Virtual Voyages - Discussion Zone - Seafaring People and Their Boats

SEAFARING PEOPLE AND THEIR BOATS

Subject: ancient navigation

Comments:
More from Tony Johnson:

Canary Islanders, who were there before the birth of Christ, could not have seen those islands from the coast of Africa. And the most ancient of sailors were the Aborigines of Australia, who made blue water crossings of fifty miles or more 40,000 years ago. Nothing at all is known of their navigational techniques.

- Captain Lathrop, Mon Jan 19 11:30:46 2004

Subject: ancient navigation

Comments:
Tony Johnson,who sailed around the world in the 39 foot sloop Maverick had this to say when I asked him:

"The ancient Polynesian sailors used the stars but had a lot of other tools. They had an intimate and almost mystical knowledge of wave forms and directions, and could sense the refractions around various upwind landforms with astonishing accuracy. They also used birds, currents, wind, and stars to orient themselves. They didn't use the sextant or celestial navigation as we know it, which were not perfected until at least the 19th century, and they had no compass.

The ancient Greeks were not sophisticated in terms of celestial navigation and rarely sailed out of sight of land. Fortunately, the Greek islands are close enough together to make this possible. When they sailed home from Troy, some of the ships went northwest and hugged east coast of Greece. They generally did not sail at night, as their galleys had no provision for sleeping or cooking, and so could orient themselves during the day with landmarks"

- Captain Lathrop, Sat Jan 3 15:54:13 2004

Subject: Answering Angel

Comments:
Angel,

The Vikings used the North Star to navigate. They did not travel south past the latitude at which the North Star (Polaris)dipped below the horizon.

Viking exploration included Iceland, Greenland and the Atlantic coast of Canada, but not far south.

I don't know how the Pacific Islanders navigated. They may have used astronomy, but I am not sure what stars they could see. It seems that they would have had to have one star, like Polaris, that did not change it's position during the night or during the seasons. Because of the section of the world in which they voyaged, I doubt that such a star was available to them. But I don't know for sure.

Besides the Vikings and the Pacific Islanders, I am not aware of any truly pre-historic navigators that took long voyages. Many took short voyages, but they must have used piloting to navigate on these. (Piloting is when you can see landmarks to guide your course.)I doubt that the Indians or the Eskimos travelled out of sight of land. The voyage of Kon Tiki, may be the exception.

If you find out any more, let us know.

Thanks for your question.

Captain Lathrop

- Captain Lathrop, Tue Dec 30 15:03:35 2003

Subject: Navigation and astronomy

Comments:
Hope that somebody on this group could help me with some references to read about prehistoric seafaring people using astronomy.

Cordially Angel

angelrod@rocketmail.com

- Angel Rodriguez, Tue Dec 30 14:32:49 2003

Subject: Answering Rap, TJ, Christopher and Shay

Comments:
Hello TJ, Rap, Christopher and Shay.

I will try to answer all your questions in one message. Let me know if I leave anything out.

Charisma is on her way south. She is docked in Baltimore as I write this. The plan for Haley to be part of the crew didn't work out as expected, but some other kids and I joined the crew for the New London to New York leg of the voyage and I stayed on the boat as far as Baltimore, Mariland. Check out our ship's log for the longitude and latitude every day of the voyage and locate our position on the big map of the Atlantic Coast that I left with your teacher. There is also some water temperature information in the log, but not very much. This will become more important later on. You can keep track of the water temperature and air temperature in New London by looking in the Day paper.

Only three of us sailed the boat from New York City to Baltimore. The first leg lasted 25 hours without a stop and that was tiring. We took two-hour naps throughout the first night and all the next day and always had at least two people awake on the boat. None of us got much sleep because we had to keep the boat moving so that we wouldn't get caught by the big storm that hit the coast and hit New London on Wednesday. Look on our ship's log to find out where we were.

No one fell into the water and it would be very dangerous if someone did, especially at night or in rough weather. To guard against this, we wore safety harnesses when we went out on deck. These harnesses were attached to the boat by a long "leash" which was clipped to a line called a "jack line" that lies along the deck--one on each side. Have you ever seen a dog on a run? Except for the fact that a dog run is usually up high and a jack line is on the deck, we were just like dogs harnessed to two runs. Luckily we didn't have to go up on deck very much.

The boat is not that cold if you can stay dry and stay out of the wind. It is all enclosed down below, and there is a cooking stove and an oil lamp both of which give off heat when they are being used. We also ran the engine a lot and that adds to the warmth. However, in the middle of the night and early in the morning it did get a little cold. I was glad to have two blankets.

We didn't go fishing on the trip so far, but we have some rods and reels and we might fish is the conditions are right.

The kids who came along with us listened to music and played cards when they did not have jobs to do. They also had little contests guessing how long it would take us to get somewhere (like the next bridge on the East River) or what our longidude would be under certain circumstances. They also invented a game in which one kid went below and looked out through one of the cabin windows. The other two were on deck and they had to guess which window it would be. It looked like fun, but you had to be a kid to play it.

