NavList:

I've never been on a ship equipped with a deep sea lead so I can't claim that.  The closest I came to that was when my somewhat crazy captain ordered me to take soundings of the water abaft the ship's centerline while we were docked in Chinhae, Korea. 

 

Since it was an insane request, I decided to have fun with it.  We broke out a book giving us the proper markings for each fathom and fixed up the leadline (we cut up an old boot for the "leather with hole").  Then we lowered the lifeboat.  I was driving while my bosun was tossing the lead and reporting the depth in the old fashioned way (By the mark 5 etc) and we took soundings to the quarter fathom.

 

Once we had the raw data, we corrected for tide and got soundings in a patch of water we would never actually use.

 

My only regret was that we forgot to bring a bit of tallow with us to arm the lead.

 

Jeremy

 

  I wonder.                      Has anyone on the list ever taken a manual deep -sea sounding at about 2 A.M. on a dark and stormy night?   See how accurate you can get! Cheers, n.s. gurnell

---