Notes On Navigation: Meridians

Meridians are semi-great circles on the Earth, joining the two poles. The other half of the same great circle forms yet another meridian.

Prime Meridian:

Is the meridian which passes through Greenwich. The other meridians are named East or West from the prime meridian.

Notes on Navigation: Parallels of Latitude

Parallels of Latitude are small circles on Earth’s surface, the planes of which are parallel to the plane of the Equator. All parallels therefore run East-West. 

Notes on Navigation: Latitude and Longitude: The Geographic Grid

In order to measure accurately the position of any place on the surface of the earth, a grid system has been set up. It pinpoints location by using two coordinates: latitude and longitude. B. It is purely a human invention, but it is tied to two fixed points established by earth motions: the poles, or ends of the earth's rotational axis. 

1. Longitude represents east-west location, and it is shown on a map or globe by a series of north-south running lines that all come together at the North Pole and at the South Pole and are the widest apart at the equator -- these lines of longitude are called "meridians." Figure 1 -- meridians of longitude

2. Latitude represents north-south location, and it is shown on a map or globe by a series of east-west running lines that parallel the equator, which marks the midpoint between the two poles all around the earth's circumference -- these lines of latitude are called "parallels." Figure 2 -- parallels of latitude 

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Apostleship of Sea: beacon of light for seafarers, families

The Church’s ministry to seafarers and their families, through its Apostleship of the Sea and its chaplains and volonteers in ports around the globe, offers “a beacon of light” for those who have sailed for weeks without spiritual care or contact with the outside world. That’s the message of encouragement that the President of the Pontifical Council for Migrants, Cardinal Antonio Maria Vegliò imparted to participants at the Apostleship of the Sea Congress that opened in the Vatican’s Synod hall Monday.

The some 400 delegates have come from seventy countries to study the challenges to their ministry and how best to implement Pope Benedict’s call to the New Evangelization in the Church’s pastoral work.

John Green, Director of Development for the Apostleship of the Sea Great Britain says the Church’s ministry to seafarers and their families means “working not only to support their work/welfare, but also to support their faith because for many of these people (ed. who spend weeks or even months at sea), it is very very difficult for them to access pastoral care, to be supported in their life of faith.”



Listen to Tracey McClure’s brief interview with John Green:

Cape Horn and Bad Weather

Not a good place to pass  from May  to about November each year.

Showing Cape Rollers at Cape Agulhas and how ship is taking the rollers.

The Cape of Good Hope

The first European to sight the Cape, Bartholomew Diaz, 1486, named it Cape Tormentosa or stormy Cape, but on his return to Europe, his master John II of Portugal, more farseeing, renamed it Cape of Good Hope. It was renown for its frequently eerie weather and ideally situated as a port of call and refreshment for the long voyage to the East Indies. The Cape was used as a letter box by passing VOC-ships. The stones under which letters were left are still to be seen in South African Museums.

In 1652 the VOC, by Jan van Riebeeck, made a permanent settlement and started to build a fort. The British occupied the Cape in 1795 and in 1803 handed it back to the Dutch under the Treaty of Amiens. In 1806 the British occupied the Cape once again and kept it until 1910.

The settlement on Cape of Good Hope was a victualling station for VOC-ships on their way between Europe and Asia. In order to improve this function the VOC admitted free citizens who were allowed to settle as farmers and in this way enlarge the production of victuals.
In August 1657, Jan van Riebeeck and Capt. Claas Franssen Bordingh had made an extensive report on depth findings in the bay. They wrote that there were all sorts of ships, both large and small which sailed into the bay successfully both day and night openly and unhesitatingly.

In 1666 works started on the Castle and short distance from the Fort. In 1679 Stellenbosch was founded and the Castle completed. In 1688 the Huguenots, religieus refugees (Protestant) arrived. The British occupied the Cape in 1795.
Click here to see some antique maps and prints of Southern Africa and the Cape, or items relating to the V.O.C.

In 1652 the first VOC employees arrived at the Cape on the ship Drommedaris, Reijer ,Goede Hoope and were shorly folowed by a second batch of VOC employees on the Walvis and Oliphant. All were male and some were accompanied by slaves. Their leader was Jan Antoniszoon van Riebeeck. His instructions were clear from the Council of Privy to build a fort for protection that remains a tourist attraction in Cape Town to this day and use the men sent to the Cape to establish a vegetable garden and secure pasturage for the cattle and to establish a hospital. The settlement like all VOC settlements was Governed by a Governer at the head of a 17 member Council of Policy. He established the VOC vegetable garden at what is today called the Garden at the top of Adderley Street and adjacent to what is to date St Georges Cathedral. The first hospital was established in the 5 corner stone fort he built. 

In 1657 the first 9 settlers previously employed by the VOC Company were allocated land grants. 

