On what form of transport would you find a pelorus, said to be named after Hannibal's pilot, c.200BC?
Pelorus Sound oral tradition, their founding father, a descendant of Kupe, came to the South Island in his waka Te Hoiere. In 1642, Abel Tasman sailed past D'Urville Island. French and Russian explorers followed and in the 1770s Captain James Cook arrived. In 1838, Philip Chetwode in command of the "Cruizer" class brig-sloop, HMS "Pelorus", carried out the first survey of Pelorus Sound. The sound was named in honour of this survey. A pelorus was a navigational instrument used on sailing ships. The instrument, in turn, was named after the pilot for Hannibal, circa 203 BC. In 1864, gold was discovered in
Pelorus (instrument) been the pilot for Hannibal, circa 203 BC. Harold Gatty described the use of a pelorus by Polynesians before the use of a compass. In equatorial waters the nightly course of stars overhead is nearly uniform during the year. This regularity simplified navigation for the Polynesians using a pelorus, or dummy compass: <poem>[Arabs] divided the horizon into 32 points. These points were derived from fifteen stars which rose at approximately equally spaced points of the eastern horizon. The setting points of these stars on the western horizon gave them another fifteen points and north and south brought the total to