Welcome on board the Bark 'California' on voyage from the 4th December 1894 to the 7th November 1895
This ship has a 'twin' log book: California 1894 - 1895 PPL
Here you will find an example transcription of details
This is also a place to ask questions and request help with oddities in the log
You can bring the ship to life by sharing interesting finds from the log pages and other information about the ship
General help with marking and transcribing whaling logs
Weather and ice records from the whaling ships of the USA which contains the following
'must read' topics...
Tip: use ctrl+Pgup or ctrl+PgDn to quickly swap between the different worksheets as you move through start, primary, weather, and remarks sheets to record your findings
Treasure trove of information in the Library
Over the years this forum has accumulated a broad spectrum of detailed information which is kept in the
Library
Please do take time to visit the Library because it will afford you a great deal of help. However, do feel welcome to ask questions at any time.
Help with images
- If you want to query some text please supply the page reference (the reference changes as you view the middle of a page), and an image of the text if you wish. Help for manipulating/posting images can be found in Posting Links and Images (A Guide). If you have any problems with imaging this is the board to post that question.
- Accessing pale images. The example page used below, opened through the 'Irfan' program, 'color correction' and adjust the brightness, saturation, and gamma correction. You may have your own program for adjusting brightness and contrast. Here are the before and after images using Irfan Click to see them at full size.
Names of the crew
Names of the crew and notes of other ships mentioned or visited can also be recorded.
For this voyage, a list of Ships Met and the date are very important, so please visit:
California, crew and ships met
To find the shipyard pages for other whalers
Link:
Find your ship, & the full list of ships logbooks for OWW
Select 'view single page':
When the log book image opens you will see two pages. It is easier to read the details accessing one page at a time. Use the icons at the bottom of the screen:
You can walk through California's log pages in chronological order. All you have to do is increment the number at the end of the link: page/2, page/3, page/4 etc.
Here is a log page that has been transcribed to help you to be familiar with the writing. This log is a smaller format journal and has a full page of information for most days and the log keeper shares a wealth of information.
September 11th, 1895
292 days Out
Wednesday Sept 11th 1895
Comes in with moderate W winds ship in
Port tack heading into the N under easy
sail broke out Provisions Four sail in
sight stood to the Ice with all sail tacked
then wind hauled to the N heading W.N.W
Strong breeze Middle part same snow
squalls latter part come to the Pack
tacked ship again Furled light sails
+c Pumped ship saw Breech
W~ Joseph
293 days Out
Thursday Sept 12th 1895
Comes in with fresh N winds ship
on Starboard tack heading into the
W.N.W under easy sail Four ships in
sight Came to the pack more ships wind
hauling to the N.W. came to the Ice to the W
tacked again Breezing on quite Fresh
Ice to the N. to the E. to the W. amost sur
rounded latter part wind hauled to
the N. hauled upp courses +c
Ice all over the Ocean this year
Pumps and Light carefully attended too
WF Joseph
Couple of notations here:
The date listed at the top of the page is a month ahead of the actual date and on the top right is says 143 when actually this is page 144 of the digital log. Please see notes in
Handwriting Help and Spelling about the idiosyncrasies in this log with dates and page numbers.
Also, you'll see above that he uses 'tc', or '+c', which in this case is being used as an abbreviation for what we know as 'etc.' etcetera. You will see this notation throughout the log.
Here is a transcription of the above log page. Click on the worksheet images below to see them at full size (click again to reduce it)
Start worksheet (top section)
If you discover any metadata in the logbook please enter it on this page. Metadata means 'data about data'. See under 'Weather' at rows 32 and 33. For example, if you see that the temperature is in Celsius or Centigrade, that fact should be transcribed as metadata.
Click on the worksheet images below to see them at full size.
Start worksheet
Primary worksheet
Weather worksheet
Remarks worksheet
Notes
- 'Civil Time' is noted, enter this on the START Sheet by 'Notes:'.
- Please see notes on START Sheet regarding crew and injury issues that some may prefer to avoid when transcribing.
Warning: AUTOFILL function between worksheets.
Do not drag and drop the date or time on any of the worksheets because you may disrupt the autofill function.
If you are unsure that the autofill is in proper order you can check by pressing two keys on your keyboard.
You are certainly welcome to ask for help with this action.
The remainder of this topic is for you. Ask questions and share interesting discoveries with us to make these logs live.