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On Tue, Jun 2, 2015 at 2:31 AM, Francis Upchurch wrote:
> O'Brian was a very knowledgable polymath. Some say Maturin was a loosely
> disguised self portrait!

One interviewer recalled an after dinner conversation with O'Brian
that started out with him as a very reserved, intellectual
Maturin-type, but as the empty bottles of wine accumulated, a more
raucous, less-guarded Aubrey emerged.

Since we seem to have a number of POB readers in the forum, would
anyone care to comment on Jack Aubrey's navigational skills?

I particularly like the scene in which he tries to implement Dr
Maskelyne's pendulous chair for observing Jovian moons while at sea,

'His telescope was a disappointment. It was not that he could not see
Jupiter: the planet gleamed in his eyepiece like a banded gold pea.
But because of the ship's motion he could not keep it there long
enough or steadily enough to fix the local time of its moons' eclipses
and thus find his longitude. Neither the theory (which was by no means
new) nor the telescope was at fault: it was the cleverly weighted
cradle slung from the maintopgallantmast stay that he had designed to
compensate for the pitch and roll that did not answer, in spite of all
his alterations; and night after night he swung there cursing and
swearing, surrounded by midshipmen armed with clean swabs, whose duty
it was to enhance the compensation by thrusting him gently at the word
of command.'

Don Seltzer

   

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