Legends A number of myths and legends have arisen concerning the disaster. A story claiming that Shovell summoned the sailing masters to the flagship on 22 October for a council regarding the fleet's position seems to have first appeared in a paper by James Herbert Cooke presented at a meeting of the
Society of Antiquaries in 1883, based on an account by Edmund Herbert, who was on the Isles of Scilly in 1709. Although such a council having occurred is not in itself improbable, it would have been a significant operation, involving the launching of the ships' boats in heavy weather, and it would be expected to have been recorded in the ships' logs. The surviving logs do indeed record previous such events, but no mention is made of a council on the 22nd. Another myth associated with the disaster alleges that a common sailor on the flagship tried to warn Shovell that the fleet was off course but the Admiral had him hanged at the
yardarm for inciting mutiny. The story first appeared in the Scilly Isles in 1780, with the common sailor being a Scilly native who recognised the waters as being close to home but was punished for warning the Admiral. It was claimed that grass will never grow on the grave where Shovell was first buried at Porthellick Cove because of his tyrannical act against an islander. The myth was embellished in the 19th century when the punishment became instant execution and the sailor's knowledge of the fleet's position was attributed to superior navigational skills instead of local knowledge. While it is possible that a sailor may have debated the vessel's location and feared for its fate, such debates were common upon entering the English Channel, as noted by
Samuel Pepys in 1684. Naval historians have repeatedly discredited the story, noting the lack of any evidence in contemporary documents, its fanciful stock conventions and dubious origins. although several historians doubt the murder legend as there is no record of the ring's return and the story stems from a romantic and unverifiable "deathbed confession". Writing about the Scilly disaster in 1720,
Josiah Burchett wrote: "I cannot but have a lively idea of the danger fleets are exposed to upon entering the British Channel, when coming from foreign parts, but more especially when their officers have not the advantage of knowing their latitude by a good observation". Thus both these writers identified the importance of errors in latitude. Another possible factor, suspected by some mariners at the time but not documented for nearly another 100 years, was the existence of a north-setting current,
Rennell's Current, that could run at in 24 hours, quite sufficient to put a ship into danger. The current builds up with strong westerly or southwesterly winds, as was the case in October 1707. to the
Isles of Scilly in October 1707. The filled circle shows the estimated position on 21 October, based on observations of
latitude and soundings. The captain of
Torbay wrote in his journal: "We were much to ye Northward of what was expected, and likewise more to the Eastward". May considers the error to have been one of latitude, but due more to the inaccuracy of the charts than to the ships' observations. While Dava Sobel's assertion that the disaster was mainly due to an error in longitude cannot be sustained, the disastrous wrecking of a Royal Navy fleet in home waters nonetheless caused great consternation to the nation, and made plainly evident the inadequacy of existing maritime navigational techniques. The Royal Navy conducted a court-martial of the officers of
Firebrand (a
pro forma investigation required after the sinking or wrecking of any Royal Navy ship) and all were acquitted, but no officers survived from the other lost ships, so no other courts-martial took place. The Navy also conducted a survey of compasses from the surviving ships and of those at Chatham and Portsmouth dockyards, following comments from
Sir William Jumper, captain of
Lenox, that errors in the compasses had caused the navigational errors. The survey showed what a poor state many of the compasses were in; at Portsmouth, for example, only four of the 112 wooden-cased compasses from nine of the returning vessels were found to be serviceable. Clearly, improvements were urgently needed before ships could be expected to safely find their way through dangerous waters. As transoceanic travel grew in significance, so did the importance of reliable navigation. While no contemporary discussions are known that appear to relate the disaster specifically to the
longitude problem, the scale of the disaster may have contributed to concern about the problem in general, which ultimately led to the
Longitude Act in 1714. The Act established the Board of Longitude and offered large financial rewards to anyone who could devise a method for accurately determining longitude at sea. After many years, the consequence of the Act was that accurate
marine chronometers were produced and the
lunar distance method was developed, both of which were quickly adopted worldwide for maritime navigation. ==Discovery of the wrecks==