Read the following passage adapted from an essay on maritime history and scientific innovation:
In 1714, the British Parliament passed the Longitude Act, establishing the Board of Longitude and offering a public prize of up to £20,000 to anyone who could solve the longstanding challenge of determining a ship's precise longitude at sea. Navigators could easily calculate latitude by observing the angle of the sun or the North Star, but calculating longitude required knowing the exact time at a reference point, such as Greenwich, simultaneously with local solar time. Standard pendulum clocks of the era were useless on the rolling ocean, as the ship's motion disrupted their mechanisms, and temperature fluctuations continually altered their timekeeping rate.
John Harrison, a self-taught Yorkshire carpenter and clockmaker, dedicated his life to solving this problem by designing mechanical clocks capable of functioning accurately on ocean vessels. After spending years building three large, spring-driven marine clocks—designated H1, H2, and H3—Harrison realized that a radical shift in approach was required. Rather than constructing another large clock, he designed a revolutionary, pocket-watch-sized marine timekeeper finished in 1759, which became known as H4. Encased in silver and measuring roughly five inches in diameter, H4 incorporated diamond and ruby bearings to reduce friction, along with a newly designed balance spring that compensated for thermal changes without requiring liquid lubricants.
To prove its efficacy to the Board of Longitude, H4 had to undergo an extensive ocean trial across the Atlantic Ocean. On November 18, 1761, William Harrison, John Harrison's son, embarked from Portsmouth, England, aboard the HMS Deptford bound for Kingston, Jamaica, carrying H4 in a cushioned wooden chest to safeguard it against humidity and vibration. John Harrison remained in London to continue refined adjustments on a backup mechanism. During the voyage, William carefully wound H4 daily and recorded its readings alongside astronomical calculations made by the ship's captain, Dudley Digges.
Upon arriving in Kingston on January 19, 1762, after eighty-one days at sea, H4 was evaluated by local astronomical observers. The watch had lost just 5.1 seconds during the transatlantic crossing when corrected for its known rate of error. This performance corresponded to an error in longitude of barely 1.25 nautical miles, easily surpassing the accuracy threshold of 30 nautical miles demanded by Parliament for the maximum prize. Despite this success, the Board of Longitude delayed awarding the full monetary prize, demanding additional verification trials that were later carried out in Barbados in 1764.
Based on the passage, evaluate the truth of the following statement:
John Harrison personally sailed aboard the HMS Deptford to Kingston, Jamaica, in 1761 to monitor the performance of the H4 timekeeper.
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