NavList:

You guys astound me. This series of threads started sometime in 2009 and has sought to resolve and document how Worsley actually navigated Shackleton’s rescue boat from Elephant Island to South Georgia. About a dozen NavListers over the years have come together and stimulated one another with ideas, data gathering, cross referencing and follow-ups on points such as chronometers and sextants used, reduction
methods, Worsley’s training, log translation, the actual course the rescue boat James Caird sailed, geographic positions and names, sailing and sight conditions, time keeping etc. And just today, this note to informing NGA of chart errors which they may fix.

What a tribute to the power of the NavList community. You just can't find this kind of inquiry, scholarship or synergy anywhere.

This long exchange is now about 250 pages (unedited) of correspondence. Thread titles have periodically changed:

•    Navigation and whaling? perhaps the thread that triggered Worsley discussion
•    Frank Worsley, Master Navigator
•    How Worsley Navigated [Was Navigation and Whaling]
•    Image of Sextant Used by Worsley
•    Worsley's Chronometer(s)?
•    Transcription of Worsley's Log
•    Astronomical Time. was Re: Transcription of Worsley's Log
•    Updated Transcript of Worsley’s Log
•    Cape Belsham
•    Point Wild Location
•    Shackleton Speaks about his 1907 Expedition
•    Worsley's Epitome
•    Cape Belsham, At Last!!
•    Worsley wrote a JOKE
•    Mrs Chippy and a tale of two graves
•    Cape Belsham and Point Wild relocated on Chart 29104

 
I have been interested in Worsley for many years though I have never done research beyond reading about the expedition. The NavList becamse adictive and I followed these threads. I find it hard to follow topic like this on-line since it is spread out over many years and with changing thread topics and intersperced with other topics. Perhaps a learning style, I don't know but I am attaching my compilation of the above posts to be re-archived on NavList (from wence they came) with the hopes that being together as a set, rather than spread out over many years, it encourages others to follow what these NavListers have accomplished. All posts in this document are in choronological order, unedited, fully sourced, and include their link to their original posting. The document's Table of Contents is somewhat useless because dozens of posts have the same titles, however, if you use Microsoft’s Navigation window, you can qickly jump to specific areas of interests.

I hope this kind of inquiry and scholarship continues, it’s such a public service and education for those interested in the preservation of traditional navigation.

Hats off to this NavList group!

Ed Popko