Augustus Dalby, a brother of my 3g-grandfather, was promoted to Master in 1801, and I have found at the National Archives the Master's logs from some of the ships he served in. However there is something odd about them that I think needs explanation. There are two separate logs, clearly written by the same hand, with entries that contain almost identical text. Attaching examples from the first day of his service on HMS Carysfort, 31st July 1801. One entry is on a single page, the other spreads across two pages of (presumably) a different log book - though both are now bound together, with logs from other ships, at the National Archive. Is the first perhaps a draft of the final formatted entry that includes separate columns for navigational data? Why would both have been retained? (note - there's no navigation data actually recorded for 31st July, but entries for many other dates do include it). I have seen the same in his 1806 log for HMS Spartan, too, so this is not something unique to HMS Carysfort.
