Chart orientation "in high southern latitudes"

[El Pinguino]

Originally Posted by sailorF54

Here is the diagram from the original French edition.

AMHA, what the caption means is that if you want to apply this diagram (Moitessier calls it a "carte" ("map / chart")) to the southern latitudes, you have to view it with the South up (then East is left...)
It says nothing about MARINE charts...

This is making less sense by the day....

The wind is shown blowing clockwise around the low... it can only be in a southern latitude... I suspect the editor had never seen the sea...let alone sailed on it.

[svmariane]

My copy of Motessier's book doesn't include any diagrams, charts, drawings or what-have-you with South up. Paperback, 2003 English edition. In fact, the diagram referenced as being on page 220 isn't included anywhere at all in my copy.

I've been short-changed!!!



Edit: Ahhhhh. Published by an American firm in NY. So not actually an English version. Will need to acquire a replacement.

[Alan Mighty]

Originally Posted by El Pinguino

This is making less sense by the day....

Au contraire!


Let's see if we can salvage something from this.


First, thanks to F54 for the digital version of Bernard Moitessier's diagram and caption from the French original. F54 saved me from showing you that my 1968 copy is brown with oxidation and age.


I think there are two or three aspects that puzzle us.


1. The English publishers did damage to BM's diagram. As you can see from the digital version of French original (in #30), BM chose to draw his chartlet with S at the top, N at the bottom.


The English publishers chose to rotate the chartlet 45 degrees clockwise (see #22), so that SE is at the top and NW at the bottom. The English publishers did not change the caption of the chartlet to fit with their rotation.


2. To my knowledge, BM does not explain why he wrote that 'within the high southern latitudes, look at a chart facing the South Pole' (my translation). There are several parts to this:


(a) F54 is correct that he is referring to BM's two hand-drawn chartlets on p. 387 and p. 388 of the French original edition. Those chartlets are sea and meteorological chartlets, in which BM is doing his best to explain, based on his experience sailing the S Pacific and suffering knockdowns in the process, how to sail when near an intense extra-tropical Low.


(b) BM is not referring to marine charts of the usual kind, as F54 said. Mirror16 and smacsdesign have already noted that all of BM's other charts are N-up.


(c) my guess is a mix of El Pinguino's hypothesis (that BM was seeking a unique selling point) and a hunch that BM might have a point - that he did not elaborate - that for N-hemisphere cruiser, dealing with an extra-tropical Low in the high S latitudes was sort of like dealing with an extra-tropical Low in the high N latitudes, as long as they reverse some things. BM's point is that in the high S Latitudes when near an intense extra-tropical Low, the wise sailor heads ESE, gaining searoom away from the Low and avoiding taking the rogue waves that will form when a NW swell interacts with a W or WSW wind wave on the port beam. BM was cruising 'Joshua' and had a knockdown in just those conditions (rogue waves from the confused sea that formed as an extratropical Low passed).


(d) so my guess is that BM was saying, to his audience of French and other N-hemisphere cruisers, that when sailing the high S latitudes, draw a wave & meteorological chartlet, then invert it so the chartlet is S-up and take the same sort of action you would take if you were in the same position in the N-hemisphere with a extratropical Low.

I am not 100% convinced by that. If only because extratropical Lows in both S and N hemispheres tend to track E-wards.


3.

Originally Posted by El Pinguino

The wind is shown blowing clockwise around the low... it can only be in a southern latitude... I suspect the editor had never seen the sea...let alone sailed on it.

Yes. El Pinguino is as usual correct. BM's hand-drawn chartlet is set in the S hemisphere. I am confident that the chartlet was drawn by BM. The French original of La longue route includes two pages from BM's journal. The lettering is close enough to convince me that the hand-lettered chartlets were his work.


In the text, BM describes himself cruising E of New Zealand, headed for Chatham Islands when he had his first knockdown in such conditions (around latitude 44S or 45S) (by 'such conditions' I mean rogue waves generated from a confused sea due to wind change from the passing of an extratropical low). He had a second knockdown in similar conditions around 34S, three weeks away from Tahiti.


