NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Where in the world?.
From: Lars Bergman
Date: 2018 Aug 22, 03:13 -0700
From: Lars Bergman
Date: 2018 Aug 22, 03:13 -0700
Like Paul Bedel, I get 8°30'S, 14°20'W. The bearing to the peak of Ascension then becomes 358° true, distance 33 miles. The peak would be about 42' above the horizon, from the upper observation deck. So it would be visible, in theory at least.
As far as I know there are no other islands in the vicinity, so the island spotted "just before sunset", bearing northwest, must have been Ascension Island. To change the bearing some 45° at that distance takes some time. If we assume spotting time to be 40 minutes before star observation time, the ship's speed was at a minimum 35 knots; if we assume 1 hour instead, the speed was at least 23 knots. Both values seems too high. Are the prerequisites correctly stated? Or am I wrong?
Lars, 59°N 18°E
