[Rhodes22-list] The Ship

[Steve Alm]

Roger,

I too enjoyed the way they explained the celestial navigation process.  Yes,
they had three good sextants but had to rely on Capt. Cook's own crude
mathematical tables to calculate everything.  They would take their sextant
shootings and then performed what they referred to as "diabolical"
calculations that would take over two hours to complete.  None of them were
very accurate so they repeated the process seven times and cross-referenced.
Further, the whole navigation process was even more difficult because they
also used Cook's charts which were quite incomplete and inaccurate.  Then
they would often forget to turn the hour glasses over on time which
compounded the problem even more.  They completely missed their marks
several times and had to do some backtracking to find a land mark to get
back on track.  Lots of dead reckoning. All things considered however, they
did a pretty amazing job.

On 10/21/02 8:47 AM, "Roger Pihlaja" <cen09402@centurytel.net> wrote:

> Steve,
> 
> I've only been able to catch a couple of the episodes.  But, that's the sort
> of voyage I'd really like to do!
> 
> I especially enjoyed listening to the problems & thought processes of the
> navigators.  They had pretty good sextants.  But, sand hourglasses to tell
> the time, wooden chip logs to gauge ship's speed, & lead lines to gauge the
> water depth?  Man, what a mental challenge!  I'd love it.
> 
> Roger Pihlaja
> S/V Dynamic Equilibrium
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Steve Alm" <salm@mn.rr.com>
> To: <rhodes22-list@rhodes22.org>
> Sent: Sunday, October 20, 2002 11:41 PM
> Subject: [Rhodes22-list] The Ship
> 
> 
>> I just finished watching the History Channel's broadcast of "The Ship."
>> This was a sort of "Reality TV" special on the recreation of Capt. Cook's
>> voyage from Australia to Indonesia.  They sailed on a replica of Cook's
>> ship,  named The Endeavor, where they sailed the same route as Cap'n Cook.
>> They tried to recreate the eightieth century voyage of Cook, including
>> eightieth century navigation, methods, food, sketchy charts, etc.
>> 
>> They had 15 professional crew and 40 amateurs and sailed from Australia to
>> Bali and the trip took about a month and a half.
>> 
>> I thoroughly enjoyed the story of how the many amateurs coped with the
>> rigors of the eightieth century, square rigger voyage.
>> 
>> Did anyone else watch this?  I love the tall ships and was glued to these
>> episodes.
>> 
>> Slim
>> S/V Fandango
>> 
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> 
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