NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
From: Robin Stuart
Date: 2017 Jan 29, 06:59 -0800
Brad,
That’s a great find! Can you supply a reference to it? I agree that the location of Cape Belsham in the eyes of the expedition has been settled. I notice a position for the HUT on Cape Wild given as 61°5'S 54°50'W.
I had not followed the discussion of chronometer calibration as closely as other aspects but would like to summarize the current state of affairs as I see them.
Worsley assigned a position of 61°4'S 54°50'W to Cape Belsham but believed that the longitude was only approximate stating in his log “Long. Of C. Belsham being only approx. known to us, allow 1minute+4sec more”. Worsley's source for this position is unknown.
The WGS84 location of Cape Belsham is 61°5.7'S 54°53'W which is just 2 nautical miles from the position used by Worsley. The 3' difference in longitude would introduce an error of 0.2 seconds of time slow in the chronometer calibration.
Let me know what you think and if there is anything more that could be added.
Regards,
Robin Stuart
