Wouldn’t setting and facing a compass to 20 degrees West, mean the needle points 20 degrees east (on the compass face)?
In: Technology
You don’t point the compass with the needle. So if you want to go 20 degrees to the west, you would be going west by west north west. The face of the dial is 360 degrees starting at true north and rotating clockwise. (True south is 180 degrees) so to point 20 degrees west you would be pointing at the 340 degree mark.
So you would pull out your compass, let it find north and then rotate yourself till you were facing 340 degrees. Some compasses have a reticle you could then look through on a flat plane. You would either use that or simply look up and find a landmark (tree, ridge, boulder, etc.) And walk to it. Once you get to it you get out the compass and remeasure.
This is of course only for land navigation. At sea you would need a dedicated navigator to stay on true direction or could use a sextant to use sun, moon and stars as landmarks.
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