Sailing the seas with a compass and sextant

I just finished reading a book about pirates in the late 1600s by Steven Johnson. Johnson has done his research. The book is very well written, and includes a great deal of information about the reason this particular pirate, Henry Every, took to the life of an outlaw.

I became so engrossed in the storytelling that I completely overlooked the fact that all of these boats sailed all over the world with nothing more than a compass and a sextant. As an example, the reason Every and a part of his crew became pirates is because they were first contracted to be part of a group of four ships to trade with the Spanish. They sailed from England to Spain where they laid in harbor for three months without pay or word from the home office. Now, as you might expect, the crews were getting a bit unruly. Every was not the captain of the Charles – I believe he was one of the mates – but he was the one who led the mutiny.  

He took the ship and the entire crew, and sailed away from Spain. Now, some of the crew wanted no part of the mutiny, so they left the ship on a longboat and rowed ashore.

Now-Capt. Every had heard about some very rich Muslim ships returning from Mecca with gold, silver, diamonds, pearls and riches untold. He figured he could capture them where they entered the Red Sea, but his plan fell through when the ships passed in the night and his lookouts failed to spot them.

He did finally capture both ships and was able to acquire all of their treasure just as the ships were about to reach home port. Unfortunately, the ships also carried quite a few young women. Some were wives of important men in the Muslim community. Others were concubines of the same men. A few were relatives of the head man of the Muslim community. One of those was his granddaughter, and when she was brought to Every, he called for a Muslim cleric and married her on the spot. Unfortunately, the crew didn’t wait for a cleric, they simply let their months of celibacy carry the day.

Every knew he had to get out of town, so he and his crew headed for islands that were friendly to pirates. The last one they hit was in Bermuda. There they bribed the mayor and even gave him the Fancy, the new name Every had given his ship. He then purchased a small sailboat and headed for Ireland. Some of the crew headed for America where they blended with the new settlers. A few went back to England; they ended up on the end of a rope to appease the head Muslim in India.

Now to get back to navigation. Every and all the other boats and ships navigated all over the world using only a compass and a sextant. Now, those two instruments only give you your direction and latitude. They do not give you your longitude.

Remember when I said the pirates sailed to islands that were friendly to them? Well, some of those islands were mere specks in the middle of the south Atlantic Ocean. They went to the Bermuda island that they knew would be friendly to them. There are more than a few islands in Bermuda, but they sailed to the right one.

I figured my late brother-in-law Paul Coffin and I did pretty well navigating from Indian River or Ocean City to the Baltimore Canyon using a compass and a depth finder. Out of Indian River, we headed on a 120-degree course until the flasher depth finder ran around twice. Then we knew we were over the edge of the canyon.

In those days, I ran offshore on a regular basis, and I knew where the sun should be in the morning when we headed out. A good friend, Ron Pickle, was also the head of new boats for Trojan. He had a center console he wanted to test. Unfortunately, he had mounted the compass over the VHF radio and the speaker in the radio had a large magnet. I pointed this out, but he brushed me off. I knew we were wrong because the sun was way off on the way out.

Long story short, we ended up coming home so far north in New Jersey that I didn’t recognize any of the coast. At that point, I ran alongside a fishing boat and asked how far to Cape May? He said about 15 miles south.

I took over running the boat and brought it back to Indian River just as the sun was setting. We did catch a nice wahoo, so at least we had that to share.