Welcome to the Navigation Foundation's Navigator's Newsletter Archive page. Here you can learn about and purchase the entire archive of all back issues from 1983 to 2008 in the convenient Starpath Elibra ebook format.

The Navigation Foundation is an all-volunteer organization. The Executive Director (Capt. Terry Carraway) personally handles all email, memberships, collection of material for the quarterly newsletter, and returns all telephone calls. As such there may be occasional delays in response due to travel or other reasons. The Foundation telephone answering machine message will inform the caller when an answer can be expected if he is away at the time.

Capt. Carraway  and Roger Jones are the two remaining Directors of the Foundation, and both have been with it virtually since its start. Roger is a former editor of the "Newsletter" and long-time contributor of material, and he also serves to help with celestial navigation questions that may be raised by members from time to time.

You may already know of Foundation accomplishments
If you have ever used the very convenient "NAO Sight Reduction Tables" from the back of the Nautical Almanac (included in joint US and British edition since 1989), then you have seen some of the Foundation's work in action. These tables were developed by Admiral Thomas Davies, founder and then Director of the Navigation Foundation, in collaboration with Dr. Paul Janiczek, Director of the Astronomical Applications division of the US Naval Observatory, 1990 to 1997, which remains a most wonderful resource for all celestial navigators. Admiral Davies donated his work on this project to the Nautical Almanac Office in the name of the Navigation Foundation for the benefit of all mariners. The work was originally called the Davies Concise Tables, and these 20-some small pages remains an excellent means of sight reduction, especially valuable to those using calculator or computer solutions who wish to have a backup printed solution but not an extra set of large, heavy tables, such as Pub 229 or 249.

You may also have heard of the controversy about whether or not Robert Peary had in fact made it to the North Pole in 1909, or had he wilfully misrepresented his accomplishment. Even the National Geographic Society, an original supporter of Peary's work, had begun to express doubts. The Navigation Foundation then carried out what is now considered the definitive answer to this question, concluding, after much diverse research and analysis, that Peary did indeed make it to the Pole, and that there was no viable evidence that he had misrepresented his work. The Foundation study was published as The Peary Report, in 1990. Present directors Roger Jones and Terry Carraway took part in that research as well as Douglas R Davies (later an Executive Director) and Admiral Thomas Davies and others.

About Memberships
The Foundation membership has been placed on hold for a while. They are considering various ways of restructuring. In the meantime, past newsletters are available.

If you care about navigation, especially celestial navigation, then this organization has beeb a wonderful way to share in the knowledge of hundreds of others around the world with similar dedication to the art and science of navigation. The archive of past Newsletters is a unique resource for details, procedures, and explanations, much of which is difficult to find in other places. (A detailed index of contents in under production; in the meantime, the Archive can be searched for specific topics.)

About the Newsletter Archive All issues of the Navigator's Newsletter from 1983 to 2008 are available immediately without shipping charges by download. The full set of newsletters are presented in 3 volumes, each of which is fully searchable using the Starpath Elibra's unique Search and Find-all function — a valuable resource for locating past topics. Besides Foundation news, the newsletters contain member's correspondence, articles on navigation techniques, history of navigation, biographies of individuals important to navigation, book reviews, and navigation practice problems. They have been issued quarterly since 1983. The Archive includes 99 issues, with more than 1,200 pages and many illustrations.