Sunset on HMS Warrior is a photograph by Terri Waters which was uploaded on November 27th, 2014.
Sunset on HMS Warrior
As the sun sets on HMS Warrior a crew member covers one of the 8 magnetic compasses on board while 2 boys watch.... more
by Terri Waters
Title
Sunset on HMS Warrior
Artist
Terri Waters
Medium
Photograph
Description
As the sun sets on HMS Warrior a crew member covers one of the 8 magnetic compasses on board while 2 boys watch.
Although a compass is simple enough to use, some care needs to be taken in making sure that there are no large lumps of magnetic material nearby which might deflect the compass needle and give false readings.
This is not too difficult in a wooden ship but did cause a problem for the Warrior with its thick iron hull.
To compensate the ship was 'swung' several times to check for compass deviation. Swinging involved turning the ship on a fixed point and checking compass bearings against known landmarks. In this way a correcting factor could be applied to readings taken from the compass to give a true bearing.
Alternatively, small permanent magnets could be added to the outside of the compass to pull it back into true.
Uploaded
November 27th, 2014
