Sextant: A Young Man's Daring Sea Voyage and the Men Who Mapped the World's Oceans

by David Barrie

Overview

Award–winning author David Barrie explores the history of the Sextant 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 brave sailors who have become legend, including James Cook, Matthew Flinders, Robert FitzRoy, 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.

In the tradition of Dava Sobel’s Longitude, David Barrie’s compelling and dramatic tale of invention and discovery is an eloquent elegy to one of the most important navigational instruments ever created. Full of heroism, danger, and excitement, told with an infectious sense of wonder, Sextant examines a masterful achievement that changed the course of history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062279361
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	11/21/2023
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	416
Sales rank:	225,468
File size:	6 MB

About the Author

David Barrie has sailed in many different parts of the world and made many long passages. After serving in the British Diplomatic Service, Barrie worked in the arts and as a law reform campaigner. The great-great-nephew of J. M. Barrie, he is married with two daughters.

Table of Contents

Introduction xiii

1 Setting Sail 1

2 First Sight 13

3 The Origins of the Sextant 22

4 Bligh's Boat Journey 36

5 Anson's Ordeals 45

6 The Marine Chronometer 57

7 Celestial Timekeeping 72

8 Captain Cook Charts the Pacific 85

9 Bougainville in the South Seas 109

16 La Pérouse Vanishes 122

11 The Travails of George Vancouver 137

12 Flinders-Coasting Australia 157

13 Flinders-Shipwreck and Captivity 177

14 Voyages of the Beagle 193

15 Slocum Circles the World 218

16 Endurance 239

17 "These Are Men" 251

18 Two Landfalls 267

Epilogue 279

Acknowledgments 289

Notes 293

Glossary 309

Bibliography 313

Illustrations 319

Index 321

Editorial Reviews

★ 07/01/2014
Before John Hadley and Thomas Godfrey independently came up with designs for the quadrant—a predecessor to the sextant, a navigation tool that measures the angle between a celestial object and the horizon—navigation at sea was less than accurate. Spanish explorer Alvaro de Mendaña, for example, mapped the Solomon Islands at the wrong location, and it was 200 years before they were "discovered" again. The sextant, invented in 1759, changed all that, allowing far more accurate navigation and cartography. Barrie, an experienced sailor and former member of the British Diplomatic Service, takes readers on a tour of the history of maritime navigation, focusing on the role of the sextant in guiding explorers and aiding their efforts to map the globe. He also recalls his own voyage across the Atlantic in 1973. In a wide-ranging discussion covering the principles of celestial navigation as well as the adventures of Captain Cook, Robert FitzRoy, Matthew Flinders, and others, the author offers a detailed picture of premodern sea travel. The epilog compares this form of navigation with today's GPS navigation systems, adding context for the modern reader. VERDICT This informative volume will appeal to maritime historians, sailing enthusiasts, and readers interested in celestial navigation.—Dawn Lowe-Wincentsen, Oregon Inst. of Technology, Portland

Library Journal

As lovingly and painstakingly constructed as the navigators’ one irreplaceable talisman, David Barrie’s exquisite book is a hymn to a now-vanishing feature of maritime life, a finely-chased reminder of just how much we all owe to that one small piece of apparatus” — SIMON WINCHESTER, author of the New York Times bestselling The Men Who United the States and The Professor and the Madman

“Beneath the book’s calm surface churns a melancholic message about how the comfort of technology — symbolized by the sextant’s almighty antagonist, GPS — has turned our gaze away from the stars.” — Entertainment Weekly

“Even for armchair adventurers with no sea legs to speak of, Barrie’s Sextant is a compelling read.” — Shelf Awareness

From the Publisher

Beneath the book’s calm surface churns a melancholic message about how the comfort of technology — symbolized by the sextant’s almighty antagonist, GPS — has turned our gaze away from the stars.

Entertainment Weekly

Even for armchair adventurers with no sea legs to speak of, Barrie’s Sextant is a compelling read.

Shelf Awareness

As lovingly and painstakingly constructed as the navigators’ one irreplaceable talisman, David Barrie’s exquisite book is a hymn to a now-vanishing feature of maritime life, a finely-chased reminder of just how much we all owe to that one small piece of apparatus

SIMON WINCHESTER