NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Whaleship Stonington's Lunars
From: Frank Reed CT
Date: 2004 Jan 7, 04:50 EST
From: Frank Reed CT
Date: 2004 Jan 7, 04:50 EST
Arthur Pearson wrote:
"These log excerpts and maps are a wonderful addition to the List's archives, thank you for sharing them with us. They speak directly to my long held curiosity about actual navigational practice aboard tall ships of that era, particularly the determination of longitude."
I'm glad you've enjoyed them. There's another interesting one coming soon...
And wrote:
"From the excerpts you have already provided we can see DR, land sightings, lunars and chronometers all put to use and none of them relied on exclusively (including the charted
position of islands!)."
I have a couple of quick comments...
1) I found it interesting that ordinary American whaleships in the 1840s could afford to carry TWO chronometers, and that the chronometers kept the longitude reliably even after months at sea. American whaleships were usually owned and operated by small groups of investors, so this clearly indicates that the price of chronometers was quite manageable by this period.
2) The uncertainty in charted positions of islands and other land features is probably a little "unsung" in the history of navigation. Throughout history, with each improvement in navigational methods, it has become necessary to remap the world in order to take advantage of the full potential of those improvements. Two centuries ago it was chronometers and lunars highlighting errors in position of dozens of miles for ocean islands... Today it's GPS highlighting errors of dozens of meters in street maps.
And you wrote:
"I hope you will continue to excerpt from logbooks in this manner. If you don't object, I will create links to them from www.LD-DEADLINK-com and feature them in the New Year."
Please be a little patient on those links. I need to re-arrange a bit.
And you concluded:
"I look forward to you next posting!"
Thanks. :-)
Frank E. Reed
[X] Mystic, Connecticut
[ ] Chicago, Illinois
"These log excerpts and maps are a wonderful addition to the List's archives, thank you for sharing them with us. They speak directly to my long held curiosity about actual navigational practice aboard tall ships of that era, particularly the determination of longitude."
I'm glad you've enjoyed them. There's another interesting one coming soon...
And wrote:
"From the excerpts you have already provided we can see DR, land sightings, lunars and chronometers all put to use and none of them relied on exclusively (including the charted
position of islands!)."
I have a couple of quick comments...
1) I found it interesting that ordinary American whaleships in the 1840s could afford to carry TWO chronometers, and that the chronometers kept the longitude reliably even after months at sea. American whaleships were usually owned and operated by small groups of investors, so this clearly indicates that the price of chronometers was quite manageable by this period.
2) The uncertainty in charted positions of islands and other land features is probably a little "unsung" in the history of navigation. Throughout history, with each improvement in navigational methods, it has become necessary to remap the world in order to take advantage of the full potential of those improvements. Two centuries ago it was chronometers and lunars highlighting errors in position of dozens of miles for ocean islands... Today it's GPS highlighting errors of dozens of meters in street maps.
And you wrote:
"I hope you will continue to excerpt from logbooks in this manner. If you don't object, I will create links to them from www.LD-DEADLINK-com and feature them in the New Year."
Please be a little patient on those links. I need to re-arrange a bit.
And you concluded:
"I look forward to you next posting!"
Thanks. :-)
Frank E. Reed
[X] Mystic, Connecticut
[ ] Chicago, Illinois
