Since antiquity, sailors have used instruments to navigate their ships close to shore in waters with hidden dangers such as shallows, reefs and rocks, and, out of sight of land, to determine where is ship is and where she is heading.
The Museum has a representative collection of traditional instruments for finding the way at sea. These include Admiralty charts, telescopes, compasses, octants and sextants, chronometers, published tide tables and depth sounding lines.