Lost at Sea
Dead Reckoning
You rack your brain to try and remember information that the ship's officers used to plot the ship's course in the three days leading to the disaster.
With great difficulty you manage to jot down some snippets of information that you could remember.
- Left Tauranga on a course of 345o (measured clockwise from north) at a speed of 36 km hr-1.
- After twenty hours, the course was adjusted, the ship turned toward the afternoon sun, and the speed was reduced to 24 km hr-1.
- After 27 hours on this course, the crew mentioned that they were 1240 km from Tauranga.
- The course changed again to avoid the storm, to a bearing of 186o (186o clockwise from north),
until the ship was 930km from Tauranga. - Plot the ship's course to identify the ship's last known position on the map or plotting sheet.
The rescuers may now have your last known position but this was a day before being blown around
by the cyclone. Your current position could be a long way from the place the rescuers are looking.