Old Weather Forum

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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 Shenandoah: general for some general background and discussion.
See Shenandoah: 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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I have reserved this year.

Ready to start 1880.

Right off the January 1st page is odd. The Course column is filled with direction entries, but the Knots and Dec columns are blank. As far as I can tell, they are anchored at Montevideo, Uruguay and just sent a liberty party ashore.

January 2nd is the same and I see this on the sample page that Randi provided for 1880. Why would course entries be made if the ship isn't going anywhere? Do I need to transcribe the course columns if the ship is not moving?

https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorag ... 29-127.JPG

That is probably the ship's orientation: https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorag ... 33-157.JPG
I seem to remember someone saying it was occasionally recorded for defense just in case something went wrong.

No need to record it.

Yes, that's definitely what it is. The January 4 log says, "Ship's Head" at the top of that column. Glad I don't need to transcribe it. Directions are slow to transcribe.

January is complete. It went fast because they were in port at Montevideo, Uruguay the entire month.

I've noticed mention in other forum entries of large numbers of deserters from the ships while in South America. I haven't been counting, but in just this first month there have been more than 20 deserters from the Shenandoah. There were several more failed attempts where the local police returned the men to the ship.

I've noticed, a couple of times, that sometimes they desert their ship and then they go to work on another non-Navy ship that's leaving their port. I suspect that's how they get back to the U.S. On the couple of times I saw that, it was because the Captain returned the deserter and it was mentioned in the log!

Michael wrote: ↑Tue Jun 06, 2023 2:15 pm I've noticed, a couple of times, that sometimes they desert their ship and then they go to work on another non-Navy ship that's leaving their port. I suspect that's how they get back to the U.S. On the couple of times I saw that, it was because the Captain returned the deserter and it was mentioned in the log!

I was wondering why they would choose to desert in remote locations where they mostly likely didn't speak the local language or know anyone local. I thought Montevideo may have been a desirable place in 1880. It didn't seem like there would be an easy way to return to the U.S.

Upon further thought, it occurred to me that in prior years the Shenandoah was taking on new recruits all along the way. So they likely had an International crew. So you're explanation would give them a way to return home, wherever that might be.

February 23, Montevideo, Uruguay:

Sunrise:

hoisted American Flag at mast heads, in honor of Anniversary of Washington's Birthday. Foreign Men-of-War in harbor joining in the celebration.

Noon:

fired a salute of twenty one guns in honor of the anniversary of Washington's Birthday and H.M.S. "Garnet" did the same.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorag ... 29-181.JPG

February is complete.

Still sitting in the Montevideo, Uruguay harbor along with the Wachusett. I've never had a ship stay in port for so long.

This was a leap year. So an extra day to transcribe. I was pleased to see Michael's auto date incrementer correctly handle the extra day for February.

Chris gave me the code for the date auto-incrementer. He wanted the date to increment, and he wanted a way to have the port name be entered with a shortcut key.

I'm just finishing Omaha for 1889. We have the Admiral's flag, and we were sitting in Yokohama for 156 days straight. We were only at sea for 679 hours in the entire year!

I hadn't noticed the shortcut key for entering the port. However, it says that it is for saving the Noon position.

I'm getting tired of entering "Montevideo Uruguay" on every page and would like to be able to use a shortcut key. However, the location only appears at the top of the weather pages and therefore assumed to be the beginning of the day location. Would it be acceptable to use this shortcut anyway, even though it appears it will show it as the Noon location instead of 0000?

That's what I have been doing.
As long as they are still there at noon, there isn't a problem
And if they aren't, you will have another location to enter.

That's fine, and the way it was written. Alt-O to save the port name, Alt-P to save the data on the Log Page. I don't do the Alt-P until after I add the AM weather. If I notice that they've moved in the AM portion or if there are Lat Long positions for Noon, I don't do the Alt-P. Even if it is added and they leave, it's not a big deal. I just delete the Port Name for that day from my Excel spreadsheet.

That's a shame you didn't see the announcement. It was from January 2021.

I probably saw the announcement, but my ships were never in port long enough for me to want to bother learning new shortcuts. With the Shenandoah though, there have often been extended periods in port; even before Montevideo.

Ah so. With Omaha as a flag-ship, we just sit and sit and sit and sit.

On March 7 still at Montevideo, Uruguay there was this entry at the start of the 4PM to 8PM watch:

Threatening a pampero.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorag ... 29-194.JPG

I wondered what this might be; possibly a violent uprising, or what?

From Wiktionary:

A violent wind from the west or southwest, which sweeps over the pampas of South America and the adjacent seas, often doing great damage.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pampero