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A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Transcription of Worsley's Log
From: George Huxtable
Date: 2009 Mar 17, 13:38 -0000
From: George Huxtable
Date: 2009 Mar 17, 13:38 -0000
Dear Brad, That time difference corresponds to 10 just over miles. You are doing exactly the right thing. I didn't know you had collected a copy of Norie's. Was this an acquisition that was triggered by our present enquiry, or have you had a longstanding interest in such matters? I had wondered about suggesting to you that you might find an old copy of Norie's useful, until I looked up prices in Abebooks. A few years ago, I picked up a very thick copy of Norie's, both text and tables bound together, in our local bookshop (who is in no way a nautical specialist) for a fiver! Norie's updated them at different times, so the text (432 pages) was dated 1900, and the tables (590 pages) 1914. I kid myself that is identical to what Worsley carried with him, without firm evidence. But it could be; the date's right... I'm interested to learn whether your earlier edition gives the same method of working to derive "time at place" as the bit I copied from the later edition (method 1) to Navlist. The log trig tables in my edition are given to six decimal places, of which I discarded the last one, rounding appropriately. Worsley may have done the same, or he may have been working from 5-fig tables. Anyway, his numbers agreed exactly with my own, when I took them from the tables. Working to six places is relevant only to lunars (and hardly relevant to them, even). Have you tried working from the tables, without your calculator? I must admit that I find those tables difficult to use, there being so many options to get the answer wrong, with differently labelled columns depending on whether you're working backwards through the pages (for angles over 45º), and from the top of the page or the bottom. For those like you and me, just dipping in, it's all very unfamiliar. On the other hand, to Worsley, working with such tables every day, it would become automatic. About Elephant Island- I attach some pages from the expedition report (Malcolm Burley), which explain a bit further about Wild camp. Surely, that was from where the morning Sun was observed, for rating the chronometer, from the shingle spit bridging to the little island. Unfortunately, the map I copied to you gives only one marked crossing of lat and long lines, so you have to derive positions from there using the scale of metres. It amused me to see how the expedition had to dispute use of the territory with the local wildlife. Shackleton's lot would just have clubbed them for the larder, no doubt. I attach a page from Orde-Lees diary, taken from John Thomson's "Elephant Island and beyond", (2003), showing some sketches of the camp. Incidentally, Thomson, who lives near Wellington in New Zealand, refers to Worsley's "Diaries of the Endurance Expedition", at the Alexander Turnbull library, in Wellington, and also to "Endurance Diaries", of both Orde-Lees and McNeish, held at the same library. I will say more about Thomson later. I have been in touch with John Peacock, an old friend who crossed South Georgia, twenty years ago perhaps, on another Joint Services expedition led by the same Malcolm Burley. I've been asking him about the puzzle, in Shackleton's "memory map" of South Georgia, in "South", in which the positions of Stromness and Husvik were castled, so that it appeared to show him passing through Husvik to reach Stromness. It doesn't make sense, and it's hard to imagine how Shackleton could get it so fundamentally wrong, even if exhausted at the time. Worsley could have used two slightly-different points on Elephant Island for location. The shingle spit at Wild camp for chronometer rating, and the Cape Belsham landmark for "taking his departure" from, while it remained in view.. I wonder if your Norie's gives a position for Elephant Island. Mine just says - "Elephant I., Summit- S61º 11' 0", W 54º 50' 0". As the island has several summits, at similar heights, widely separated, that wouldn't have been very helpful to Worsley. If he had a decent chart, that would have been more useful. I wonder what charts he possessed, at that stage? I attach a picture which is on the jacket of John Thomson's "Elephant Island and beyond", which I assume to be taken from the gravel spit at Wild camp in Elephant Island, though I can't find any caption to say so. ============= Here's a matter which strikes me of as significant. This journey was well reported, and I have on my shelves, and have (mostly) read, MANY different accounts touching on that boat journey, as follows- Ernest Shackleton "South" (1919). Frank Worsley, "Endurance", (1931). Frank Worsley, "Shackleton's boat journey", (1940). Margery & James Fisher, "Shackleton" (1957). Alfred Lansing, "Shackleton's Valiant Voyage", (1963). Roland Huntford, "Shackleton", (1985) Harding Dennett, "Shackleton's Boat", (1996). Tim & Pauline Carr, "Atlantic Oasis" (1998). about South Georgia. Caroline Alexander, "The Endurance" (1998) John Thomson, "Shackleton's Captain", (1999). Huntford / Summers "The Shackleton Voyages" (date?) Michael Smith, "An Unsung Hero", (2001), about Crean John Thomson, "Elephant Island and beyond" (2003) (about Orde-Lees). I give that list not (just) to impress you with the breadth of my library or the depth of my reading; actually, most were collected by my wife Joan, who takes a great interest in these matters. Here's the significant bit. I do not recall a single mention, in all those volumes, of a Worsley manuscript log held at Canterbury Museum, Christchurch. The only references I recall seeing to a log are to that held at the Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge, which we suspect, from Dennett, to be secondaryy and incomplete. So none of those authors appears to have been aware of the manuscript held at Christchurch. Even Worsley, writing in 1940, didn't appear to have a copy of his log , to judge by the inconsistensies in his account. So I think you are on to something new (well, perhaps you and Lawrence Rudner, let's say). And it may be that only the two of us have sufficient know-how, between us, to interpret it. Again, maybe Rudner knows how to do that, also. I wonder whether it would be helpful to get in touch with John Thomson? He has produced two books on the subject, and lives in New Zealand, though in North Island, near Wellington. Is it worth discussing with him how far we've got, between us? He might be interested enough to take a trip to Christchurch, which is a lot more accessible to him than to us. Unless, of course, you can be persuaded to take a holiday in New Zealand yourself, or can persuade Tactronics to send you there. He could be a useful ally. I have asked his publisher to put him in touch with me, but will not go further without your says-so. I don't think he is any sort of navigational expert himself, being an ex-journalist, now retired (77). contact George Huxtable, at george@hux.me.uk or at +44 1865 820222 (from UK, 01865 820222) or at 1 Sandy Lane, Southmoor, Abingdon, Oxon OX13 5HX, UK. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Navigation List archive: www.fer3.com/arc To post, email NavList@fer3.com To , email NavList-@fer3.com -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---