JAMES COOK-II A GREAT LEAP FOR SEAMEN, SCIENCE, AND NAVIGATION

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32114, 9 October 1969, Page 16

JAMES COOK-II A GREAT LEAP FOR SEAMEN, SCIENCE, AND NAVIGATION

(By

REAR-ADMIRAL G. S. RITCHIE, R.N.)

Captain Cook was more than a gifted explorer, he was a surveyor who charted with remarkable accuracy the coastlines, the bays and the anchorages he discovered; and he taught British seamen who sailed with him the technique of the running survey, which he developed as an art. But first, Cook, a master in the fleet, had to learn the rudiments of surveying, for such were neither taught nor understood by British sailors in the mid-eighteenth century.

A happy chance set Cook on the right road when, in 1758, he landed from the Pembroke in Kensington Cove, Nova Scotia, during the Seven Years War against France and its allies. Here he met Samuel Holland, a Dutchman serving as a surveyor in the British North American Regiment. Holland was using the plane table, a portable plotting board upon which the land surveyor can plot, from a number of selected and inter-related stations, prominent features in the landscape. This he does by sighting the features through the alidade, a telescope mounted on a straight edge to which a magnetic compass is attached: the line of sight is transferred to the plot by means of the straight edge, and when three or more such lines are seen to intersect the feature may be laid down on the plot. River Survey Cook invited Holland on board to meet his captain, Simcoe, who was himself intensely interested In navigation. The three men had many discussions that winter and, by the following spring, Cook had gained sufficient insight into survey work to enable him to sound out and chart the Narrows in the St Lawrence River through which, to the great surprise of the French, the Royal Navy guided ships carrying troops for the successful assault on the Heights of Abraham.

Cook gained in experience and stature as a surveyor in Newfoundland and this led to his selection for the command of the Endeavour, commissioned to carry astronomers to Tahiti to observe the Transit of Venus. His selectors at the Admiralty knew that he would carry secret orders bidding him go in search of the "Great Southern Continent,” generally believed to exist in the South Pacific, as soon as the observations in Tahiti were complete. For this second task Lieutenant James Cook was undoubtedly the man. So, 200 years ago, in October, 1769, Cook fell in with the east coast of New Zealand, the west coast of which had been briefly sighted by Tasman 127 years earlier. Charting The Coast Cook was now able to put into brilliant practice the knowledge gained by studying Holland’s plane table. To lay down a long coastline it would be necessary to intersect, by magnetic compass bearings, recognisable features along, or close to, the coast. The stations from which the intersecting bearing would be taken would not be on the shore but would be on the deck of the ship itself, so its position must be continuously known. Celestial fixes were made wherever possible, and with no chronometer on board for the first voyage, lunar sights had to be worked out in all their laborious detail to find longitude. Between sights, the ship’s changes of course, often dictated by the wind, and the distance run by log, had to be meticulously recorded so that the position of each ship station might be known, both in latitude and longitude and in relation to adjacent stations from which the same features ashore were being fixed by intersecting bearings. This was the technique of running survey which enabled Cook, within the space of a few brief months, to lay down the entire coasts of the North and South Islands of New Zealand. Few Mistakes Off-shore gales and thick weather necessitated leaving the proximity of the coast for days at a time, but Cook endeavoured to reach the coast again where he could recognise land features previously fixed so that he might sail on without a break in the plot, which was slowly revealing the shape of New Zealand as we know it today. It was on such occasions that his surprisingly few mistakes were made, such as his description of Stewart Island as a peninsula and Banks Peninsula as an island; possibly his failure to find the great Hauraki Gulf, at the head of which the great harbour of Auckland is situated today, was due to poor visibility or lack of time to investigate. Not only did Captain Cook develop during his three great voyages the running survey, but he also came to realise that the work of one day must be set down the same night while all was fresh in the mind, and before details were confused with the work of the following day. Cook established not only a technique but a tradition of dedication which must go with it; officers who sailed with him, and whose names were subsequently scattered about the world on the features they themselves charted, learned from Cook’s example. Such men were Bligh and Vancouver, who in turn passed their learning on to Flinders and Broughton, and so down the years even to the present generation of Britain’s sea surveyors.

The techniques have been improved by changes in ship

propulsion and modern survey instruments, including many which are electronically operated or controlled. But Cook’s example of dedication and hard work remains for us today and must still be followed by all who essay to chart the seas. More is known about the work that Cook performed in reducing the ravages of scurvy on long sea voyages and in generally maintaining the health of his men. In his brief periods between voyages he consulted medical opinion, both British and Continental. He arranged that sauerkraut should be provided for his men and that the brewing of spruce beer would be facilitated. When these were served he encouraged the taking of them by the crew by his own obvious relish.

He established in his ships the weekly airing of bedding on the upper deck, drying out of damp messdecks with stoves, and sprinkling between decks with vinegar to keep them sweet. Flinders was closely following these practices 30 years later in the Investigator, having learnt them from Bligh in the Providence during the second, and successful, breadfruit voyage. Airing of bedding continues to the present day and is only now going out of practice with the replacement of seamen’s hammocks by bunks and the general adoption of air conditioning in Royal Navy ships. Cook’s Legacy Perhaps it could be said that Captain Cook gave to the world his discoveries of the two islands of New Zealand, and of New South Wales, but, after all, these were re-discoveries. The Maoris and the Aborigines had found them long before, and another European navigator would undoubtedly have made such discoveries by the end of the eighteenth century had Cook never sailed. What Cook gave the world was the ability to take a crew of seamen on long voyages of exploration to distant seas, and to keep them alive and in good health and spirits so that they could map distant shores using techniques developed by Cook himself. Returning to their homelands, the fruits of their labours were charts of far-off shores which led inevitably to the colonisation of New Zealand and Australia by the British. It is a tribute to Captain Cook that he stands to-day in such high regard among the population of those two countries.

The year in which Cook enlisted in the British Navy, 1755, was incorrectly printed as 1775 in yesterday’s special article. The error is regretted.

Other articles, on Cook are printed on pages 8 and 9.

Rear-Admiral Ritchie, Hydrographer of the Royal Navy, is now in New Zealand for the Cook bicentenary celebrations. He is head of the world’s oldest charting authority. After his visit here, during which he will have discussions on progress towards the metrication of nautical charts, he will have similar discussions in India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Japan, and Australia. In Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Japan he will also discuss international co-operation in the survey of the shallow, but vital, route for huge British and Japanese tankers through the straits of Malacca—a route followed by the Resolution’s crew returning home in 1779 after Cook’s death on his third Pacific voyage. The post of Hydrographer, established in 1795, was first held by Alexander Dalrymple, formerly of the East India Company. Like many of his contemporaries until after 1769, Dalrymple claimed that the coast of New Zealand, the Solomons, and Easter Island were the extremities of a great southern continent On this day 200 years ago, Captain Cook put ashore near the site of Gisborne, demolishing yet further the theories about a southern continent But as RearAdmiral Ritchie says in this article, he achieved much more than that