great-circle sailing

[ greyt-sur-kuhl ]

nounNavigation.

sailing between two points more or less according to an arc of a great circle, in practice almost always using a series of rhumb lines of different bearings to approximate the arc, whose own bearing changes constantly unless it coincides with a meridian or the equator.

Words Nearby great-circle sailing

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

This is called Great Circle Sailing and will be talked about in more detail later on.
Lectures in Navigation | Ernest Gallaudet Draper
This is not great-circle sailing, and the ship so navigated does not take the shortest path.
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 17, Slice 6 | Various
Our voyaging is only great-circle sailing, and the doctors prescribe for diseases of the skin merely.
Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience | Henry David Thoreau
It is by no means improbable that Cabot, who was an expert navigator, knew that great-circle sailing gave the shorter course.
In Northern Mists (Volume 2 of 2) | Fridtjof Nansen

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