NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: William Bligh, Navigator
From: Don Seltzer
Date: 2015 Jun 22, 20:27 -0400
From: Don Seltzer
Date: 2015 Jun 22, 20:27 -0400
On Mon, Jun 22, 2015 at 3:46 PM, David Pike <NoReply_DavidPike@fer3.com> wrote:
... but did Vernes just expand on Belcher, and did Belcher copy from Morrison? David Barrie says in “Sextant” Ch4 “Equiped only with a sextant and a compass”, and in Ch 4 reference 3 he says “Bligh claimed in his published account of the voyage that he was allowed to take only a ‘quadrant’, but his journal shows that he actually had a sextant and navigational books” I’ve tried to find this “Journal” and have been struggling. Don Seltzer writing in NavList 24Jul2013 “Was Fletcher Christian a great navigator” talks of using the Corral site for a digitised version of “Bligh’s Journal”, but all I can find there is “Bounty’s (Captains) Logbook”.
Journal and Logbook are often used interchangeably. What we call a logbook today was more commonly referred to as a journal in the 18th century.
In the Royal Navy, the practice was to make hourly recordings of course, speed, wind direction, etc. on a chalk logboard. These entries were then copied into an ink and paper ship's logbook. It was a daily obligation of the ship's officers to use this raw data to fill out their own journal, including not only the 24 hourly observations but their own navigational workings and additional comments and personal observations. Typically the Master's journal would have the most detailed entries. Both the Captain and the Master were required to periodically submit their journals to the Admiralty. Many of them are still available from the Public Record Office. Some Lieutenant's journals are also archived there.
In my post of two years ago, my reference to Bligh's Journal is the same thing as the Captain's Logbook.
Don Seltzer
