Okay so now I’ve decided I’m a smart boy. I don’t want to sail rhumb lines parallel sailing. I want a great circle (shortest distance between the two points).
Pic related, I’m on the flat earth I want to sail from the cape to the Straits of Magellan.
Before we get started lets discuss the components of a great circle:
Drawing a straight line between the two points on the flat earth, the shortest possible distance should take me through Brazil and the landmass of South America. That’s fucking weird. So why aren’t ships sailing to the straits of Magellan going as close as possible up the South American coastline before dipping across to the cape?
It’s almost like… the shortest possible distance between the two on a hemisphere centred around the South Pole is to dip towards the pole (i.e. south) and then come up after the vertex.
Can’t be though right. Nope. Nope. Big globe bought off every navigator including me. I’m part ogf the big globe illuminati hiding the flerth truth with my Jewish maths.
>>19138376Which one? The one on the right? Yeah pretty obviously it’s a retarded map that can’t be used for any form of navigation.
Mercator maps on the other hand? The goat. Intersecting each line of meridian at the same angle of intersect lets us maintain a course over ground and keep a steady heading, thus sailing a rhumb line plotted on the chart.
Are these words confusing you? Don’t let them. Look it up, train yourself in navigation. Do some sailings equations, some celestial navigation, maybe you’ll even learn the dark art of spherical trigomometry (lol).
