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 Yantic: general for some general background and discussion.
See Yantic: 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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Off 31st Street
New York City

02 July, 1891

At 7:10 P.M., while the steam cutter was coming alongside, Victor Erickson, (A. 2. c.) fell overboard from her stern and, before assistance could be given him, was drowned before passing the stern of the ship.

RIP

Moored of the East 26^th Street Dock
New York City
04 August

09:10 A.M. The White Squadron consisting of the USS Chicago, Newark, Atlanta, Boston, Concord, Yorktown, Vesuvius and Cushing passed down the East River. Paraded the Marine Guard and made our number to "Chicago" bearing a broad pennant.

I'm not sure if any of those ships are familiar or not...

Cheers!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squadron_of_Evolution


Chicago leading the squadron, 1889


The White Squadron at Hampton Roads, 1889

Dry Dock
New York Navy Yard
31 August

Commander Rockwell and Lieut Com. Belden inspected the ship and crew at quarters. At 11:15 exercise at "Fire quarters". At 11:30 called "all hands" to muster. Com. Rockwell read his order from the dept. detaching him from the Command of this ship and Lieut Com. Sam'l Belden read his and relieved Com'dr Rockwell of the Command. By order of Com. Rockwell all men rated by his order are disrated.

Not sure what's going on there.

At 4:00 a light fire was discovered in the deadwood in the stern of the ship caused by the Yard Workmen who were using charcoal fires to soldering. Called the crew to fire quarters and with yard hose and fire hydrant promptly flooded the fire.

By order of Com. Rockwell all men rated by his order are disrated.

I've seen this twice on the Shenandoah in 1868 when there was a change of command. The departing commander would disrate all of the men and the next day the new commander would rerate them. Maybe it was just standard procedure during a change of command?

I've seen that too.

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Change of Command Ceremony does not mention disrating.

Brooklyn Ordnance Dock
October 8

4 to 8 PM

About 7:00 a large sloop capsized near the ship. Sent 1st Whaleboat and picked up crew, towed sloop in and secured her to Ordnance Dock.

Steaming S and E from Assateague Light House
October 12

I've never seen an incident like this before...

Winds NE force 9-10.
6 to 8 PM

In setting mizzen storm staysail the sheet carried away and the sail struck barometer case and destroyed barometer.

I think those winds might have been from this one:

Tropical Storm Eight
Tropical storm (SSHWS)
1891 Atlantic tropical storm 8 track.png
Duration 7 October – 9 October
Peak intensity 45 mph (75 km/h) (1-min) ≤1004 mbar (hPa)

A tropical depression formed north of Honduras on 7 October and strengthened into a tropical storm the next day. On 9 October it passed across Cuba and quickly weakened to become an extratropical storm. It made landfall in Florida on 10 October and, five days later, in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland where it dissipated.

I'm curious to see if Yantic's weather observations might add to the detail of this tropical storm.

Really, Michael
With your background I would have expected you to take better care of the instruments!

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SHEET. A rope or chain fastened to one or both the lower corners of a sail, to extend and retain the clue down to its place. When a ship sails with a side wind, the lower corners of the main and fore sails are fastened by a tack and a sheet, the former being to windward, and the latter to leeward; the tack is, however, only disused with a stern wind, whereas the sail is never spread without the assistance of one or both of the sheets; the staysails and studding-sails have only one tack and one sheet each; the staysail-tacks are fastened forward, and the sheets drawn aft; but the studding-sail tacks draw to the extremity of the boom, while the sheet is employed to extend the inner corner.


See Figure 324 h.

I was never a fan of aneroid barometers. We get a new mercury barometer from USS Franklin at the Norfolk Navy Yards a day or two later.

December 7
Noon : Lat 1° 50' 00"N, Long 26° 38' 53"W
En-route to Montevideo


6 to 8 PM

At 7:00 His Majesty Neptune, Lord of the Equatorial Seas, visited the ship and announced his intention of returning on the Morrow.

December 8
En-route to Montevideo
Noon : Lat 0° 12' 25"N, Long 27° 32' 58"W


8 AM to Merid

At end omitted quarters to permit crew to partake in the function of Neptune's reception on board.

December 18
En-route to Montevideo
Noon : Lat 21° 01' 00"S, Long 35° 26' 32"W


Meridian to 4 PM

While furling main trysail, J. M^cCaulely (Lds) fell from aloft and sustained a compound fracture of left heel bone.

Thee is no mention of the ship rolling heavily, other than there was a long swell from the north and the winds were Force 6.

29 January
Noon : Lat 39° 45' 24"N, Long 73° 50' 46"W

We went to the wreck of the SS Vizcaya, cut the masts and then sank her with torpedoes

Two boats in charge of Lieuts Richman and Mertz were away destroying the wrecked schooner with torpedoes. Four explosions, one at 1:55, one at 2:40, one at 3:10 and the last at 3:50.

The next day it seems that we got rid of the wreck of the SS Cornelius Hargraves. There is a 3 minute video, with cheesy music, of the wreckage on the sea floor. There is also a link to the wreck of the Vizcaya, which has some details of the rescue of some, but not all, of her passengers.

February 20^th
8 PM
Anchored somewhere off New York in dense fog

File this under: Having a bad day.

Swinging the Ship's bell for a fog signal which was done by striking the bell from the outside with the tongue, owing to the disengagement of the latter. The bell was cracked from bottom to top, rendering it useless. Got up and struck the gong at regular intervals for fog signal. Supplementing with three blasts of the steam whistle on the approach of vessels.

27 April
Off 125^th Street
Hudson River
New York City

At 8:00 o'clock dressed ship with U.S. Ensigns at Mast heads in honor of the lying of the Corner Stone of the Monument to the late Gen'l U. S. Grant and Ex president of the U. S.

At 3:35 signaled from the shore to fire the salute. Fired a "30 second" salute of 21 guns. Paraded the guard on the poop for General Howard, U. S. A. passing on steamer.

The voyage for 1891 has been completed. You can see the voyage here and, for more detail, you can download the KML file and view it with Google Earth. There were a couple of people mentioned, here.

These are the weather statistics for this voyage.

• 8760 records for DirT
• 8711 records for Kts
• 8726 records for Baro
• 8717 records for Attd
• 8748 records for Dry
• 8726 records for Wet
• 1761 records for Water
• 8735 records for Weather
• 8725 records for Clouds
• 8641 records for Clear

There were 80250 weather records for Yantic in 1891
Yantic travelled a total of 11450 miles.