NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Taffrail log and an alternative
From: Trevor Kenchington
Date: 2002 Jun 23, 19:01 -0300
From: Trevor Kenchington
Date: 2002 Jun 23, 19:01 -0300
Brian Whatcott wrote: > This is just a stray memory trace - of the paradoxical kind that doesn't > go away, though essentially valueless. > I was in a Midlands supplier's store - probably in Birmingham (UK) > and I was looking over the amazing variety of cast brassware > (of the kind which was advertized as 'toys') and I saw a taffrail log > hanging on a wall - for sale, new - several minidials and pointers > (for distance run?) and a speed indicator. > > Could Walker have been a Midlands company? > Did it expire in the last twenty years or so? Walker was certainly English and their logs were the kind of thing likely made in Birmingham. Walker logs were novel and "high-tech" in the 1880s (Walker patented the Cherub in 1884) and Birmingham was a centre for high technology at that time. I don't know whether Walker is still in business or not. Their logs were routinely advertised in British yachting magazines around 1970 so, if they have closed down, it is only in the last 30 years or thereabouts. Trevor Kenchington -- Trevor J. Kenchington PhD Gadus@iStar.ca Gadus Associates, Office(902) 889-9250 R.R.#1, Musquodoboit Harbour, Fax (902) 889-9251 Nova Scotia B0J 2L0, CANADA Home (902) 889-3555 Science Serving the Fisheries http://home.istar.ca/~gadus