Baffin William
(app. 1584–23.01.1622)

Outstanding English navigator.
About the early period of life Baffin nothing is known. Born most likely in London.
In 1612, as a navigator, he participated in the navigation of Captain James Hall to the Arctic seas with the aim of opening the Northwest Passage. Here he observed for the first time the strongest then known western deflection of the magnetic needle at 56°. Baffin for the first time gave a method for determining geographical longitude in the open sea by observing celestial bodies (the passage of the moon).
After returning, he sailed with fishermen to the northern seas, and in 1614 accompanied Captain Vauterby on an expedition to Svalbard, apparently attempting to search for the Northeast Passage.
But the glory of Baffin brought two subsequent voyage. In 1615, he was a navigator and assistant to Captain Robert Baylot, sailing on the Discovery ship in search of the Northwest Passage from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific. In 1616, the search was repeated on the same vessel. Baffin proceeded through the Davis Strait to the north, discovering and charting the shores of a huge semi-enclosed sea reservoir, which now bears his name. Having traveled 300 miles to the north than J. Davis in 1587, he opened the entrances to the straits, named after Sir James Lancaster, a merchant, sea captain, pioneer of English trade with India, patron and financier of the expedition, and Sir Thomas Smith, patron voyages to search for the Northwest Passage, as well as Devon and Ellesmere Islands, Hays Peninsula on the west coast of Greenland, Melville Bay. He considered the open straits as bays, as a result of which the opinion strengthened that there was no passage to the north. That is why the northern continuation of the Davis Strait is considered to be the Gulf (Baffin Bay). For the same reason, the sea lanes investigated by Baffin have not been visited by seafarers for more than two centuries. The report of Baffin on these voyages "Voyages towards the North-West" and the map were published in London in 1849.

In 1618, Baffin, going to serve in the East India Company, sailed to Surat and Rokhu, described the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. Three years later, during the fighting of the combined forces of the British and Persians against the Portuguese, Baffin was killed near Ormus.
Island (Baffin Land) in the southern part of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago.
Cape in the southwest of Fox Bay.

The sea between Greenland and Baffin Land. It is also called Baffin Bay. Opened in 1562 by Beers.