Dead Reckoning

Dead reckoning is dependant on being able to make continuous measurements of course and distance traveled. A navigator starts at a known point, perhaps a port,rift gold and then measures his course and distance from that point on a chart. Course is measured by magnetic compass and distance is determined by the speed of the vessel multiplied by the time traveled.

Navigators, like Christopher Columbus, made these measurements and noted them in the ship’s log (the journal of the journey). Dead reckoning does not rely on celestial navigation—you don’t have to know your stars to measure distance and time. Dead reckoning was rift gold originally written in logs as “ded. Reckoning” so some think this was an abbreviation for “deduced reckoning.” However, the Oxford English Dictionary thinks the word is “dead” as in “completely” or “absolutely.” A dead reckoning position is one based completely on reckoning—or calculation.