Old Weather Forum

In the ship's logbook for the USS Kearsarge for Tuesday, January 11, 1881, there is an interesting entry "Medical officer engaged in examining crew for color blindness." In doing some research online, it seems that testing for color blindness among U.S. Navy sailors in the late nineteenth ...

I've finished transcribing 1880. I'll now start on January 1881 for the USS Kearsarge.

Thank you so much! I'm enjoying contributing to Old Weather and working with everyone.

Brian

Thanks, Michael!

(I also just posted this on the 1880 Kearsarge forum.) In the URL list on LibreOffice Calc for 1880 Kearsarge (Indexes 21 and 22) I do not see an additional index for December 13 through 31, 1880. If it becomes available I can transcribe those remaining dates in December 1880. On the Transcription S...

In the URL list on LibreOffice Calc for 1880 Kearsarge (Indexes 21 and 22) I do not see an additional index for December 13 through 31, 1880. If it becomes available I can transcribe those remaining dates in December 1880. On the Transcription Status page for the Kearsarge it looks like all of 1881 ...

Yes, Michael, the Gulf Stream does move a lot of heat. Europe is thankful for that. The verification step did flag the large sea surface temperature increase, but that is what was entered in the log so I transcribed it. And I also had confidence in the entry since I had seen that difference in temp ...

In the log book for Thursday, December 2, 1880, the USS Kearsarge got underway with the USS Tennessee and headed south on the way to St. Thomas, W.I. (West Indies). The U.S. acquired St. Thomas (along with the islands of St. Croix and St. John) from Denmark in 1917 and they now constitute the U.S. V...

Sad news about John Peters who was not rescued when the steam launch sank on Nov. 22:

$21.95 Proceeds of sale of effects of John Peters, cox. [coxswain] drowned 22 inst [instant - 22nd of current month].

A bad day on the Kearsarge, from the log book for November 22, 1880 (some paperwork will need to be filled out): "Steam launch which was towing astern, swamped and sank. Sent 3 boats who picked up the crew with the exception of John Peters (cox.) [coxswain]. Came to anchor in 5 fathoms water.&q...

Thanks, Randi. I'm never sure what to post to this thread so I tend not to post too much, but I think that other transcribers might enjoy reading about some of the less common, interesting, everyday things that happened onboard these ships.

An entry on the Event page of the log book for the USS Kearsarge for November 4, 1880: "Sent two apprentice boys to the U.S.S. Constitution to compete for the Bailey gold medal." The Bailey gold medal was awarded to the Naval apprentice who achieved the highest score on a seamanship examin...

From the log book of the USS Kearsarge for October 5, 1880: "USS Constitution anchored to the southward and eastward of this ship and hoisted senior officer's pennant." Launched into Boston Harbor on October 21, 1797, the USS Constitution, "Old Ironsides," was over 80 years old i...

The results from severe weather from the ship's log book for the USS Kearsarge on Sept. 6, 1880, anchored at Hampton Roads, Virginia: "Violent rain squall with thunder and lightning last hour. Veered to 90 fathoms and counterbraced yards and rigged in flying boom to avoid a barque (Alhambra) wh...

Here is a log entry that you probably wouldn't often see from a modern-day Navy warship (from the September 5, 1880 event log page of the USS Kearsarge while it was anchored at Hampton Roads, Virginia): "Received one drummer from the Marine Barracks at the Washington Navy Yard." This was i...

That I have! Thanks, Michael. I will interpret them as decimal points.

On the sea temperature data for Aug. 26, 1880, I noticed four entries that were 65-5, 69-5, 66-5, and 67-5. I transcribed and saved them with the hyphens, but did the log keeper use hyphens instead of periods? In the future should I transcribe those as 65.5, 69.5, 66.5, and 67.5?

Thanks!

Thanks, pommystuart! I had forgotten about Alt-3. I'll be able to use that quite often with wind directions and cloud types.

Will do!