The Council of Policy of the Cape felt that private land grants would be more productive than a centralized vegetable garden. In 1677 they started formally registereing these land grants, along with slaves and debentures. This is an early Slave Grant issued in favour of A. Hinloopun. This is one of the very first Slave Grants formally registered and started a century of conflict with the VOC Company who claimed ownership to all of the cape and wanted the men sent to the Cape to work in the Gardens and attend to their cattle and establish a refreshment station at the Cape for their ships bound for India, Indonesia and Malaysia.

The early VOC settlers took dark skinned Hottentots and Griqua and other indigenous women as the common law wifes and their decendants gave rise to what are called the "Cape Coloured Race" Cape Town Slaves in the 1700s 

Most free burghers (citizens) had slaves. A distinction was made between VOC slaves and  'private slaves'. Many private slaves worked on the farms, but lodging houses and most households also had slaves. They performed domestic work - gathering firewood and water.
Visitors commented upon the sight of many slaves gathering along the river banks, drawing water and washing clothes. Some slaves performed at parties as musicians. Some were put in charge of selling their owners' products, others were put to work as artisans or fishermen. It is clear that some slaves occupied trusted positions, although all had to carry a pass signed by their owners.

VOC slaves also held a range of occupations. Most, especially the Africans, were put to hard manual labour, but others, mostly Asians, performed domestic work, served in the hospital, worked as artisans and some held clerical positions in Company offices.
Within the windowless slave lodge - where many hundreds of Company slaves lived - skilled slaves received privileges and had authority, were manual slaves ended up cramped in the worst conditions in the building. The mortality rate among manual slaves was very high.

Cape Town Slaves and Islam 

A movement of lasting consequence was the practise of Islam among many slaves. Although slaves and convicts came from various cultures and religions, there is no evidence that Hinduism and other faiths were practiced at the Cape.  Islam, on the other hand, became a strong force, although it was not allowed to be practiced publicly. The tradition of Islam at the Cape - which can be seen in areas like the Bo-Kaap to this day - is credited to the influence of Muslim political prisoners sent to the Cape in the seventeenth century. The best known is Sheik Yusuf of Makassar, a nobleman banished by the VOC in 1694 after they captured Makassar . He was a noted Sufi scholar and arrived with a considerable retinue, including 12 Imams. He encouraged an Islamic revival among the slaves.

Freak Wave - Questions and Answers

How often do freak waves occur?

No one knows for certain how often freak waves occur. Traditional theories of the ocean say the probability is once in every 10,000 years, but the latest data suggest that they take place more frequently. The satellite data from the German Aerospace Centre found over 10 waves in three weeks, but this is preliminary data not a statistically significant sample.

When do freak waves occur and why?

Freak waves occur in bad weather conditions when the average wave height is high and several big waves come together to create a monster. Technically this could happen when the wave size is small, but as the result is small no one notices. Waves can come together for four main reasons:

1.    when wind pushes against a strong current (eg in South Africa)
2.    when a shallow sea bottom focuses waves to one spot (eg in Norway)
3.    by chance (hence the 1 in 10,000 year statistic)
4.    when waves become unstable and start to self-focus

Scientists think the freak waves observed in the deep ocean are due to unstable waves self-focussing in bad weather conditions. It appears that there is a separate population of unstable waves in the ocean that can grow into freaks.
Are freak waves more likely in certain areas or situations?

Freak waves can occur in any ocean around the world, but there are certain areas where freak waves are more likely:

•    South Africa - freak waves occur off the east coast of South Africa when there is a strong wind blowing in the opposite direction to the strong Agulhas Current. (The South African Weather Service now gives freak wave warnings.)

•    Norway - the coast of Norway is another hotspot because the sea bottom can focus waves together to form monsters - in bad weather the shipping route is altered to avoid these areas.

•    Pacific - certain areas of the Pacific are also notorious for freak waves, when typhoons whip waves up to huge heights.

Can scientists predict freak waves?

At the moment the only place where freak waves can be predicted is South Africa. There is no way of knowing when or where a freak wave will hit anywhere else. Scientists at the UK Meteorological Office are working on the problem and think they might have a solution. If Al Osborne's non-linear Schrodinger theory is right, then freak waves should occur whenever there is a peak in the energy spectrum (ie when a lot of energy is crammed into waves of a specific wavelength). So the Met Office has been looking back at recorded cases of freak waves, like the 1995 Draupner wave, to see if the spectrum is peaked. So far the theory holds up and they hope to come up with a practical way to warn ships about freak waves in the next couple of years.

Are freak waves the same as tsunamis or tidal waves?

No. Tsunamis and tidal waves are extremely rare events caused when either an earthquake or landslide displaces a large volume of water creating a single large wave. Freak waves are occurring far more regularly and seem to be a fundamental property of the sea.

How many ships have been sunk by freak waves?

