NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Another Jack Aubrey navigation question
From: Geoffrey Kolbe
Date: 2011 Jul 21, 20:05 +0100
From: Geoffrey Kolbe
Date: 2011 Jul 21, 20:05 +0100
In chapter 3 of Patrick O'Brian's "Desolation Island", Captain Jack Aubrey's ship the "Leopard" is being tossed about in a violent storm in the Bay of Biscay. Captain Aubrey is anxious that he is being blown onto the "ironbound coast of Spain", but finally the clouds part fleetingly and he is able to get a sighting of Antares with his sextant. Captain Aubrey is relieved that he still has plenty of sea room. Now, for us "modern" navigators for whom the position line is meat and drink, such an observation makes complete sense. But would a navigator in the first decade of the 19th century have been able to draw such a conclusion based on a single sighting of a single star? Geoffrey Kolbe
