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Formulas For Solving Great Circle Sailing Problems There are many formulas which are used to solve

the types of great circle sailin g problems found on USCG license exams. It would be very difficult to memorize a ll of them. Fortunately, you don't have to do this. I would recommend the formul as for determining great circle distance and initial course angle be memorized.

These formulas are: For Distance (D) Cos D = Sin L1 X Sin L2 + Cos L1 X Cos L2 X Cos Dlo For Initial Course Angle (C) Cos C = Sin L2 - (Sin L1 X Cos D) * Cos L1 X Sin D * Distance must be found first in order to be used in the second equation. The remainder of the formulas needed to solve USCG exam problems are found in Bo wditch, Volume II, Chapter X, The Sailings. Remember, this book is available in the exam room so you can reference it for the formulas when you take your exam. Adapting the Bowditch formulas to a hand-held calculator requires basic level un derstanding of the relationships between the different functions of trigonometry (sine, cosine, tangent, cotangent, secant, and cosecant). This is because calcu lators only have keys for the Sine, Cosine, and Tangents of angles. Secant (angle X) = 1 divided by cosine (angle X) Cosecant (angle X) = 1 divided by sine (angle X) Cotangent (angle X) = 1 divided by tangent (angle X) Sine (angle X) = cos (90 - angle X) Cos (angle X) = sine (90 - angle X) Procedures For Solving Great Circle Sailing Problems A hand-held calculator with trig functions and at least three memory spaces is a must for solving great circle sailing problems. There are long hand mathematical methods which may be used, such as solution with logarithms, but they are time

consuming and you might make a simple math mistake. There are several different types of great circle sailing problems that you coul d be asked on your examination, but the largest number of any type are those whi ch ask for great circle distance (D) and initial course (Cn). The other types ar e: 1. finding the latitude of the upper vertex (Lv) 2. finding the longitude of the upper vertex (Lov) 3. finding the distance of the upper vertex (Dv) 4. determining the latitude and / or longitude of point X (Lx and Lox) along the great circle track Note: Each USCG question must be read carefully because many have given more inf ormation than is needed to solve the problem. You need to have a format to go by. A format that you can use to tabulate values and record results. The use of a neat format for these problems will help you f rom making mistakes.

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