NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
From: Robert H. van Gent
Date: 2017 Aug 10, 15:11 +0000
Hi,
In today’s posting on another mailing list the claim is made that in maritime circles the “sea day”, rather than the “astronomical day” or the
“civil day”, was in common usage until about 1868.
The citation is from
https://books.google.com/books?id=l5VPAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA38
but a later example of its use is in the 1874 edition of the _American Practical Navigator_.
https://books.google.com/books?id=qzdHAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA156
Any later examples known?
Thanks in advance,
Rob van Gent
From: Bart Fried [mailto:oldscope@gmail.com]
Sent: 10 August 2017 16:49
To: rete@maillist.ox.ac.uk
Subject: RE: [rete] Transit of Venus 1761
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Roger W. Sinnott <roger.sinnott@verizon.net>
Date: Thu, Aug 10, 2017 at 9:25 AM
Subject: RE: RE: [rete] Transit of Venus 1761
To: Bart Fried <oldscope@gmail.com>
Bart,
Thanks for forwarding this discussion. In addition to the “astronomical day” (beginning at noon of the civil
date), there was the “sea day” (beginning at noon of the preceding civil date).
The astronomical day was in general use by astronomers before 1925. The “sea day” was in use aboard ship up
to about 1868, I think. I have a navigation book published then, which said: “We think it would be advisable to dispense altogether with this absurd sea day, and adopt the astronomical day. Cannot a move be made in this direction? A good many errors would
be avoided by so doing.”
Roger
