NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
From: Douglas Denny
Date: 2010 Oct 25, 14:57 -0700
John H. wrote:
"From what I could tell, blaming this on a solely on a lack of knowledge of longitude is a gross oversimplification..."
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I think you are right, it is an oversimplification.
Might I suggest the question of longitude in the official enquiry was probably an "accessory after the fact", in the sense the event was such a major disaster caused directly by a lack of knowledge of _position_ and of poor navigation in a general sense.
The captains of the Fleet had met with Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell (as they often did when sailing in convoy then) to discuss position and combine results of DR - before the storm which swept them onto the rocks. 2000 men were lost.
Longitude was of course a big issue and blamed for the disaster, but the whole question of navigation was brought into focus as it was such a total disaster for the British Navy. The longitude problem as part of this was so pressing parliament went to the unprecedented extreme of offering a prize of such immensity for the time. The rest, as they say, is history. The disaster definitely did have direct influence in bringing about the Longitude Act.
Here is a resource of interest:
http://www.hmssurprise.org/Resources/SIR_CLOUDESLEY_SHOVELL.html
Douglas Denny.
Chichester. England.
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