Jack Lagan | Barefoot Navigator

The Barefoot Navigator is the most innovative book about marine navigation for decades. While not rejecting a 3,000-year struggle for accuracy and reliability it renews emphasis on personal skills, special knowledge about the sea and sky and the use of the senses – especially the real sixth sense, common sense.

Nothing included here is likely to be found in traditional books on navigation or in the syllabus of a training course. But what is included will improve self-confidence, make qualified navigators good navigators, and enable sailors to stand on deck, look around and just kind of know where they are and where they are heading.

Will GPS cause the death of navigation? It certainly won’t cause the demise of good navigation. The Barefoot Navigator is about wayfinding from what you can see around you and from what you have in your head. It is part history, part polemic, part text book.

Some of the tables and graphics used in the book are available here for download.