COURSE

, in Navigation, the point of the compass, or horizon, which a ship steers on; or the angle which the rhumb line on which it sails makes with the meridian; being sometimes reckoned in degrees, and sometimes in points of the compass.

When a ship sails either due north or south, she sails on a meridian, makes no departure, and her distance and difference of latitude are the same.

When she sails due east or west, her course makes right-angles with the meridian, and she sails either upon the equator, or a parallel to it; in which case she makes no difference of latitude, but her distance and departure are the same.

But when the ship sails between the cardinal points, on a course making always the same oblique angle with the meridians, her path is then the loxodromic curve, being a spiral cutting all the meridians in the same angle, and terminating in the pole.

COURTAIN. See Curtin.