This article would be a lot more interesting if it gave even a tiny hint of how to do these things, rather than just suggest that they are possible.

I'm going to be spending the better part of the next two years on a boat and look forward to learning this type of stuff.

You might enjoy reading http://arachnoid.com/sailbook/

One of the references seems to have a little more detail, and also some leads for more learning:

http://www.pbs.org/wayfinders/wayfinding2.html