How Creamer did it

EVER SINCE I READ ABOUT Marvin Creamer’s voyage around the world without navigational instruments of any kind, I’ve been wondering how he actually did it. I mean, how in fact did he deduce his latitude by eyeball only?

His explanation for the great unwashed public was simple. The former East Coast geography professor said he observed when a particular star was directly overhead. At that moment, the star’s declination (published in navigation tables) equaled the observer’s latitude.

If, at the time of observation, the star was not directly overhead but at least passing over his meridian, it must have been on a line either directly north or south of him. Then he simply estimated its angular distance away from directly overhead and converted that to miles, one degree being the equivalent of 60 nautical miles.

Yeah, right. The theory is sound . . . but the practice? Can you imagine standing on the heaving deck of a small sailboat at sea, hanging on for dear life, craning your neck upwards, squinting around the mainsail, and trying to judge when a star’s meridian transit occurs? How did Creamer do that? Well, I found the answer, or some of it, in the appendix to his book.

Apparently he drew an imaginary line from the polar point to the star before its transit. He extended that line in both directions and then he waited until that imaginary line divided the sky into two equal halves.

Okay, that’s the (very) approximate time of meridian passage, but how did he tell if the star was directly overhead or not?

“The observer should fix his shoulders in a north-south direction, stare upward, fix an imaginary zenith point and then make a zenith distance judgment.”

Hmmm. He makes it sound so easy.

“Normally an observer has a bias to his left or right,” Creamer continues, “which will affect where he ‘sees’ the star. By averaging two sights, one facing east and the other west, he can fix a point for the star and estimate his latitude based on the star’s declination.”

Creamer was in his late 60s when he sailed around the world via Cape Horn without even a compass or a watch. All I can say is that he was a very special and very gifted type of navigator. He also had his fair share of good luck. That, he explained, consisted of not having bad luck at dangerous times.

After his voyage was over, he discovered that his latitude estimates were within 100 miles of true latitude 68 percent of the time, and within 200 miles 95 percent of the time.

So, what next? you ask. What act can possibly follow that, to startle and amaze us all?

Why, blindfolded, of course. Yes, now someone needs to sail around the world blindfolded. And alone, naturally. And non-stop. And be under 15 years old.

Nothing less will startle and amaze us now. I’m afraid Creamer has desensitized us.

Today’s Thought
Journeys, like artists, are born and not made. A thousand differing circumstances contribute to them, few of them willed or determined by the will — whatever we may think.
— Lawrence Durrell

Boaters’ Rules of Thumb, #115
Best keel shape. For the best windward work, a deep narrow keel is more efficient than a wide shallow one. The maximum cross-sectional width should be about 35 to 45 percent of the chord aft of the leading edge and it should be tapered smoothly to a fine edge — then either cut off bluntly at right angles or rounded to a small radius.

Tailpiece
“How long did it take your son to learn to drive your car?”
“Oh, three or four.”
“Weeks or months?”
“Cars.”