Marine chronometers

[John Arton]

Sextants are a requirement to be carried on any ocean going ship. The requirement is part of SOLAS, though cannot remember when this SOLAS requirement came in, possibly 78, so it would be around that time that shipping companies were forced to put sextants on board in order to comply with the regulations.
Even today a cadet studying for his OOW ticket will have to show that he can
Find and correct any errors on a sextant
calculate latitude by meridian passage
Use the Pole star to find latitude
Calculate ships position using celestial navigation
Calculate the vertex of a great circle.
Calculate the initial and final courses on a great circle sailing
Calculate course and distances using great circle and rhumb line sailings
With the advent of heightened security etc. I doubt that there are many mariners today carrying their own sextants, imagine trying to explain to the plonkers on security duty at airports what the sextant was for "celestial navigation, that some kinda disease?"
I had a Plath sextant, top of the line, that stood me in good stead for many years despite being bashed around by air travel. On a BA flight once it got the attention of the pilot and I was invited into the cockpit where we had quite a discussion on celestial navigation and astro-navigation as this guy was old enough to have known the basics of astro-nav.
The other thing that any self-respecting 2nd Mate carried around with him was his courses and distances book. Every voyages courses and distances that I calculated as 2nd Mate went into my exercise book A$ sized) which by the time I got promoted to Chief Officer was completely full. I always carried it with me, even as Master as every waypoint in every voyage I ever did was listed either by bearing and distance off a landmark or in the case of an ocean passage on a great circle sailing, the lat. and long. of every course alteration at around every 5 degrees of longitude.
It is still in my possession somewhere but for the love of me I cannot find it, more the pity as I could use it to plot my way around the world with the dates that I did those voyages.
Also
Despite GPS etc. it is still a requirement to carry a chronometer and daily record its error.
rgds
JA

[Ivan Cloherty]

Pickfords have got most of my logs from my seatime when they went into storage in the 70's when I went to live aboard for a few years. They didn't lose the crap that was easily replaceable only the irreplaceable items and photos.

Glad to hear that the budding seafarers are still being taught the basics besides GPS etc, hope they find it interesting like we did and have the feeling of satisfaction on making landfall where you should after a long ocean passage

[William Gardner]

remember at sea a chalk board on the bridge with the time differance to put our clocks to every day sparked another one off

[Captain Kong]

Hi William
I will be in Fleetwood for the next few days. Might call in for one of your sausage butties at your cafe
Cheers
Brian.

[William Gardner]

Hi William
I will be in Fleetwood for the next few days. Might call in for one of your Dausage butties at your cafe
Cheers
Brian.

very welcome brian only open fri sat sun till we kick of again for summerbest bacon barms in town

[David Bridgen]

A lot of interesting posts.

I well remember the Old Man of the Sungate saying to the Mates, after they had assembled on one of the bridge wings, took their sun readings and did their individual calculations, that "We'll take the average" (of the calculated positions), and then entered his own in the log!

[Ivan Cloherty]

A lot of interesting posts.

I well remember the Old Man of the Sungate saying to the Mates, after they had assembled on one of the bridge wings, took their sun readings and did their individual calculations, that "We'll take the average" (of the calculated positions), and then entered his own in the log!

He was not alone David, sailed with a couple like that, on one ship the Old Man's eyesight was so bad his noon positions were way out, but all three mates kept a separate record on a separate chart and the mate brought the ship back to true during the 0400/0800 watch, with the Old Man's position on one trip we cut across a peninsular but somehow we flogged it to our intended pass 10 miles off. His mirrors were way out on his sextant as we discovered one afternoon when he was in a whisky coma and left his sextant on the bridge, but he was the boss!

[Robert T. Bush]

Never met anyone carrying a Chronometer onboard. Always had my own sextant and binoculars.

The sextant bought from Kelvin Hughes in London cost me 30 Pounds in 1948, then the average third Mates monthly wage.

Binoculars were Bar and Strouds ex Admiralty with great shades Excellent.

On time pieces, my Walmart wrist watch that cost about ten dollars keeps excellent time quite as good as a gold Rollex costing a lot more.

I was on a couple of old ships with three chronometers

[j.sabourn]

#19... There was a method of rating the chronometer by comparison wth 2 others. Forgotten how to do now. Had to know for Second Mate. Maybe this was why carried 3. Dont know when radio time checks came in, maybe one of our R/Os would have this long forgotten bit of information. I never either saw a master carrying a chronometer but was informed that many did, and this was from masters I sailed with after the war. The shipowner like the mineowners were mostly aristocratic people, and the people of the western societies a hundred years ago were no better off than a lot in the world today in these so called 3rd world countries, who want the same standards as the west without putting in the hard yards for same. The world is still the same place it always has been with the haves and the havenots, only difference is we have different taskmasters now and they are called politicians. Which anyone going in for a career in such I can only assume it is to gain the power which used to be wielded by the so called Upper Classes. Cheers John S

[j.sabourn]

#20... Apologies for diversifying from the subject of Chronometers. It always seems that most topics we have on here and going back to the root cause, always ends up with money and the expense of, which brings up the owners of the wealth on which we all seem to rely, and as it is now sociably unacceptable to draw attention of the rich, my thoughts go to those that maintain the rich in their lavish lifestyles and at the same time protecting their own, and so we come back to politicians. Will try and not come back to this well worn subject as long as possible. Sorry for veering off the subject. Cheers John S.