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Paul Hirose wrote-


|> I came across this by chance while prowling the Internet. "The
| > Battenberg Course Indicator was invented in 1892 by Captain H. S. H.
| > Prince Louis of Battenberg, G.C.B., afterwards Admiral-of-the-Fleet The
|
| At that same site there's a short bio on the inventor, Battenberg. He
| was Austrian by birth, which didn't prevent him from having a highly
| distinguished career in the Royal Navy. That is, until the outbreak of
| war in 1914. Later he took the surname Mountbatten.
|
| http://www.gwpda.org/bio/b/batnburg.html
|
| Getting back to the device itself, I found that The National Maritime
| Museum in London has one:
|

http://www.portcities.org.uk/london/server/show/conMediaFile.6192/Battenbergs-course-indicator-Mark-III.html
|
| So does the Smithsonian:
| http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/navigation/object.cfm?recordnumber=1087634
|
| According to that page, list member Peter Ifland did a writeup on the
| Course Indicator in Navigation News back in 2000.
|
| Here's one for sale, price 475 Euros. Either this one is a different
| variant, or there's a lot of stuff missing.
| http://www.regiozeist.nl/eng_scheeps_instrumenten.htm
|
=====================

I have a copy of the RIN's Navigation News for November/December 2000, on page 14 of which is an
article by Gloria C Clifton and Peter Ifland entitled "A slice of history: The Battenberg course
indicator". Gloria is curator of navigational instruments at Greenwich maritime museum, and now is
the museum's director, I understand. Peter is an occasional Nav-L contributor, and author of "Taking
the stars" (about sextants, etc) , and a co-author of "Line of position navigation", recently
discussed here in relation to Sumner lines.

The instrument is nicely explained, as you would expect from those authors, with a clear diagram. It
occupies two A4 pages, which I am happy to scan if requested and send to individual email addresses.
Just ask. Don't expect a response within10 days or so, however.

George.

contact George Huxtable at george@huxtable.u-net.com
or at +44 1865 820222 (from UK, 01865 820222)
or at 1 Sandy Lane, Southmoor, Abingdon, Oxon OX13 5HX, UK.

   

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