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In December of 1982 a New Jersey geography professor Marvin Creamer started
his round the world voyage with a steel cutter, a GODERICH 35 named Globe
Star designed and built by Ted Brewer. He used no timepiece or navigation
instruments at all, not even a compass and did just fine in his round the
world trip. The voyage went by way of Dakar West Africa, Cape Town South
Africa, on to Australia, New Zealand, Cape Horn, and the Falkland Islands
then along the South American coastline northward to Cape Verdes and
Bermuda, starting and ending at New Jersey. Professor Creamer returned to
Cape May on May 17, 1984. The trip was described in "Navigator" July/August
1985, pages 30-35 the trip was also the subject of a talk Creamer gave at
the Institute of Navigation annual meeting, Annapolis, MD in June, 1985,
entitled "The First Circumnavigation Without Instruments: A Small Step
Backward". For some reason the trip has never been widely known, even at the
time it was done. There is no book written about it and information on the
technique he used is hard to come by but very interesting.

Taffrail logs are more accurate then the estimates for leeway and current. I
don�t have a number for the error because after setting the fins on the fish
there has been no measurable error. Some brands such as Bliss have a small
trim tab to adjust and for the rest you can bend the tip of the fins to
regulate them. It takes very little bend in the fins to make very a large
changes to the distance measured so its almost always better to just check
to verify the error, if any and leave then alone.

The Walker IIIa log has a very small fish that is not adjustable and I think
it under reports the distance at high speeds. It doesn�t work at all in the
lower speed range. Because I have somewhat limited experience with the IIIa
there may be some other way to set it up so that it works, but I cannot
imagine what that might be. The Walker IV has a larger fish and has been
correct all the times that I have been able to verify it. The Walker Trident
and Cherub logs both use the very large Cherub fish and with the right
length line have been spot on. If the line is too short the log under reads.
As Carl has pointed out if you don�t paint the fish you are going to speed
lots of money feeding the sharks.
All the best,
Robert Gainer


>From: Bill 
>Reply-To: Navigation Mailing List 
>To: NAVIGATION-L@LISTSERV.WEBKAHUNA.COM
>Subject: Re: Voyaging the traditional way
>Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 00:24:57 -0500
>
>Regarding taffrail logs:
>
>While I have a used brass T.W, Cherub on my fireplace mantel, I have not
>used it nor do I have the counter (perhaps the wrong term?).  I have read
>that they tend to lose accuracy in following seas. (My guess is they run
>too
>slowly.)
>
>Could Robert, David, et al comment on their experiences of the accuracy in
>different types of seas at different points of sail?
>
>Thanks
>
>Bill

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