See that your charts are arranged neatly in the drawers provided for them in the chart room. If, as is usual, the charts must be folded to get them in the drawers, mark them legibly on the outside and in the same place on each chart. Put in the top drawers those charts you know you will use most frequently. This will save endless time and confusion.
Be sure you have a full complement of necessary instruments, including sextants, a stadimeter, binoculars, watches, stop watch, dividers, parallel rulers, pencils, work books; also all necessary books, such as smooth and deck log books, several volumes of Bowditch, Nautical Almanacs, Azimuth Tables, Pilot books, Light and Buoy lists, Star Identification Tables, etc. You will be repaid a thousand times for whatever effort you expend to have your navigational equipment complete to the smallest detail. The shortage, for instance, of a pair of dividers would be an unending annoyance to you. This is also true of almost any other item mentioned above. Prepare yourself, then, while you are in port and have plenty of opportunity to secure the equipment you desire.
(b) While at Sea
The least amount of work required of a navigator in time of peace would include (1) a morning sight for longitude, (2) a noon sight for latitude, (3) an afternoon sight for longitude, (4) an A.M. azimuth to check the deviation of the compass, and (5) the dead reckoning for the day's run from noon to noon.
Navigating in war time requires more work than this. If possible, the ship's position must be known accurately at any time of day or night for, in case of an emergency, the lives of all on board may be imperilled by inaccurate knowledge of your whereabouts. This means that more sights must be taken and more celestial bodies observed. While every navigator has his own idea as to the proper amount of work to do in a day, it would seem as though the following would cover the minimum amount of work necessary under present conditions:
1. An A.M. sight of the sun for longitude.
2. An azimuth of the sun for checking the deviation of the compass, taken right after the A.M. sun sight.
3. The watch time of Local Apparent Noon.
4. Ex-meridian and meridian altitudes of the sun for latitude.
5. A P.M. sight of the sun for longitude.