NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Old question - need summary
From: John Huth
Date: 2010 Oct 25, 17:19 -0400
I was doing a minor diversion for my class on the Shovell disaster, and figured I'd better bone up on the history surrounding it. I naively thought this was in part responsible for the Longitude Act of 1714 - based on the usual suspect, who shall not be named.
From: John Huth
Date: 2010 Oct 25, 17:19 -0400
I was doing a minor diversion for my class on the Shovell disaster, and figured I'd better bone up on the history surrounding it. I naively thought this was in part responsible for the Longitude Act of 1714 - based on the usual suspect, who shall not be named.
Yes, I found that Ushant and the Scillies were separated mainly by a latitude difference. Not wanting to be a pest, I in fact, did look through the archives, and saw there was a lengthy discussion on this very point but I always have a bit of a problem with the archives. To wit: it's difficult to see if people on the list got to "group conclusion" of sorts.
I apologize for dredging up an old subject, as I see that it had been discussed at some length and I did catch a lot of the back and forth in the archives.
From what I could tell, blaming this on a solely on a lack of knowledge of longitude is a gross oversimplification and is a bit suspect. It may very well be that improvements in navigational practice were spurred on by accidents like this, and that's probably the bigger picture.
Would this be a correct summary of your previous discussion, which occurred before my entry into Navlist? Again, I don't want to open up a can of worms, but if you could tell me whether my interpretation of your discussion is roughly correct, I'd be grateful.
Best,
John H.
