The master of the Mayflower, or most any other ocean-going sailing ship of the time, would have held course by using maps, a compass, a sextant and a chronometer.
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The Mayflower.
The master of the Mayflower used a magnetic compass to determine the ship's direction relative to the Earth's magnetic field. Additionally, the master would have used tools such as a quadrant or astrolabe to measure the angle between the horizon and celestial bodies like the sun or stars to determine the ship's latitude. Dead reckoning, which involves calculating the ship's position based on its previous known position, speed, and direction, would also have been used to keep the ship on course.
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sometimes by the stars other then that i don't know Ship captains now use the Global Positioning System (GPS).
The Mayflower, used to carry the Piligrims to America, was a Dutch cargo fluyt.
The Mayflower's average speed was approximately 2.67 miles per hour. This means the ship travelled a mile approximately every 22 minutes on average. Keep in mind that the Mayflower {like all ships under sail} must sometimes use tacking, which means the ship sometimes has to travel in a zig-zag fashion because of the angle of the wind relative to the desired general direction that the ship wants to go in. The Mayflower voyage from England to Plymouth Harbor, Massachusettes, took 65 days.
He used spears and compass and a ship to transport to find diffrent land