Old Weather Forum

Not currently being transcribed

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Images for this year can be viewed on the National Archives site and they can be downloaded.
However, they cannot be viewed in the browser as they can for most of our ships.

Generally, weather data is not recorded when they are in port.
However, barometer readings are sometimes entered with the events.

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On the weather page, please enter: date, locations, distances (nautical miles and tenths), courses, and all the weather data in the columns outlined in red in the spreadsheet.
It is not necessary to record State of the Sea.
However, ice mentioned in the weather grid should be transcribed using the magenta Sea column.

On the events page please enter: ice, location information, and sailing information.
Aurorae, volcanic, and seismic activity should be reported in the forum.
The names of US Navy and Coast Guard ships met should be noted. This gives the science team a chance to compare weather readings. You can include all ships mentioned in a single entry without a time or any additional data.
Other events are optional.

One person can do both weather and events (Stream 1), but the system also allows one person to do the weather page (Stream 1) and a second person to do the events page (Stream 3).
Unlike in OW3, where three transcriptions were required for each page, we are doing only one transcription per page.

Every transcriber needs to enter the date.
The date is used to organize the pages.

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See Kearsarge: general for some general background and discussion.
See Kearsarge: examples for a quick introduction to transcribing or a refresher.

See Transcribing Guide to learn how to transcribe the data.
Post in Ask Questions Here or this topic if you have questions.

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3 January
Brest Harbor

We're blockading the harbor. The Confederate ship, Florida, is in the harbor. It has been there for several months, and every so often we go to check her out. You can see, looking at the log page, that the SOPs clearly state that the less info the better:

• Pressures: 7
• Wind force: 3
• Air and sea temperatures: 0
• Nav data: 0
• Noon Lat/Long: 0

We've spent a lot of time keeping track of the CSS Florida, who has been in the harbour at Brest, France.The Wikipedia article shows she was there from August 23, 1863, to February 12, 1864. We were in Cadiz, Spain on the 12^th of February, so it looks like the Florida escaped while we took a short break and were enjoying the sun of southern Spain.

It looks like the CSS Florida had an exciting life.

2 April
Dover Roads, England

A great use of water from the flower pot here, or perhaps he had a hard time staying awake after his noon meal...

17 April
Ostend, Belgium

I won't enter all the details. The short story:

• they took on a pilot
• at 0830, coming into the harbor, they fouled a sloop with the main brace and bumpkins carried away
• they backed up, then struck forward
• they moved guns etc aft to try to get her floating
• that didn't work so they got up preventer stays and guys from the mast head to the shore so she wouldn't roll over on her beam ends.
• They called for a lighter and moved some things off to the lighter, and moved heavy things aft
• At 2210 they got her afloat.

The pilot took on more than he could handle?

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BEAM-ENDS. A ship is said to be on her beam-ends when she has heeled over so much on one side that her beams approach to a vertical position

BEAMS. Strong transverse pieces of timber stretching across the ship from one side to the other, to support the decks and retain the sides at their proper distance, with which they are firmly connected by means of strong knees, and sometimes of standards. They are sustained at each end by thick stringers on the ship's side, called shelf-pieces, upon which they rest.

10 May
Flushing dry dock.

After crashing into the dolphin and returning to our original anchorage, we tried again on the 7^th. No mention of a pilot.

We grounded on our way in. Five hours or so later, we got afloat and made it into the dry dock. We mustered at quarters at 0930: about 30 men AWOL and one deserter! Later on, a few men brought on board by the police, lots of men put in prison on shore, one man charged with very mutinous behaviour and etc etc. Shades of the Concord.

29 May
Somewhere in southern England or Northern France or maybe in the English Channel.

I finally got one that's easy to transcribe! And, no, the previous page was for the 28^th and the next on is for the 30^th.

June 19
Off Cherbourg

Here is the log with the details about the battle with the CSS Alabama off Cherbourg. The Wikipedia article is here.

On the 21st:

At 1130 sent the bodies of the dead prisoners taken from the Alabama on shore for burial.

There was no mention in the log about a funeral party or any mention of a military funeral.

With so little weather data in this log, I'm wondering whether there is enough there to warrant the time it takes to transcribe, or whether the time would be better spent on a different log with the usually high volume of weather data. Is this ship at a time and location such that what weather data it does contain is of sufficient value?

With your high pay rate as a senior transcriber I want to be sure that there is sufficient return for what this is costing.

They really want this year, so I'm getting 25% extra money for hardship pay...

Fortunately, it is mostly fairly fast transcribing. I'm halfway through August, having started July earlier this morning. They are now leaving the English Channel for the Azores, and then they will go to Massachusetts to end the year on 26 November, when she will be decommissioned for a couple of years. While at sea I get wind and weather for most hours in the day, and usually six pressures which means that the next pages will take longer.

29 August
Horta Bay, Fayal

I think this may be the longest string of weather. I think I remember a string or seven letters that had been reported, maybe by Philip years ago.

4-8 PM: bcouqrtl One wonders how they can have b, c and o at the same time, but this is Kearsarge in 1864!

Right you are!

The weather in 1.85 characters. by Philip Brohan

(also at https://oldweather.wordpress.com/2011/0 ... haracters/)

Michael wrote: ↑Sun Oct 29, 2023 6:21 pm They really want this year

It's unfortunate that the weather data is so sparse, but I'm sure they're more interested in the data at sea. So if they were recording weather there, hopefully that data will be useful.

Randi wrote: ↑Sun Oct 29, 2023 7:15 pm Right you are!

The weather in 1.85 characters. by Philip Brohan

(also at https://oldweather.wordpress.com/2011/0 ... haracters/)

I am SO happy to be done with this ship. You can see a plot of the voyage here and, for more detail, you can download the KML file and view it with Google Earth. Here are the statistics for this voyage.

These are the weather statistics for this voyage. As you can see, they recorded just winds, weather and pressure. And, generally speaking, those were just six times per day unless they were at sea for more than about 12 hours.

Weather Element	Records
DirT	3,514
Kts	3,299
Baro	1,747
Weather	3,465
Total	12,025

Kearsarge travelled a total of 14,264 miles.