The American Coast Pilot: Containing the Courses and Distances Between the Principal Harbours, Capes, and Headlands, on the Coast of North and South America; with Directions for Sailing Into the Same ... with the Prevailing Winds, Setting of the Currents, &c., and the Latitudes and Longitudes of the Principal Harbours and Capes. Together with a Tide Table

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E.M. Blunt, 1822 - Nautical charts - 495 pages
 

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Page 464 - North shore, where they increase the depth of the water, as well as up the river, and particularly in the shallow harbour of Monte Video. Whilst these SW winds blow the air is cold, and the atmosphere clear and elastic, in a degree rarely to be met with in any other part of the world. They are generally succeeded by some days of fine, serene weather, the wind continuing moderate from the southward, or varying to the eastward. I have never known the velocity of the tide or current, in the River Plata,...
Page 468 - ... expected most probably to shift, if it does at all, round by the north to the westward, though, perhaps, not before that wind, and the inset together, might carry a ship up to Monte Video. Yet if the wind should be to the north-westward, at the time of making the land, it may be...
Page 464 - I have heard it said, by some, that they have found it run at the rate of 6 or 7 miles an hour ! As the winds outside the River Plata, and particularly about Cape St. Mary, are most frequently from the north-eastward and northward, except when the SE summer and SW winter gales blow, about the times of new and full moon, I consider it, on the whole, most advisable for ships bound into the river, to get in with the land about the latitude of that Cape, which is 34° 40' S., and its longitude 2° 9
Page 426 - ... inches. The descent of the mercury predicts the Norths ; but they do not begin to blow the moment it sinks, which it always does a short time before the North comes on : at these times lightnings appear on the horizon, especially from NW to NE ; the sea sparkles ; cobwebs are seen on the rigging, if by day : with such warnings trust not to the weather, for a North will infallibly come on. " This wind generally moderates at the setting of the sun; that is, it does not retain the...
Page 467 - Great care and attention to the course made good, and to the soundings, are indispensably requisite in those who attempt to conduct vessels, during the night, in any part of this river; and even these have been but too often insufficient to save ships from destruction. But, in merchant vessels, I fear we cannot always expect to find those qualities, and, therefore, I withhold my opinion of its being advisable for them to run in the night ; neither can it be done by men-of-war without some risk. FLORES...
Page 464 - S. and about thirty leagues east of the great Castelhos Rock, the depth is 63 or 64 fathoms, dark mud. In standing in for the land, between the Great Castelhos and Cape St. Mary, the water shoalens, in a short distance, from 60 to 25 fathoms; and the quality of the bottom changes to sand, which grows coarser as you approach the coast ; and, as far as seven leagues off shore, is intermixed with shells.
Page 468 - In a long continuance of fine weather, the tides sometimes assume the appearance of regularity ; but this is not often the case. They are governed entirely by the winds. The winds from the southward cause the water to run out on the North shore strongest. Fine weather, and a NW wind, make the water lowest. It is usual, in Monte Video harbour, to have an anchor to the SE, and another to the SW, and to take one in abaft from the northward ; for the water, forced in by the southerly wind, sometimes...
Page 466 - Agreeing in opinion with Captain Bouverie, that, generally speaking, it is advisable to make the land about Cape St. Mary, I would also recommend, if the wind should be. any where between SE and NNE, to enter the river on the North side of the English Bank, passing Lobos, on either side, according to the wind and state of the weather. There is a good passage between Lobos and the main, having 17 to 14 fathoms of water. The Island of Lobos is in latitude 35° 1' S., and longitude 1° 24

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