NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: The shipwreck of Admiral Shovell
From: Gary LaPook
Date: 2007 Sep 17, 11:20 -0700
From: Gary LaPook
Date: 2007 Sep 17, 11:20 -0700
I have attached a copy of Wright's chart. It is in four parts. I have
also included a section where I have marked in more clearly the
latitude near England.
gl
glapook@PACBELL.NET wrote:
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gl
glapook@PACBELL.NET wrote:
You state that the Scillies were plotted ten nm north of their true positions. I am looking at Edward Wright's chart published in 1599, more than one hundred years before the disaster. Bowditch (1962 ed.) gives the modern position of Bishop Rock as 49º 52' north and 6º 27' west and of the Lizard as 49º 58' north and 5º 12' west each of which are confirmed by Google Earth. Wright's chart gives the latitude of the Scillies as 49º 55' north only 3 nm north of the true position. The latitude of the Lizard on Wright's chart is 50º 00' north, two nm from its correct position. What chart was Shovel using that had less accurate latitudes than Wright's chart? Also interesting is that Wright has a scale of longitudes using Cape Verde as the prime meridian. Using Wright's chart he gives the longitude of Bishop Rock as 8º 20' east while modern longitude gives it as 11º 04' east of Cape Verde. (Cape Verde is 17º 31' west of Greenwich.) Wright puts Bishop Rock 121 nm west of its correct position which isn't too bad using Cape Verde. Wright put the Lizard at 10º 05' east of Cape Verde so 1º 45' east of Bishop Rock. The modern difference is only 1º 15' making a 30' difference, an error of 19 nm. (I will scan this chart in tomorrow) gl On Aug 27, 2:19 am, "George Huxtable" <geo...@huxtable.u-net.com> wrote:Frank wrote- | Here's a link to the file George provided: |http://fer3.com/arc/img/Clowdisley_Shovel_1707_JIN_1960.pdf | | For convenience, I also inserted a direct link at the end of the archive | copy of the previous message. | | Is this article under copyright? If so, please let me know in a couple of | weeks. ========================= from George- Thank you Frank. I hope readers will take a serious look at it. It's a salutary tale of the dreadful state of Royal Navy navigation, in 1707. How things had changed by Cook's day, half a century later! Not entirely their own fault, of course. The concept of longitude, as a quantity that could be specified for locations around the world, with some common reference-point (perhaps at Greenwich), hadn't really sunk in then. Instead, mariners thought about changes in longitude, with reference to their starting point, derived from their dead-reckoning. But what I find so surprising are the discrepancies in latitude, in a fleet that was sailing together as a convoy. As long as the Sun shone at noon (and it had been doing so, reasonably often) latitude should have been clear-cut. Well, limited by the precision of their backstaffs, to perhaps 15 minutes or so. And not helped by the scandalous errors in charts, in the days when these were commercial ventures, before the Admiralty Chart existed. How many ships were lost because the Scillies, and Lizard, were plotted on the chart nearly 10 miles North of their true position, I wonder? There's a decent gap, enshrined in the words of the old song, "Twixt Ushant and Scilly is thirty-five leagues ...", or 105 nautical miles. That was what mariners had to find their way between, and without even lighthouses, in early days. In the days before longitude could be measured, they had to do it by latitude sailing, taking deep soundings to establish how close in to the Western channel they had got. In thick weather, even latitudes were unavailable. That situation remained true, until radio aids became available (in the 1930s ?). I wonder if Henry Halboth can recall approaches made without even radio DF help, and how ships then managed, in prolonged thick weather? ================================ Frank asked about copyright- Yes, that paper is only 47 years old, so I suppose that copyright restrictions apply, strictly speaking, and I should really have pointed that out. Readers should respect that. It has here been made available for the purpose of academic discussion, but should not be disseminated further, and it might be wise for Frank to make it unavailable again after it's had time to serve its purpose. George. contact George Huxtable at geo...@huxtable.u-net.com or at +44 1865 820222 (from UK, 01865 820222) or at 1 Sandy Lane, Southmoor, Abingdon, Oxon OX13 5HX, UK.
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