Two Centuries of Nautical Instruments in Japan(Papers presented at IAIN'76)

Abstract

As Japan had continued the national isolation for 215 years from 1639, like a shut shell, there was little development in the art of navigation during those periods, and even a relapse was found in some respects. In 1854, Japan opened the country at last, as a result of an active inducement by U.S.A. So the most part of arts of navigation in Japan developed after this year. To say the truth, even in the age of her isolation, Japan had contact with Holland and China through the limited port of Nagasaki, all the time but on a small scale. Through this narrow gate, Japan learned the western art of navigation from Holland till the opening the country. The result of this learning was proved representatively by the voyage across the Pacific Ocean by KANRIN-MARU in 1860. After the opening the country in 1854, Japan learned most of the navigation arts from England. This is seen in the fact that so many technical terms for marine use in Japan are still in English. As for the nautical instruments used in Japan, too, most of them came from England in the first stage. But soon after, other countries joined, and the echo-sounder came from France, the pressure-log from Sweden and the gyro-compass from Germany and U.S.A. After this stage, Japan developed gradually her own ability of making the nautical instruments. On the other hand, the ship building industry also became prosperrous as time went on. Thus, Japan became able to develop most of her own science of navigation from around 1920. After the Second World War, the art of navigation showed admirable development in the whole world. The feature of this development was the technic of electronics. In this respect, the contribution of Japan was not so small. We can conceive three stages of development: (1) Adoption of electronic navigation. (2) Adoption of ship automation. (3) Adoption of computer for marine use. (The author reported about "Recent Achievement of ship automation in Japan" at Paris in 1967, but this time wants to take a bird's-eye view of the past and present development of the nautical instruments in Japan.)