I'm not familiar with Polynesian navigation but the lack of accurate positioning doesn't stop sailing over open seas. It just makes it a lot more risky and encourages the use of routes with known currents and predictable winds. So once Columbus sailed from the Canary Islands to the Americas that became a known route and preferred until others were found. Even then it was a case of sailing west until you sighted land with the number of days sailed and an educated guess at speed being the only guide to longtitude.
> >I don't see Glorantha having better navigational means than 18th
> >Century Europe.
>
>Or Polynesia, but Glorantha poses its own set of navigational
>problems as the GLoranthan sky looks pretty much like that
>seen at the Earth's poles, with the stars circling a celestial
>pole right overhead. One base of Polynesian navigation is the
>setting and rising of stars. That won't work on Glorantha.
I can imagine Glorantha having much worse navigation problems than earth with celestial bodies moving on mythalogical paths rather than scientific ones. It may well be that it's only navigational magic that makes sea crossings possible at all and I don't think it is a source of reliable positioning information. I see navigational magic as answering "given the current wind and currents you should set a course of North by North West for the next three days to reach Ramalia".
-- Donald Oddy http://www.grove.demon.co.uk/
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