Posted by Andy on December 06, 2012 at 12:24:45 user AndyG.
I like my S&A to be August 1929.
After all, Nancy herself writes it on the Treaty of Offence and Defence: but when in August do the events occur?
The Arthur Ransome Wiki places the sailing in the dark to be the night of August 16th/17th. The problem with this is that the real Moon rose an hour before sunset on the 16th - it was gibbous, and heading for full on the 20th. It would have been up most of the night, bright and obvious, and setting at about quarter-to-two in the morning of the 17th.
Ransome mentions the Moon in P&M - clearly a useful backdrop to stage the burglary, but there's no mention of it in S&A when it would have been equally useful during the attack(s).
As a stickler, pedant, and glasses-wearing amateur astronomer, I'd prefer my S&A to be set around the relatively moonless parts of the month: perhaps sailing in the dark on or before the 5th of August (the day an almost New Moon set 50 minutes after the Sun making for a truly dark night, and still allowing Nancy to write "August") - or after about the 28th, when a last quarter Moon rose at 11.10pm, nearly three hours after the Sun set, and plenty long enough to get to Octopus Lagoon and, later, sail on the still-dark lake.
(Incidentally, for those that lean towards 1930, the Moon's phases make mid-late August much easier!)
Andy