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    Re: Navigation and whaling
    From: Javier MacLennan
    Date: 2009 Feb 18, 13:30 +0100

    Here you can find Sailing Alone Around the World by Joshua Slocum.
    http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/6317
    Javier.
    
    -----Mensaje original-----
    De: NavList@fer3.com [mailto:NavList@fer3.com] En nombre de George Huxtable
    Enviado el: mi�rcoles, 18 de febrero de 2009 10:54
    Para: NavList@fer3.com
    Asunto: [NavList 7347] Re: Navigation and whaling
    
    
    
    Geoffrey wrote, about Slocum-
    
    | No George, I did not claim that Slocum never used celestial
    | navigation. I said that his book was a "celebration of the art of dead
    | reckoning", which is quite different.
    |
    | I don't have the book "Sailing alone around the world" to hand, but
    | there is a passage towards the back where he comments on the accuracy
    | of all his landfalls during the trip, despite the fact that his
    | navigation was
    largely
    | dead reckoning - or words to that effect. Perhaps you can dig out the
    passage.
    
    |
    | The feeling I was left with, after reading the book, was that Slocum was
    | pretty pleased in proving to himself that he was a good navigator - and to
    | him, the epitome of good navigation was to be able to navigate by dead
    | reckoning alone. I suspect this may have been a common feeling amongst
    | navigators at the end of the 19th century - a harking back to the skills
    | required in a previous age, just we do now, only we hark back to the time
    | of Slocum!
    
    I've riffled rhrough the later pages of my 1995 (and 1949) editions, without
    locating the passage that Geoffrey refers to, though not so closely as to be
    confident in denying its existence. So far, I've failed to dig it out.
    
    Much to my surprise, "Sailing Alone" isn't available in full-view,
    digitised. Filleted extracts, from all of Slocum's books, can be found at-
    
    http://books.google.com/books?id=EaCcf_L8Zp8C&printsec=frontcover&dq=intitle:sailing+intitle:alone+inauthor:slocum&lr=lang_en&as_brr=3&as_pt=ALLTYPES#PPA347,M1
    
    but a more useful version is, unexpectedly, "Webster's French Thesaurus
    Edition", which allows some word-searching, at-
    
    http://books.google.com/books?id=XK3YsNctJwgC&printsec=frontcover&dq=intitle:sailing+intitle:alone+inauthor:slocum&lr=lang_en&as_brr=3&as_pt=ALLTYPES
    
    That hasn't helped me to find the passage quoted by Geoffrey, but it might
    well help him to.
    
    As for Geoffrey's statement that "his navigation was largely dead
    reckoning", I would disagree, strongly. Slocum was employing "latitude
    sailing", as adopted generally by all navigators before longitudes could be
    determined celestially. That involved making a course diagonally across an
    ocean, to arrive at the latitude of the destination, long before reaching
    the destination itself; then sailing along that latitude line. Accuracy of
    landfall was then guaranteed, without knowledge of dead reckoning. It was
    the date of that landfall which could only be predicted by the dead
    reckoning.
    
    So for Slocum, regular celestial observations of noon Sun altitudes, to
    determine latitude, were a vital part of his ocean navigation. All his
    dead-reckoning did was to tell him when he was nearing the other side.
    
    George.
    
    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.
    
    
    
    
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