One thing that's good to remember, though, is that this wasn't the captain's job - it was the ship navigator (and his assistants) that took the measurements. There are "real navigation mods" for SHIII and iirc SHIV. I've never tried them - what I would personally rather see in SH instead is just a margin of error introduced into navigation. Otherwise for me having to take measurements as captain of the ship is as much a simulation as running around inside the boat hitting things with a wrench to stop leaks
