NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Basque Whalers
From: Andrés Ruiz
Date: 2013 Mar 8, 09:39 +0100
From: Andrés Ruiz
Date: 2013 Mar 8, 09:39 +0100
Yes, the name of the Eubalaena glacialis, in english is North Atlantic right whale, and in spanish ballena franca, or ballena de los vascos. In the past centuries its name was ballena bisacayensis, but the international scientific community rename it it to the actual.
The skeleton of
a Eubalaena glacialis whale
hunted in 1870 is on display at the Aquarium of San Sebastian, the penultimate that was captured on the Basque
coast.
Frank wrote:
"Was Basque even a written
language in the 17th century?"
Yes, is one of the oldest languages in Europe, but sadly for there are very few records
And also:
"Perhaps we can only speculate on their
navigational methods. Of course, they could determine latitude by the common
methods of Noon Sun altitudes and Polaris altitudes. Though the accuracy would
be relatively low with the cross-staffs and tables for that period, their
navigational target outbound was good "whaling grounds" which can be
hundreds of miles in extent, so accuracy is not critical."
It is critical, there a lot of settlements near the mouth of the San Lorenzo. And year by year reach the same place.
In the XIV and XVI of the whaling industry was a very profitable activity. The San Juan sank in Red Bay in 1565 http://bertan.gipuzkoakultura.net/23/ing/12.php
was an exception. Hard times for navigation, but amazing!I remember a very beautiful photos of the Charles W. Morgan that Frank e-mail us, and the discussion about vessels, boats and ships