 Ships of the Past
"Road Runner" <Me@> wrote:
>I wonder if anyone could advise me as to where we could go to learn about
>how the old sailors used sextons and compass and charts to navigate. It
>would be a wonderful lecture to have on cruise ships and we have often
>mentioned it on the comment cards that are passed out at the end of a
>cruise.
>
>Is there a cruise ship that makes such information available to the
>passengers? Thanks in advance for any and all responses. Sandy
>
I doubt very much that cruise ships use sextants anymore. They use a
GPS, sometimes when they should not. This is from rec.boats.cruising
>>>Yeah, the QEII (I think) ran aground about 20 years ago just off the
>>>Elizabeth Islands on Cape Cod and in one of the most heavily traveled
>>>areas of New England. The chart turned out to be wrong.
>>
>> Is that the case? I heard about something similar but not a case of a
>> chart being wrong. A cruise liner enroute to Boston was under autopilot
>> but the gps lost lock for an extended period of time. During that period
>> the course was continued with the unit doing its own dead reckoning. By
>> the time it regained lock it was well off course and the new course to
>> the next waypoint took it over some rocks. None of the crew had noticed
>> the system had lost lock and all were trusting that the "gps referenced
>> autopilot" was safely steering the ship waypoint to waypoint. They also
>> did not bother to look and see that their course was now taking them
>> over the rocks.
>>
>I believe in the case of the QE2, the rock was charted but the depth was
>wrong, plus they didn't allow for squat.
I understand this is the best book on the subject.
1. Mary Blewitt, Celestial Navigation for Yachtsmen, Revised edition
(1995).
ISBN 0-07-005928-4, Mc-Graw - Hill - Excellent text
grandma Rosalie
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