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A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: The Nautical Day
From: Kieran Kelly
Date: 2004 Feb 9, 09:34 +1100
From: Kieran Kelly
Date: 2004 Feb 9, 09:34 +1100
I have followed the debate about the nautical day and whether it caused confusion or not. I am surprised, as Cook as been used as an example, that no one mentioned that he got his days confused when he crossed the position of what we now call the International Date Line on his journey west from Tahiti towards New Zealand. As a consequence he was one day out from this part of the journey onwards and it was not rectified until he arrived back in England. An interesting consequence is that he placed New Zealand a little to the west of its actual location i.e. closer to Australia. This would cause consternation to both modern Australians and New Zealanders and thankfully has been rectified. Kieran Kelly