You do not need to know where you are to steer a true course by the stars.

Long before the magnetic compass, sailors steered by the stars. Not by fixing a position — by holding a star over the bow, or off the shoulder, and letting it draw the boat through the dark. A star low to the horizon hangs steady long enough to steer by; when it climbs away you take the next one. This is the sidereal compass. It is older than the iron compass, it has no variation and no deviation, and it does not care what the steel in your hull is doing to the needle.

VAKA Star Navigator works out which stars to steer by, and when. Give it your position, your heading, and how long the passage runs. It returns the night hour by hour: the star to hold, where it sits relative to your bow as a clock-face bearing, and how high it stands above the horizon, measured against your own hand held at arm's length. A tidal passage planner folds a night's set and drift into a single course to steer, built from the rule of twelfths and the figures already in your almanac. Each star you check through the night confirms you are still holding the line.

It runs in any browser. It works offline once loaded. Nothing is tracked. Nothing is stored.

The compass can fail you. The stars have not moved in the whole of human memory.