77 



A lamentable wreck took place in June, 1849. The brig ' Richard Dart," 

 Captain Potter, commander, sailed from Gravesend, in April, on a 

 voyage to New Zealand, with forty-six passengers. On the 19th of 

 June the ship was wrecked on the north side of Prince Edward's Island ; 

 all the crew and passengers, except ten persons, were lost, and those 

 that escaped suffered dreadful privations. In April, 1850, there were 

 some remarks in the " Nautical Magazine " tending to imply that this 

 loss was the result of the adoption of composite or great circle sailing ; 

 and in the following May I was personally charged by the owner of the 

 ' Richard Dart' with being the cause of her loss ; and an insinuation of 

 the same class was afterwards made in the Theatre of the Society of 

 Arts. I am confident that the absuidity of such observations will be 

 perceptable to all present. Who would imagine that a set of tables, 

 compiled for the purpose of facilitating the practice of great circle 

 sailing, would render unnecessary a good look-out, or the setting down 

 of the sliip's place and course in the chart ? If the author of a sailing 

 be chargeable with all the wrecks that occur to ships that adopt such 

 a sailing, with how many wrecks is Wright chargeable on account of 

 his introduction of Mercator's sailing ? It was but a few days since 

 that we received the account of the loss of the ' Meridian,' on the island 

 of Amsterdam. This island, and that of St. Paul's, he on either side 

 of the rhumb line, or the track by Mercator's sailing ; and yet no one 

 attributes this loss to the captain's having adopted Mercator's sailing. 

 One of the advantages attending the composite route of 51° is that there 

 is no island or rock lying in that track, or near it, if we except 

 Kerguelen's land, which is in 50°, and its approach is marked by strong 

 indications to warn the mariner, if he, by missing his reckoning, should 

 approach too near. Then, again, a little more than twelve months since, 

 a Liverpool captain wrote home to his owners, as an excuse for having 

 made a voyage of 112 days to Australia, that it was on account of 

 employing what he called great circle sailing, which he assured them 

 he would never do again. The introduction of ' composite sailing,' so 

 far from reducing the amount of ability required by a captain engaged 

 in Australian voyages, makes a demand for higher qualifications and a 

 greater amount of judgment than were previously required. 



' Composite sailing' is the art of navigating a sliiji by the shortest 

 practical or desirable route. It is longer than the great circle, but 

 shorter than by Mercator's sailing. The word " desu-able " allows a 

 great amount of judgment in determining its limits. One captain may 

 consider one latitude desirable, and another captain may choose another 

 maxiumm latitude. Thus some have made 47° their ma.Kimum latitude, 



