Old Weather Forum

September 1, Escombrera Bay (near Cartagena), Spain

More entries apparently related to the Spanish Revolution. Upon arrival a couple days earlier there was a log entry mentioning that a couple of Spanish ships were under control of the English. Then several entries each day saying that the Shenandoah was standing on and off Carthegena Harbour (maybe patrolling?).

Mid to 4AM

12:30 guns were heard in the direction of Carthegena firing being kept up until (11 oclock).
2:10 A Spanish gunboat came in and anchored.
3:00 A barq ship was observed to come out of the harbour of Carthegena and anchor near the insurgent ship. An English steam launch crossed about the bay on guard duty during the watch.

The ship got underway later in the day after standing off and on Carthegena Harbour.

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September 11, Alicante, Spain

The ship arrived in Alicante on September 2 and lost one of its anchors. I did not transcribe the event because it would have taken me some time to decipher the unfamiliar terminology and poor handwriting, but the gist of what they were saying seemed to be that something caused the chain to break.

Since then there were daily efforts to find the anchor, sometimes with assistance from other ships in the area. Divers went down one time and several boats went out daily dragging for it. Then on Sept. 9 they found it, but were unable to recover it. Sept. 10 they resumed dragging trying to find it again.

Finally today they were able to bring it back on board!

I suspect they had not intended to stay in Alicante for so long. Most of their stops have only been for a couple of days.

September 15, Barcelona, Spain

Anchor away again.

3:47 let go port anchor when the chain parted
3:50 let go stbd anchor and ran out hauser to Italian ship.

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I've got a bunch of high quality iron chains I can sell you.

September 18, Barcelona, Spain

Nothing concerning the anchor for a couple of days, then:

3AM

shore party came off to pick up port anchor.

4AM to Meridian

Lighter and party from shore assisted by 2nd launch engaged picking up anchor

4PM to 8PM

Port anchor was brought alongside in lighter. Got it in place and bent chain.

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Not sure, but it seems like they are saying the anchor was taken ashore (for repairs?) and brought back. So maybe when the chain parted, the anchor wasn't lost overboard as it had been in Alicante.

September 23, Barcelona, Spain

8PM to Mid

Two Spanish merchant steamers colided ahead of us. Sent boat to offer assistance if necessary. Picked up and returned to one of the steamers a chest found floating near the vessels.

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Interesting times!

Good PR!

September is complete. Back to Alicante at month's end.

I need help with a wind force situation that I don't remember seeing before.

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The wind force entries at 7AM and 8AM in this log appear to be "1/2 to 1". Should this be transcribed "1/2-1", "0.5-1", or something else?

The wind forces the next day are even more challenging.

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The entries at 8AM and 9AM look like "1/2". In the past we have decided that this is intended to mean 1 to 2 and transcribed as "1-2". But I'm not sure this is the intent here based on the previous day's entries of "1/2 to 1" and the 4AM entry on this page, "1-4". Farther down at 2PM is the entry, "2/3", which must be intended to be "2-3".

It appears that the log keeper must be inconsistent in his notation, making it difficult to determine whether the 8AM and 9AM entries should be interpreted as 0.5 or 1-2. I would normally say it should be 1-2, but in the context of the previous day's "1/2 to 1" entry, I'm not sure.

I would interpret all the slashes to be a minus sign except in the case like 1/2-1. As for very light winds, like 1/2 - 1, it's really insignificant. Force 1 is just 2 knots, so there is no meteorological significance between 1/2-1 (which would be 3/4*2 = 1.5 knots, which rounds to 2) and a value of 0, 1 or 2 knots. I.e the winds are light. For strong winds, I notify the science team of the date, time and location when a wind of Force 10 or greater, 51 knots, is reported.

How should I transcribe "1/2to1"? I realize it's insignificant, but don't want to enter something that will cause a problem. Should I just TWYS? If I just convert the slash and "to" to dashes, that would be "1-2-1".

For this one, 1/2-1. I'm not sure how my decoder will handle it, but if it doesn't now, it will when I get it.

The current log keeper has a tendency to write with a flourish, adding a loop extending down into the next line at the end of capital Ms. However, on this day, he must have had a good night the night before or too much coffee. At the start of the 8AM to Meridian watch, the loop on the M extends down over five lines of text below. And the letter M doesn't even have a descender normally.

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