Old Weather Forum

The basic principle of OldWeather Whaling....
The reason for this project is that it is very hard to automatically sort the navigation and ice (and other specific items) from blocks of text. Having such pulled out and associated by line with date/time/position and page url offers the most effective means of turning text into actionable data. It also means that the data can be sorted in all kinds of ways.

If you have a doubt about an entry you can always come back to this principle, and/or ask for help on your whaler's Shipyard page.
This main principle will also appear on every Shipyard page.

Additional information can typically include the following which are entered on the remarks worksheet.

• natural phenomena (volcanoes, kelp, sun spots, auroras)
• crew names
• the names of other ships seen or visited
• reports of ice from other ships
• whaling details
• other animals seen

Where to start then?

• Transcribing: capturing the log details, and information resources which is a 'must read' before you start transcribing
• Transcribing: managing your recording workbook

Have fun while you work and please do enjoy the help that is always available here from the moderators, in fact from everyone. And do also feel welcome to join in some of the lighter hearted side of OldWeather in the forum found in the Dockside Cafe under Shore Leave.

You will also bump into the OldWeather Arctic project which also extracts weather and ice details from the ships of the US Navy and Coast Guard. Your help with OldWeather Arctic would also be most welcome!

Welcome on board the 'Navarch' on voyage from the 2nd March 1897 to the 14th October 1897. She is out of San Francisco, Calif., mastered by Joseph Whiteside, kept by Thomas Birnbaum

Here you will find an example transcription of details
This is also a place to ask questions and request help with oddities in the log
You can bring the ship to life by sharing interesting finds from the log pages and other information about the ship

General help with marking and transcribing whaling logs
Weather and ice records from the whaling ships of the USA which contains the following 'must read' topics...

• START HERE. General outline, the project and how to help
• Transcribing: capturing the log details, and information resources
• Transcribing: managing your recording workbook

Tip: use ctrl+Pgup or ctrl+PgDn to quickly swap between the different worksheets as you move through start, primary, weather, and remarks sheets to record your findings

Treasure trove of information in the Library
Over the years this forum has accumulated a broad spectrum of detailed information which is kept in the Library
Please do take time to visit the Library because it will afford you a great deal of help. However, do feel welcome to ask questions at any time.

Help with images

• If you want to query some text please supply the page reference (the reference changes as you view the middle of a page), and an image of the text if you wish. Help for manipulating/posting images can be found in Guide to posting links and images. If you have any problems with imaging this is the board to post that question.
• Accessing pale images. The example page used below, opened through the 'Irfan' program, 'color correction' and adjust the brightness, saturation, and gamma correction. You may have your own program for adjusting brightness and contrast. Here are the before and after images using Irfan. Click to see them at full size.
  

Names of the crew
Names of the crew and notes of other ships mentioned or visited can also be recorded. Navarch 1897, crew and ships met

To find the shipyard pages for other whalers
Link: Find your ship, & the full list of ships logbooks for OWW


Select 'view single page':
When the log book image opens you will see two pages. It is easier to read the details accessing one page at a time. Use the icons at the bottom of the screen:


You can walk through Navarch's log pages in chronological order. All you have to do is increment the number at the end of the link: page/2, page/3, page/4 etc.

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Here is a log page that has been transcribed to help you to be familiar with the writing. This log is brief in the beginning but full of ice information and will have 2 additional log keepers by end of the journey.
Mar 31st thru Apr 3rd, 1897


Wednesday Mar 31st
Com with fresh wind from SE with
Snow kept ship off and at 10 H A.M
went through Ackatan Pass and at
5 H PM come to an anchor at Ounaleska

Thursday April 1st
put boats out sent down topgalant yard
and royal yard and sent up crows nest

Friday April 2d
at 6=30 AM took ancher and steemed
out stoped and fished and at noon
made all sail and steemed

Saturday April 3d
Com with fresh wind from the
NE Ship steering NW by W with
topsails out at night wind freshend
took in sail and one sailor
fell from loft

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Here is a transcription of the above log page. Click on the worksheet images below to see them at full size.

Start worksheet (top section)
If you discover any metadata in the logbook please enter it on this page. Metadata means 'data about data'. See under 'Weather' at rows 32 and 33. For example, if you see that the temperature is in Celsius or Centigrade, that fact should be transcribed as metadata.

Start worksheet


Primary worksheet


Weather worksheet


Remarks worksheet



Notes
This ship works on Civil time (i.e. midnight to midnight) Example: May 12th 1897 https://archive.org/details/logbookofna ... va/page/18 Com with fresh breeze at 7 H AM bound for a whale [...] at 10=30 AM raised another [...] finished 5 H PM

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Warning: AUTOFILL function between worksheets.
Do not drag and drop the date or time on any of the worksheets because you may disrupt the autofill function.
If you are unsure that the autofill is in proper order you can check by pressing two keys on your keyboard.
You are certainly welcome to ask for help with this action.

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The remainder of this topic is for you. Ask questions and share interesting discoveries with us to make these logs live.

Very bizarre - odd change of page number running between pages 7 and 8. Very briefly the page number swaps back to page 6, then moves on to page 8:











This information has also been posted in the Transcription workbook for Section A Stream A

Hey Navarch Folks!
First time posting here, so we will see how this goes! https://imgur.com/a/16p2nXp

I can't decipher the circled words.

Any help greatly appreciated. And any link to how to post images I did a workaround. I know I read how to do it on this OWW forum, but can't for the life of me find it when I need it!

Cheers!
Cheryl

Okay--the instructions are on this forum! Just found them. I'm using Chrome, so I took a screenshot, now how do I upload it here?

The URL is https://archive.org/details/logbookofna ... 3/mode/1up and the date for the entry in question (above post) is April 22.

Thanks

Cheryl

You need to get the image link.
Open https://imgur.com/a/16p2nXp and right click on the image and select Copy image address from the menu.

That gives https://i.imgur.com/ofVscYI.png

Then, click either the 'landscape painting' button above the text entry box:

[img]https://i.imgur.com/ofVscYI.png[/img]

or the imagew button above the text entry box on the right if you want to specify the width:

[imagew=200]https://i.imgur.com/ofVscYI.png[/imagew]


Keep asking questions!

Hi cbrod One of the Navarch fans here!

Thanks Randi for helping cbrod with the image posting

The answer is 'young' (looks a bit like 'georg'), and 'outter' which his his spelling of 'outer'. He's not exactly generous with ink when he writes 'ice'

October the 4th
Wind is noted as 'N,O, wind'

October the 8th
Wind is noted as 'N.O.'
Theo Birnbaum, log keeper, appears to be German so 'O' will be for 'Oste' i.e. 'East'

Notes made in transcription workbook, Primary and Start sheets.