA © JANUARY 2019 11


Steps to solve – Type 2

AEMA © JANUARY 2019 12


Mercator Numericals

AEMA © JANUARY 2019 13


Mercator Numericals

AEMA © JANUARY 2019 14


Mercator Numericals

AEMA © JANUARY 2019 15


Mercator Sailing Numericals

AEMA © JANUARY 2019 16


Mercator Sailing Numericals

AEMA © JANUARY 2019 17


Mercator Sailing Numericals
Answers
1. N 48 26.5’ W, 2749 NM

2. N 69 12.4’ E, 5972 NM

3. S 49 29.8’ E, 2770 NM

4. 3d 15.3’ E

5. Course S59o 56’W / 4293.5 NM

6. 44 53.8’ S / 4491.6 NM

7. 30 16.7 N, 60 00.0 W TO 33 56.9 N, 56 51.1 W

8. 31 23.9 S, 163 45.5 W

9. 43 28.7 N

AEMA © JANUARY 2019 18


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