NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
From: Wolfgang Köberer
Date: 2011 Jun 21, 15:05 -0700
This has been a lively discussion - but leading nowhere. Does anyone really believe that Patrick O'Brian had any realistic notion of astronomical navigation - leaving aside the finer points of lunars etc.? What would be the basis of such a belief? Could one show from his books that he had a solid grasp of these matters? He was a gifted writer as far as the actual workings of a ship is concerned; and he was as - a writer - at liberty to shift the actual time (and place) of events if they fitted the tale - and he really did so as he confessed in some forewords. So I wouldn't try to match his writings with actual events.
Wolfgang
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