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Sailing Direction Exercise
continued
"Breadfruit Picker Lashing" uses as metaphor the pole for
picking breadfruit, which has a short stick lashed to its
end at an angle that permits engaging the stem of a fruit
and twisting it loose. In the navigator's imagination a
breadfruit picker reaches out in a straight line along a
particular star course, from one place to the next, until it
turns in a new direction on another course, and so on until
it has picked off along these courses all the known places,
real and imaginary, in the navigator's repertoire. There are
a number of breadfruit picker exercises, beginning at
different places and following different star courses.
Similar exercises have been devised under other names in
different atolls. In each the navigator follows a course
from his home island to the island from which the exercise
begins. He then proceeds in accordance with a set pattern
from one place to another. The pattern may be to box the
compass, or it may be to go in a series of zig-zags, or it
may be to follow a main course northward, going off to east
and west and back at each of a series of points along the
main course. Some exercises rehearse the details of reefs,
shoals, and seamarks along specific courses frequently
traveled by local navigators.
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