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On Feb 3, 2006, at 12:43 AM, Chuck Taylor wrote:

>
>> "The
>> DR position was found to be in error by 8 min too
>> far south, giving a longitude of 31 min, 30 sec too
>> far west.  The result to the ship might have been
>> disasterous had this wrong position been adopted".
>
> was a bit of a dramatization added after the fact. He
> was something like 9 miles farther west than he
> thought, and he probably suspected as much.  In a
> channel that is 30 miles wide and a wind blowing you
> toward a lee shore, that's not a very comfortable
> situation to be in.  I think he would have tried to
> wait until he could get a fix before turning north.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Chuck Taylor

I would expect that strong pressure such as you describe would be
very helpful in spurring somebody to invent something like line-of-
position navigation.  It does seem though that there was no imminent
doom, just an impending delay in having to heave to or otherwise wait
while avoiding that lee shore.

   

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