NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Taffrail logs and Marvin Creamer
From: Robert Gainer
Date: 2004 Nov 6, 06:46 +0000
From: Robert Gainer
Date: 2004 Nov 6, 06:46 +0000
In December of 1982 a New Jersey geography professor Marvin Creamer started his round the world voyage with a steel cutter, a GODERICH 35 named Globe Star designed and built by Ted Brewer. He used no timepiece or navigation instruments at all, not even a compass and did just fine in his round the world trip. The voyage went by way of Dakar West Africa, Cape Town South Africa, on to Australia, New Zealand, Cape Horn, and the Falkland Islands then along the South American coastline northward to Cape Verdes and Bermuda, starting and ending at New Jersey. Professor Creamer returned to Cape May on May 17, 1984. The trip was described in "Navigator" July/August 1985, pages 30-35 the trip was also the subject of a talk Creamer gave at the Institute of Navigation annual meeting, Annapolis, MD in June, 1985, entitled "The First Circumnavigation Without Instruments: A Small Step Backward". For some reason the trip has never been widely known, even at the time it was done. There is no book written about it and information on the technique he used is hard to come by but very interesting. Taffrail logs are more accurate then the estimates for leeway and current. I don�t have a number for the error because after setting the fins on the fish there has been no measurable error. Some brands such as Bliss have a small trim tab to adjust and for the rest you can bend the tip of the fins to regulate them. It takes very little bend in the fins to make very a large changes to the distance measured so its almost always better to just check to verify the error, if any and leave then alone. The Walker IIIa log has a very small fish that is not adjustable and I think it under reports the distance at high speeds. It doesn�t work at all in the lower speed range. Because I have somewhat limited experience with the IIIa there may be some other way to set it up so that it works, but I cannot imagine what that might be. The Walker IV has a larger fish and has been correct all the times that I have been able to verify it. The Walker Trident and Cherub logs both use the very large Cherub fish and with the right length line have been spot on. If the line is too short the log under reads. As Carl has pointed out if you don�t paint the fish you are going to speed lots of money feeding the sharks. All the best, Robert Gainer >From: Bill>Reply-To: Navigation Mailing List >To: NAVIGATION-L@LISTSERV.WEBKAHUNA.COM >Subject: Re: Voyaging the traditional way >Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 00:24:57 -0500 > >Regarding taffrail logs: > >While I have a used brass T.W, Cherub on my fireplace mantel, I have not >used it nor do I have the counter (perhaps the wrong term?). I have read >that they tend to lose accuracy in following seas. (My guess is they run >too >slowly.) > >Could Robert, David, et al comment on their experiences of the accuracy in >different types of seas at different points of sail? > >Thanks > >Bill _________________________________________________________________ Don�t just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/