No one knows how many ships have been hit or sunk by freak waves. A ship is lost at sea every week, but there is often surprisingly little detail as to why or what happened. Usually poor maintenance or human error is blamed, but it is likely that at least some of these losses may be related to freak waves.

Do ships need to be redesigned?

The risk from freak waves in uncertain. Ships are built assuming that in their 20 year lifespan there is no risk from freak waves. The new evidence suggests that the risk is higher than originally thought, but the data are far from conclusive. Until the risk is fully assessed, international maritime organisations and classification societies can't know what (if any) changes need to be made to ship specifications.

Should I be worried about going to sea?

If you weren't worried before, you shouldn't be worried now - according to Department of Transport statistics it's over ten times safer to travel by sea than it is to cross the road.

SS Edmund Fitzgerald Rogue Wave Theory

A group of three rogue waves, often called "three sisters", was reported in the vicinity of the Fitzgerald at the time she sank. The "three sisters" phenomenon is said to occur on Lake Superior as a result of a sequence of three rogue waves forming that are one-third larger than normal waves. When the first wave hits a ship's deck, before its water drains away the second wave strikes. The third incoming wave adds to the two accumulated backwashes suddenly overloading the deck with tons of water.

Captain Cooper of the Anderson reported that his ship was "hit by two 30 to 35 foot seas about 6:30 p.m., one burying the aft cabins and damaging a lifeboat by pushing it right down onto the saddle. The second wave of this size, perhaps 35 foot, came over the bridge deck." Cooper went on to say that these two waves, possibly followed by a third, continued in the direction of the Fitzgerald and would have struck about the time she sank. This theory postulates that the "three sisters" compounded the twin problems of the Fitzgerald's known list and her slower speed in heavy seas that already allowed water to remain on her deck for longer than usual.

The Edmund Fitzgerald episode of the 2010 television series Dive Detectives features the wave-generating tank of the Canadian National Research Council's Institute for Naval Technology and the tank's simulation of the effect of a 56 ft rogue wave upon a scale model of the Fitzgerald. The simulation indicated such a rogue wave could almost completely submerge the bow or stern of the ship with water, at least temporarily.

SS Edmund Fitzgerald Wreck discovery

Edmund Fitzgerald at the Bottom of the Sea

A U.S. Navy Lockheed P-3C Orion aircraft which is equipped to detect magnetic anomalies usually associated with submarines found the wreck on November 14, 1975. The Fitzgerald lay about 17 miles from the entrance of Whitefish Bay, in Canadian waters close to the international boundary at a depth of 530 feet . A further November 14–16 survey by the USCG using a side scan sonar revealed two large objects lying close together on the lake floor. The U.S. Navy also contracted Seaward, Inc., to conduct a second survey between November 22–25.
Underwater surveys

From May 20 to 28, 1976, the U.S. Navy dived the wreck using its unmanned submersible, CURV-III, and found the Fitzgerald lying in two large pieces in 530 feet  of water. Navy estimates put the length of the bow section at 276 feet and that of the stern section at 253 feet . The bow section stood upright in the mud, some 170 feet from the stern section that lay face down at a 50-degree angle from the bow. The ship's midsection had been reduced to heaps of metal and taconite.

In 1980, during a Lake Superior research dive expedition, marine explorer Jean-Michel Cousteau, son of Jacques Cousteau, sent two divers from the RV Calypso in the first manned submersible dive to the Fitzgerald. The dive was brief, and although the dive team drew no final conclusions, they speculated that the Fitzgerald had broken up on the surface.

The Michigan Sea Grant Program organized a three-day dive to survey the Fitzgerald in 1989. The primary objective was to record 3-D videotape for use in museum educational programs and production of documentaries. The expedition used a towed survey system (TSS Mk1) and a self-propelled, tethered, free swimming remotely operated underwater vehicle (ROV). The Mini Rover ROV was equipped with miniature stereoscopic cameras and wide angle lenses in order to produce 3-D images. The towed survey system and the Mini Rover ROV were designed, built and operated by Chris Nicholson of Deep Sea Systems International, Inc. Participants included the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the National Geographic Society, the United States Army Corps of Engineers, the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society (GLSHS), and the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, the latter providing the RV Grayling as the support vessel for the ROV. The GLSHS used part of the five hours of video footage produced during the dives in a documentary and the National Geographic Society used a segment in a broadcast. Frederick Stonehouse, who wrote one of the first books on the Fitzgerald wreck, moderated a 1990 panel review of the video that drew no conclusions about the cause of the Fitzgerald's sinking.

