Roy Smith wrote:
Mxsmanic wrote:
I certainly won't quarrel with using magnetic navigation as a back-up,
but I do question basing normal navigation on a compass, which is
relatively unreliable compared to more modern methods.

Unreliable? The magnetic compass is about as reliable is it gets. There's
one moving part, no power source, and the Earth's magnetic field is good
for another few thousand years. What's unreliable about that? Of the
cannonical "watch and compass" navigation kit, the watch is by far the less
reliable of the two.

I met a sea captain that piloted an old ship full of refugees from
Latvia to Nova Scotia in 1939 with only a sextant and magnetic compass.
And he said it was overcast most of the time.