Kamal (navigation)

A Kamal is an astronomical navigation device to determine the latitude of a place.

The Kamal has been used by Chinese, Indians and Arabs mainly in the 18th and 19th centuries. On the coast of Hadramaut in Yemen today use the mariners until well into the first half of the 20th century a Kamal for navigation. As the pilot of Vasco da Gama from Malindi, Ahmad Ibn Majid, used a Kamal, also took some Portuguese navigator that Kamal. However, they changed the distance between the nodes to determine the degree can.

A Kamal is a small board (about 1x2 inches) with a hole in the middle through which a cord is out. There are nodes that denote a position of a city or a landmark along the route to this string. The helmsman keeps the cord end with the teeth and shifts in the position of Kamal's eye level until the bottom edge is on the horizon and the top edge touches the North Star. Then draws the cord through the central opening of the Kamal's. The proximity of a node in the opening then the width position of the place on the coast to the ship.