Taff rail log

[skipperdude]

Ever seen on of these?

Early speedometer. Back in the days of steam ships and later the coal and diesel these were use to calculate the speed of a boat. They hung from the taff rail at the back of the boat.

I picked this up in a box of junk at an auction when a boating supply shop went out of business.


Sd


-- Edited by skipperdude on Friday 12th of March 2010 12:55:42 PM

-- Edited by skipperdude on Friday 12th of March 2010 12:58:36 PM

[albin43]

thats pretty coool

[skipperdude]

I posted this on another site a while back.
Some of the comments were that big fish would sometimes hit the rotor.
Quite a lure Eh?

[dwhatty]

skipperdude wrote:
Back in the days of steam ships and later the coal and diesel these were use to calculate the speed of a boat. They hung from the taff rail at the back of the boat

Taff rail logs may be old tech, but did not pass out of use after steam and coal. I do not date to the days of steam and coal (well, perhaps to the death rattles of the coal era) and I remember off shore cruising on friends' parents' sailboats in the 1960s and early 1970s when taff rail logs, along with RDFs, sextants (for at a minimum the taking of noon sights), proper chartplotting and DR, were the tools (along with a compass) a recreational boater had and the tools one used. Actually, I know of a couple of people who still use taff rail logs on long passages, as well as sextants.

I only vaguely remember how to use a sextant, sight reduction tables, RDF, etc., and will probably never use them again in my lifetime (unless, perhaps, if the satellites go down). I love my chartplotter and radar for the type of boating I do now. Although I still use paper charts, I am a bad boy and only occasionally keep up my plot.