NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
From: Robin Stuart
Date: 2017 Feb 1, 19:17 -0800
Bruce,
You specifically asked: “Does the plot show they got to a specified latitude and then tried to follow the latitude?”
In my assessment the answer is clearly no. One of the plots attached to my earlier post shows their EP track along with a rhumbline from Elephant Island to a point 46’ west of Wallis Island on the western end of South Georgia which is where they were initially aiming for. Throughout the voyage Worsley was calculating the distance and course to that and other nearby points in many cases based on DR. I read somewhere that given the greater than 10 mile uncertainty in their position it was Shackleton’s decision late in the voyage to head for the centre of South Georgia rather than try to hold off to the west in the gale. That turn is apparent in the track,
Regards,
Robin