4. I think the English translator, identified as William Rodarmor in my Sheridan House edition, did a fair enough job (translating from Fr to En is above my pay grade). The English translation is concise, not wordy. I think the English caption to this chartlet was perhaps a little too concise.


And El Pinguino is of course correct - whoever did the editing of BM's first draft at Arthaud (the publishing house) had very likely never sailed the S Pacific or perhaps any ocean. The editor missed an opportunity to suggest that BM explain further his opinion about how best to view wave & meteorological chartlets in the S Pac.


* etymological note: English chart first appeared in printed form in 1696 to mean a marine chart. In that 1696 appearance, it was spelled as Chart and Cart (in the same work). Both charte and carde are recorded in English in 1571 for a map (i.e. not a marine chart but a map of land). The immediate origin was in French, where the word showed up in the 11th century (so technically Old French) as charte, a map or a card. That came from Latin charta, a leaf of paper, a map, a card. Which in turn came from Greek χάρτης, a sheet of paper or papyrus. And the best guess is an ultimate origin in Egyptian.

[Alan Mighty]

And, for any monolinguals, note that Fr AMHA (à mon humble avis)= En IMHO

[El Pinguino]

My brain is starting to hurt.....

[Factor]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

Still waiting for an explanation for why South Up makes sense...

Jim

Makes as much sense as red right returning - to me.

[El Pinguino]

Originally Posted by Factor

Makes as much sense as red right returning - to me.

Jim, have they painted the three port hand piles at the entrance to the Gordon River yet?
When I went there some years ago the 'port authority' had banged in three treated piles , treated as in 'greenish'. Not one but three professional mariners left them to starboard over the course of a month and ended up in the mud.
Matter was raised with my mate the RAN hydrographer some time later who raised it with the Strahan harbour master... 'yes well, we are going to paint them, they have only been in a few weeks'... bollocks they had been in for a year by that time.

Guess I should have had my chart upside down.....

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by El Pinguino

Jim, have they painted the three port hand piles at the entrance to the Gordon River yet?
When I went there some years ago the 'port authority' had banged in three treated piles , treated as in 'greenish'. Not one but three professional mariners left them to starboard over the course of a month and ended up in the mud.
Matter was raised with my mate the RAN hydrographer some time later who raised it with the Strahan harbour master... 'yes well, we are going to paint them, they have only been in a few weeks'... bollocks they had been in for a year by that time.

Guess I should have had my chart upside down.....

Time cures all wounds, El P, and now they are indeed proper red marks. The starboard ones appear to be painted, but I did not close with any of them to be sure. Actually, I came rther too close to the port ones when entering, as the deeper water begins around 50 metres from them. No issues, but I was surprised at the 8-10 foot depths where I expected 20+. Was wiser when exiting...

Jim

[meirriba]

Originally Posted by smacsdesign

Mark, I wish I could read this chart. Even with my readers on I can make out nothing. Which land mass am I looking at?

Here it is with the North up.
Just humble Med as seen at the time...

[meirriba]

Originally Posted by StuM

The known world in the 1100's - oriented South up.

That large blue mass on the right is the Mediterranean. Above it is Africa, below it is Europe. To the left is Asia. The Horn of Africa is clearly identifiable , at the top left of the Mediterranean. The further you go from the Middle East, the less accurate it all becomes.

Right.

The issue of N or S up is just a convention. The Chinese prepared their ancient charts with S up.
However, the issue becomes complicated when you use the chartplotter. Some of my friends, when doing watches, prefer to see the chart Head-Up to conform to what the see around and some (myself included) prefer N up to keep the chart image similar to what we remember from previous perusal.
I do not think that there is a "right answer" - whatever works for you.

[Littlechay]

I don't know when it changed but charts were once drawn with increasing latitude towards the top, for easy and familiar plotting I guess. I have several prints and one original in my collection at home from around the time of Cook. So up until that period it was normal.

Mortisser was a bit funny in many ways

Chris
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Tweed's World | A high latitude sailor preparing for tropical cruising