Which navigational inaccuracy increased dramatically when 18th-century ships used dead reckoning alone on longer voyages?

💡 Explanation

When relying solely on dead reckoning, accumulated small errors in speed and heading estimations lead to significant errors in east-west position due to compounding biases. Therefore longitude estimation degrades significantly because this depends upon accurate time and distance estimation more than latitude, while celestial and magnetic errors depend on instruments.

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