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Fred wrote:

> Well yes, he was courting disaster had he kept his course up to the
> moment of spotting Small's light, lacking the LOP.  But lacking the
> LOP, I expect that he would have stood off or similar, and lost time.

If we believe that his true position was 8 miles/minutes south of his DR
position, the distance to Small's lighthouse would increase by 20+ nm.
That, added to the 27+ nm from his DR to Small's gets close to 50 nm.  Let's
assume our Harvard man took a little over 20 minutes per calculation and he
was making top speed during the calculations.  So a little over an hour in
calculations, and a little under an hour in reaching Small's after the LOP
was confirmed.  That's almost 25 kn, and fails my common sense test.  (But
if I could keep up, I would grind for that skipper any day ;-)  I therefore
imagine you are correct in your assessment--stand off instead of barreling
headlong into rocks at 25 kn. 

Bill

   

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