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A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
From: Geoff Hitchcox
Date: 2019 May 2, 21:37 -0700
Thanks Brad for comments, and also Greg for your paper solution, that is very cute, I have saved that in my Titanic folder - much appreciated. It is a nice solution for a "newbie" like me to study, now that I feel somewhat connected to the Titanic.
So it's back to my little thesis here (sorry it has taken 3 messages to get to my final point).
From my DR compare of Traverse Tables to Rhumb Maths. [1]
Titanic's (amended) SOS longitude needs shifting East by 00:01:18"
41:52:30" N, 047:54:00" W, Sam's Titanic at 7:30 p.m. (22:28 GMT) [2]
41:51:54" N, 047:52:18" W (Geoff's location for Titanic C.N. fix) [3]
47:54:00" Samuel Halpern's derived Longitude from Titanic SOS message
00:01:18" Subtract (Traverse Table implicit error)
47:52:42" Geoff's revision of Sam's longitude
So what now is the distance between ?
41:51:54" N, 047:52:18" W (Geoff's location for Titanic C.N. fix)
41:52:30" N, 047:52:42" W, Revised Halpern, derived from SOS location
Geoff's calculation of Titanics position error in final C.N. fix = 0.67 NM
Based on GPS reference of Iceberg and (repaired) Titanic SOS position.
Linking the two through the application of Rhumb Maths (spherical model).
Titanic knew where she was at the Celestial Navigation fix !
There is certainly a lot of controversy over exact numbers of RPM, speed, direction, times of fix and allision with Iceberg. However to me the overall geometry of Iceberg and Celestial Fix is sound - but the *exact* numbers may never be known!
Although this was an enjoyable exercise for me, I actually did very little. It was Samuel Halpern who did all the heavy lifting of the research so far - I just had a novel idea and plugged some numbers into an online calculator !
Regards, Geoff Hitchcox, Christchurch, New Zealand. 3 May 2019
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[1] DR compare of Traverse Tables to Rhumb Maths.
http://fer3.com/arc/m2.aspx/Titanics-last-stars-Hitchcox-may-2019-g44870
[2] Mistakes In The Night , By Samuel W. Halpern
www.titanicology.com/Titanica/Mistakes.pdf
[3] Geoff's location for Titanic C.N. fix
http://fer3.com/arc/m2.aspx/Titanics-last-stars-Hitchcox-apr-2019-g44856
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