Sailing Navigation Tips: Use This Magic "Rule of 60"!

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Michael W. Perry - 7 years ago

Neat trick. I assume this would also work with land navigation, say to avoid a mountain or lake, and with aviation, perhaps to avoid a storm cloud ahead.

I do wonder why this works. Why is 60 the magic number? Is this just a rough approximation of a number in trig?

Captain John's Skipper Tips - 7 years ago

No idea how the formula was derived, but it's been around for a long time. It should work on land as well.

Michael Samuel - 8 years ago

Captain John, I'm a complete beginner and really appreciate your channel. Thanks so much.

Captain John's Skipper Tips - 8 years ago

Michael, thanks for your comment.

J Roger - 9 years ago

Great stuff. I once had a Navy Captain comment on a Nav Briefing where the presenter kept referring to "Nautical" miles as he described all of the various transits
and passages. The Captain was a bit perturbed with the use of "Nautical". He said to the young Navigator, "Son, are we driving a car?" " No Sir" was the reply. Well then just say "miles" if you please. We already know we are in a vessel and we work in the ocean and that we are not using "Statue Miles"!

J Roger - 9 years ago

Thank you very much Skipper John..Your Vids are a treasure. Fair winds

Captain John's Skipper Tips - 9 years ago

+J Roger Nice one, J Roger!

Fstarocka Burns - 10 years ago

couldnt one just use a (even basic) map, use the scale on the map to gap 5 miles, draw an arc off obstacle and measure bearing change with protractor?

Captain John's Skipper Tips - 10 years ago

There are other ways to do this. This technique requires a single calculation that can be done ahead of time. It is based on distance from the hazard and desired clearing distance.

joao luiz rudge encarnacao - 10 years ago

great...simple.

Captain John's Skipper Tips - 10 years ago

Thanks for your comment!

spelunkerd - 11 years ago

I was walking on the beach and realized you are doing the calculation in radians. 2R*pi=360 deg, so a radian (R) is 180/pi, or 57.3 deg, roughly 60 deg. You make the first length, 6 mi in this case, the radius of a huge circle. The second length is a curved line along the circumference of that same circle (the numbers are so big that the second curve is almost straight). If both are the same length, it's 60 deg, if not you adjust in the same ratio, (5/6)*60. Nifty, ha ha.

spelunkerd - 11 years ago

I would do this a different way. asin(5/6) = 56 deg. What surprises me is how close you are, and it's cool to see it done without a calculator or sin tables. I tried it with other numbers, it's within 10% most of the time... Nice idea!

Nigel Doyle - 11 years ago

Now that is pretty cool and so simple. Nice!

About Sailing Navigation Tips: Use This Magic "Rule of 60"!

The "Sailing Navigation Tips: Use This Magic "Rule of 60"!" video is part of the Sealing, tipps, boating category, which contains similar videos like this one.