There’s a special aspect to the zombie nature of this thread. Aside his nonsense concerning large ships not utilizing anchors, the implied notion that the navy was mired in outdated methodology in navigation was just wrong.
At the time of Silenus’s post five years ago, the navy was in fact, pursuing a total abandonment of training in celestial navigation, pursuant to current technological trends.
The irony is, now that the fragility of satellite network geo-location has been realized, the navy is now reinstituting training in old school celestial navigation with a sextant for officers.
I can’t help with your complaint that the facts don’t serve a clear purpose.
You are wrong about large ships in the med.
The old harbours of the med mean that the very largest ships aren’t used there, but the 2nd largest size is !
The Panama Canal is like a two-lane road, with traffic going in both directions. Before it was remodelled in 2014-15, most of the Suez Canal was one-way. Ships transiting the canal would arrive the day before and drop anchor whilst waiting to start through the next morning. There were three convoys each day – two southbound and one northbound. The northbound convoy simply entered the canal and sailed through. The first southbound convoy would proceed as far as the Great Bitter Lake, then clear the channel and anchor until the northbound convoy passed. The second southbound convoy would anchor in the Ballah bypass (like a train waiting on a siding) until the northbound convoy passed. So every ship transiting the canal, no matter what size, spent time at anchor.