Sextant: A Young Man's Daring Sea Voyage and the Men Who Mapped the World's Oceans
By David Barrie
3/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
In the tradition of Dava Sobel's Longitude comes sailing expert David Barrie's compelling and dramatic tale of invention and discovery—an eloquent elegy to one of the most important navigational instruments ever created, and the daring mariners who used it to explore, conquer, and map the world.
Since its invention in 1759, a mariner's most prized possession has been the sextant. A navigation tool that measures the angle between a celestial object and the horizon, the sextant allowed sailors to pinpoint their exact location at sea.
David Barrie chronicles the sextant's development and shows how it not only saved the lives of navigators in wild and dangerous seas, but played a pivotal role in their ability to map the globe. He synthesizes centuries of seafaring history and the daring sailors who have become legend, including James Cook, Matthew Flinders, Robert Fitz-Roy, Frank Worsley of the Endurance, and Joshua Slocum, the redoubtable old "lunarian" and first single-handed-round-the-world yachtsman. He also recounts his own maiden voyage, and insights gleaned from his experiences as a practiced seaman and navigator.
Full of heroism, danger, and excitement, told with an infectious sense of wonder, Sextant offers a new look at a masterful achievement that changed the course of history.
Related to Sextant
Related ebooks
Sextant: A Young Man's Daring Sea Voyage and the Men Who Mapped the World's Oceans Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Sails, Skippers and Sextants: A History of Sailing in 50 Inventors and Innovations Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Way of a Ship: A Square-Rigger Voyage in the Last Days of Sail Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sailing Acts: Following An Ancient Voyage Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Maritime Annapolis: A History of Watermen, Sails & Midshipmen Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJack Tar and the Baboon Watch: A Guide to Curious Nautical Knowledge for Landlubbers and Sea Lawyers Alike Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe U.S. Naval Institute on Arctic Naval Operations Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Battle For The Solomons [Illustrated Edition] Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Abandon Ship: The World War II Classic That Can Save Your Life Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLightships: Floating Lighthouses of the Mid-Atlantic Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Intracoastal Waterway, Norfolk to Miami: The Complete Cockpit Cruising Guide, Sixth Edition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIsland Sailing Is Not All Rum and Bananas Vol 1: Humorous Stories From The Bahamas Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Knox-Johnston on Sailing Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCelestial Navigation for Yachtsmen Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lightships and Lighthouses Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWinter in Fireland: A Patagonian Sailing Adventure Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPatch Guide: U.S. Navy Ships and Submarines Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRough Weather Seamanship for Sail and Power: Design, Gear, and Tactics for Coastal and Offshore Waters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Breaking the Ice: Canada, Sovereignty, and the Arctic Extended Continental Shelf Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKnox-Johnston on Seamanship & Seafaring: Lessons & experiences from the 50 years since the start of his record breaking voyage Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Notorious Captain Hayes: The Remarkable True Story of The Pirate of The Pacific Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Human Shore: Seacoasts in History Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAnchorages & Marinas of the Western Canary Islands: Tenerife, La Palma, La Gomera & El Hierro Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFrom Far and Wide: A History of Canada's Arctic Sovereignty Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5With the Tide Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNavigational Instruments Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A History of the World in Sixteen Shipwrecks Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Deadly Shipwrecks of the Powhattan & New Era on the Jersey Shore Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
History For You
Becoming Cliterate: Why Orgasm Equality Matters--And How to Get It Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5100 Things You're Not Supposed to Know: Secrets, Conspiracies, Cover Ups, and Absurdities Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Whore Stories: A Revealing History of the World's Oldest Profession Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Richest Man in Babylon: The most inspiring book on wealth ever written Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The ZERO Percent: Secrets of the United States, the Power of Trust, Nationality, Banking and ZERO TAXES! Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Secret History of the World Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Great Awakening: Defeating the Globalists and Launching the Next Great Renaissance Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Great Reset: And the War for the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ultralearning: Master Hard Skills, Outsmart the Competition, and Accelerate Your Career Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5100 Amazing Facts About the Negro with Complete Proof Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Power of Geography: Ten Maps That Reveal the Future of Our World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Summary of The War of Art: by Steven Pressfield | Includes Analysis Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Lessons of History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Anglo-Saxons: A History of the Beginnings of England: 400 – 1066 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Grief Observed Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Gulag Archipelago [Volume 1]: An Experiment in Literary Investigation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Explain Everything About the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Sextant
7 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5In this book Barrie tells us how and why this piece of technology changed the way that sailors navigated their way across the wild and unknown seas in the great age of exploration. There are tales of explorers like Cook, FitzRoy, Flinders and Worsley as they charted the new worlds of Australia and New Zealand, suffered the great storms of the Southern ocean and trawled across the vastness of the Pacific Ocean.
Woven amongst these tales of men who sought to go beyond the map and discover the unknown is Barrie’s own adventure. In 1973 he crewed on a boat called Saecwen, that was crossing the Atlantic from America to the UK. This was before the advent of GPS and modern navigational technologies, so he had to rely on the sextant and charts to determine his position every day. They suffered storms and near misses with giant ships, and saw dolphins and other sea creatures as they crossed. The journey proved to him that this precision instrument was capable of getting men safely across the huge oceans.
Written in a similar vein to the book Longitude by Soble, this is a blend of science, history and adventure. It is interesting in parts and full of interesting facts and details. But like some ocean voyages, it does feel that you are becalmed occasionally, and just paddling along. Overall ok, but really only for those with a real interest in sailing and adventure. - Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I grew up within spitting distance of the sea, in a fishing port, yet have never sailed. But I know a bit about sailing (all bar actually how to do it) so the terminology, the charts, the apparatus are vaguely familiar to me, even if I'd be all at sea when let loose aboard a boat. So this has elements that I recognise, but was also a mine of interesting information. It traces the attempt to answer that human imperative question - where are we? That's hard enough to answer on land, at sea it becomes a whole different ball game. Nowadays you'd plug in the GPS (and possibly discover you're lying at anchor half way up a mountain, but that's a different kettle of fish). This traces the evolution of navigation, and the tools of the trade. It looks at the difficulties of navigation, and how various voyagers overcame them and gradually filled in the map of the seas. In parallel to this is uses extracts of a voyage he made as a teenager, crossing the Atlantic on a yacht, practically taking sighs and finding their position in the same way that the voyagers he discusses were doing. It's an interesting history, with some technical details on what a sextant does and how it does it, as well as a tale of great adventure and struggles. Interesting enough.