Canadian explorer Joseph B. MacInnis organized and led six publicly funded dives to the Fitzgerald over a three-day period in 1994. Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution provided the Edwin A. Link as the support vessel, and their manned submersible, the Celia. The GLSHS paid $10,000 for three of its members to each join a dive and take still pictures. MacInnis concluded that the notes and video obtained during the dives did not provide an explanation why the Fitzgerald sank. The same year, longtime sport diver Fred Shannon formed Deepquest Ltd., and organized a privately funded dive to the wreck of the Fitzgerald, using Delta Oceanographic's submersible Delta. Deepquest Ltd. conducted seven dives and took more than 42 hours of underwater video while Shannon set the record for the longest submersible dive to the Fitzgerald at 211 minutes. Prior to conducting the dives, Shannon studied NOAA navigational charts and found that the international boundary had changed three times before its publication by NOAA in 1976. Shannon determined that based on GPS coordinates from the 1994 Deepquest expedition, "at least one-third of the two acres of immediate wreckage containing the two major portions of the vessel is in U.S. waters because of an error in the position of the U.S.–Canada boundary line shown on official lake charts."

Shannon's group discovered the remains of a crew member wearing a life jacket lying alongside the bow of the ship, indicating that at least one of the crew was aware of the possibility of sinking. The life jacket had deteriorated canvas and "what is thought to be six rectangular cork blocks ... clearly visible." Shannon concluded that "massive and advancing structural failure" caused the Fitzgerald to break apart on the surface and sink.

MacInnis led another series of dives in 1995 to salvage the bell from the Fitzgerald.  The Sault Tribe of Chippewa Indians backed the expedition by co-signing a loan in the amount of $250,000. Canadian engineer Phil Nuytten's atmospheric diving suit, known as the "Newtsuit", was used to retrieve the bell from the ship, replace it with a replica, and put a beer can in the Fitzgerald's pilothouse. That same year, Terrence Tysall and Mike Zee set multiple records when they used trimix gas to scuba dive to the Fitzgerald. The pair are the only people known to have touched the Fitzgerald wreck. They also set records for the deepest scuba dive on the Great Lakes and the deepest shipwreck dive, and were the first divers to reach the Fitzgerald without the aid of a submersible. It took six minutes to reach the wreck, six minutes to survey it, and three hours to resurface to avoid decompression sickness, also known as "the bends".

SS Edmund Fitzgerald Search

One of the Edmund Fitzgerald's lifeboats, on display at the Valley Camp museum ship

Captain Cooper of the Anderson first called the USCG in Sault Ste. Marie at 7:39 p.m. on channel 16, the radio distress frequency. The USCG responders instructed him to call back on channel 12 because they wanted to keep their emergency channel open and they were having difficulty with their communication systems, including antennas blown down by the storm. Cooper then contacted the upbound saltwater vessel Nanfri and was told that she could not pick up the Fitzgerald on her radar. Despite repeated attempts to raise the USCG, Cooper was not successful until 7:54 p.m. when the officer on duty asked him to keep watch for a 16-foot outboard lost in the area.] At about 8:25 p.m., Cooper again called the USCG to express his concern about the Fitzgerald and at 9:03 p.m. reported her missing. Petty Officer Philip Branch later testified, "I considered it serious, but at the time it was not urgent."

Lacking appropriate search-and-rescue vessels to respond to the Fitzgerald disaster, at approximately 9:00 p.m., the USCG asked the Anderson to turn around and look for survivors. Around 10:30 p.m., the USCG asked all commercial vessels anchored in or near Whitefish Bay to assist in the search. The initial search for survivors was carried out by the Anderson, and a second freighter, the SS William Clay Ford. The efforts of a third freighter, the Canadian vessel Hilda Marjanne, were foiled by the weather. The USCG sent a buoy tender, Woodrush, from Duluth, Minnesota, but it took two and a half hours to launch and a day to arrive at the search area. The Traverse City, Michigan, USCG station launched a HU-16 fixed-wing search aircraft that arrived on the scene at 10:53 p.m. while a HH-52 USCG helicopter with a 3.8-million-candlepower searchlight arrived at 1:00 a.m. on November 11. Canadian Coast Guard aircraft joined the three-day search and the Ontario Provincial Police established and maintained a beach patrol all along the eastern shore of Lake Superior.

Although the search recovered debris, including lifeboats and rafts, no survivors were found. On her final voyage the Fitzgerald's crew of 29 consisted of the captain, the first, second and third mates, five engineers, three oilers, a cook, a wiper, two maintenance men, three watchmen, three deckhands, three wheelsmen, two porters, a cadet and a steward. Most of the crew was from Ohio and Wisconsin; their ages ranged from 21-year-old deckhand Mark Andrew Thomas to Captain McSorley, 63 years old and planning his retirement.

The Fitzgerald is amongst the largest and best-known vessels lost on the Great Lakes but she is not alone on the Lake Superior seabed in that area. In the years between 1816, when the Invincible was lost, to the sinking of the Fitzgerald in 1975, the Whitefish Point area had claimed at least 240 ships.