NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Did chronometers introduce economics to navigation?
From: Geoffrey Kolbe
Date: 2018 Mar 18, 13:00 -0700
From: Geoffrey Kolbe
Date: 2018 Mar 18, 13:00 -0700
What is (was) the running cost per day of a working ship? Suppose you could reduce the time at sea for an average voyage by one day by using a chronometer rather than luners/high-quality-watch? How long would it take to retrieve the cost of the chronometer before you start making a profit on the reduced voyage times? What would the cost of a chronometer have to be before the equation tipped in favour of buying a chronometer? I guess those are the numbers Williams would be considering.
