Sextant: A Voyage Guided by the Stars and the Men Who Mapped the World’s Oceans

Sextant: A Voyage Guided by the Stars and the Men Who Mapped the World’s Oceans
David Barrie

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.This book is an eloquent elegy to the sextant – the odd-looking instrument that changed the world. It tells the story of how and why the sextant was invented; how it saved the lives of many navigators in wild and dangerous seas—as well as its vital role in man’s attempts to map the world. Among the protagonists in this story are Captain James Cook, Matthew Flinders – the first man to circumnavigate Australia, the great French navigator, Laperouse, who built on Cook's work in the exploring the Pacific during the 1780s, but never made it home, Robert Fitz-Roy of the Beagle, George Vancouver, Frank Worsley of the Endurance, and Joshua Slocum, the redoubtable old ‘lunarian’ and first single-handed round-the-world yachtsman. Much of the book is set amidst the waves of the Pacific ocean as explorers searched for the great southern ocean, charted the coasts of Australia, New Zealand, California, Canada, Alaska as well as the Pacific islands. Their stories are interwoven with the author’s account of his own maiden voyage on Saecwen in 1973, and they are infused with his sense of wonder and dramatic discovery.A heady mix of adventure, science, mathematics and derring-do, Sextant is a timeless tale of sea-faring and exploration, a love letter to the sea which will appeal to the many thousands of readers who loved Dava Sobel’s Longitude as well as the work of Simon Winchester, Patrick O’Brian and Richard Holmes. This is narrative history and storytelling at its best.

Copyright (#ulink_9946f520-81b3-5810-9eb7-a5cc4d1b1b4e)

William Collins

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

WilliamCollinsBooks.com (http://www.WilliamCollinsBooks.com)

First published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2014

Copyright © David Barrie 2014

Maps © Nicolette Caven

David Barrie asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780007516568

Ebook Edition 2014 ISBN: 9780007516575

Version: 2015-05-16

Dedication (#ulink_42db7fdc-eff9-579c-b3c1-7d2dd40667be)

To the memory of my father, Alexander Ogilvy Barrie (1910–1969), who first showed me the stars, and of Colin McMullen (1907–1991), who taught me to steer by them.

Contents

Cover (#u34b7a903-33f6-5aa2-85c4-0b3bc5907de3)

Title Page (#uf4f906ca-66cc-514f-ba70-c76db8018bfc)

Copyright (#ua160bc25-63b1-55c7-bbe6-29b07490a151)

Dedication (#u3abba75b-1044-50c5-b1e0-95372b355619)

Maps (#u01485efe-6da5-5b6b-b390-c8a1bb032008)

Preface (#u580a0298-644f-518a-a0ee-6399c5f810ac)

Chapter 1: Setting Sail (#u55814e4d-e803-503d-a656-ad60e56d71c6)

Chapter 2: First Sight (#u8561af01-2304-5e7e-8085-eaac74e9478c)

Chapter 3: The Origins of the Sextant (#ub789191b-1c5d-5298-bfda-c5a15dd1c6c3)

Chapter 4: Bligh’s Boat Journey (#u8d59b359-6592-5889-8986-b6838faf22b5)

Chapter 5: Anson’s Ordeals (#u3c5f0995-8645-5b7d-99a9-45cdfa932d65)

Chapter 6: The Marine Chronometer (#u9cc4b516-c251-5a80-beee-de4d0eacfd12)

Chapter 7: Celestial Timekeeping (#u298aa396-4c9e-5dd3-a2ff-caa19b1b1983)

Chapter 8: Captain Cook Charts the Pacific (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 9: Bougainville in the South Seas (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 10: La Pérouse Vanishes (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 11: The Travails of George Vancouver (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 12: Flinders – Coasting Australia (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 13: Flinders – Shipwreck and Captivity (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 14: Voyages of the Beagle (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 15: Slocum Circles the World (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 16: Endurance (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 17: ‘These are men’ (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 18: Two Landfalls (#litres_trial_promo)

Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)

Picture Section (#litres_trial_promo)

Footnotes (#litres_trial_promo)

Notes (#litres_trial_promo)

List of Illustrations (#litres_trial_promo)

Bibliography (#litres_trial_promo)