No further explanation

The Track of the Typhoon was written by William Nutting, the editor of MotorBoat magazine in the 1920s, and a founding member of the Cruising Club of America. It is a charming, classic tale of adventure aboard a small sailing craft. Nutting and his friends were on a duck hunting trip in Nova Scotia when they hatched the idea of having the perfect ocean-cruising sailboat built. They went to William Atkins to design a 45-foot gaff ketch built in Nova Scotia. According to Nutting, “There was no serious motive behind the cruise of Typhoon €¦ We feel that the sport of picking your way across great stretches of water by your own (newly acquired) skill with the sextant €¦ [is] worth the time, the cost, the energy and even the risk and hardship that are bound to be a part of such an undertaking. We did it for the fun of the thing, and we believe that no further explanation is necessary.” In 1920, when Typhoon made its passage, it was so unusual that it garnered international media attention. To get the time off from work, Nutting came up with the idea of saying the objective of the trip across the Atlantic was to cover the Cowes Regatta that was to commence Aug. 10 that year. Typhoon wasn’t ready for sea until July 18, and it was debatable whether they could make it in time for the races. As it was, they made the 2,777-nm trip from Nova Scotia to Cowes, England, in 22 days 1 hour 20 minutes – reaching Cowes a day and a half before the races. Typhoon spent the summer cruising Europe and sailed back to New York, limping into the harbor in November. In 1923, Nutting and his crew were lost while sailing aboard a 42-foot Colin Archer cutter off Greenland. During the cruise of Typhoon, all navigation was done with a sextant. We will attempt a sight based on a local apparent noon sight that will give us latitude and longitude. We will find the longitude by doubling the altitude of the sun before and after LAN. First we will calculate the time of LAN. Then about one hour before LAN, we will take a sextant altitude. We mark the time and the Hs. We leave the sextant altitude where it is, and about an hour or so after noon, when the sun reaches the altitude marked on the sextant, we again mark the time. We add those times and divide by two. This will give us the exact time of LAN. Then with the Nautical Almanac, we can convert GHA to longitude. The DR of Typhoon at the time of the sights was 49° 20′ N by 27° 30′ W. The day in question is July 2 (we will use the 2005 NA). The height of eye is 9 feet. There is no index error and no chronometer correction. We will be taking a lower limb shot of the sun. At 12 hours 54 minutes 35 seconds, the Hs of the sun is 61° 11.2′. The next time the sun is at that altitude is at 14 hours 53 minutes 26 seconds. A: What is the time of LAN? B: What is calculated longitude? C: What is latitude based on LAN at 13 hours 54 minutes? The Hs of the lower limb at the time of the sight is 63° 27.4′.  

By Ocean Navigator