These are good questions. Be sure to check other parts of the discussion zone and the ship's log for more information

- Captain Lathrop, Fri Oct 18 00:22:09 2002

Subject: CHARISMA voyage

Comments:
How is your voyage going?

Is the boat warm at night?

Are you used to going on long boat trips?

How can we communicate with you?

Do you go fishing from the boat?

What is your longitude and latitude?

Is it fun riding on waves?

What are your hobbys on the boat?

- TJ, Wed Oct 16 11:28:48 2002

Subject: charisma voyage

Comments:

how are u doing hailey?

how is your voyage going?

is it difficult to take the sail out when theres only three people in the boat?

dont forget 2 get back 2 us

good luck!!!!

- shay, Wed Oct 16 11:26:49 2002

Subject: charisma voyage

Comments:
To Hialey:

have you fallen off the boat yet?

how long have you been sailing?

has it rained yet?

is it hard sailing?

- christopher, Wed Oct 16 11:26:40 2002

Subject: Charisma voyage

Comments:
what are your coordinates? We will like to follow you. What is your water tempature?

- Rap, Wed Oct 16 11:24:52 2002

Subject: Food

Comments:
Dear WCS student,

The boat we are on now has tons of food aboard. It is a cruise ship with about 2000 passengers and crew.

However, when we do short sails in our boat in New London we only take a snack along and some water.

It is not easy to keep food on our boat because we have no refrigerator. We have to use an ice box and buy blocks of ice.

Did you find the map I left at your school?

Captain Lathrop

- Captain Lathrop, Tue Apr 9 17:21:03 2002

Subject: ship

Comments:
how much food do you guys take on each trip?

- wcs, Tue Apr 9 10:53:10 2002

Subject: Such a Rare site

Comments:
As we were sailing out on the Thames River. We were talking about Ernie, the "ghost" of the Ledge Light Lighthouse. We turned to look at Ledge Light and saw the Coast Guard Sailboat, "The Eagle" anchored right next to Ledge Light. We were trying to figure out why it was there. Does anyone have any ideas?

- Jason, Mon Oct 8 20:17:06 2001

Subject: Our trip on the thames

Comments:
On Tuesday our party of Mr.David, DJ, Marcus, Henry, Russell, Jason and I (Charlotte), trooped down to the docks in New London. After donning our lifejackets, me and DJ took off the sailcover. The rest of the group took the dinghy,Squeezy Wind, and set it afloat. DJ cranked the crank and the sail was hoisted up onto the mast. We turned on the motor and headed out for the sea. DJ took the first turn steering. We steered out towards the channel, and towards the green bouy. We all guessed what number was on the bouy before we got to it.No one was right, so we got up close to it and saw that the reflective number was 11. Captain L told us that all the green bouys were odd numbers and the red bouys were even. We were in the channel by now and we noticed on the depth sounder that the water, which had been 13 ft deep a few minutes ago, was now close to 30 ft deep! Wow! It increased a lot. After DJ, marcus took over at the helm. We turned our course so we were pointing straight for the Eagle, which was out on the river. We were heading down the channel when Captain L decided to put the jib sail up. It was the most interesting jibsail I hve ever seen. It didn't have to be hoisteed up, it could be unrolled! It was pretty cool. All we had to do was pull on the jib sheet really hard and it was up! Usually you have to hoist it up, like the main sail. On the way to the Eagle we saw a little white boat with a blue bottom. Jason read the letters on the boat. It said "PILOT". Captain L then told us about why the little boat was called Pilot.he said that when the big ships came into port, they needed to know where to go.The little boat's captain would board the ship and steer it to the right place in the harbour. The Pilot piloted all the other big boats. By now we were getting pretty close to the Eagle ,so we could see the New london Ledge Lighthouse. Henry, who was steering, turned us about and we began to head back to port, much to our chagrin. DJ was exicited about taking pictures so we got shots of all of us together, and each of us at the helm. Jason and Russell each took their turns steering so it was finally my turn. I am us to sailing sunfishes , so I am used to using a tiller. With a tiller you push it to the right if you want to go left and push it to the left if you want to go go right. In this boat you have to turn it to the right to go right and left to go left I got a little confused so I had trouble keeping s straight course. Whoops! Oh well I learned from my mistake, I'll hopefully do better next time. Mr. David steered us back into the channel so we could see how the red and green lights came together when you were in the channel. It is amazing how many navigational aids there are around a port! We finally headed home, put the sail away and rolled up the jib. We had had a wonderful trip on the water and I can't wait to be back. Thank you Captain L!

- Charlotte, Thu Oct 4 20:30:05 2001

Subject: Sweedish Seafaring 2001

Comments:
A couple insights from Boating in Sweden,

Sweden, the size and shape of California, has more water than most countries

On these waters one can kayak from the middle of the country to the sea. There are many small rowboats with motors for fishing, many small powerboats for pleasure in the country. Some of these power boats and even some of the larger 25 - 30 footers seemed to have the shape of two bows and looking at them from the side one could not tell the bow from the stern. This style—like that of a typical canoe—is called “double ended”

In Stockholm, a city of seven islands and fifty-five bridges, there are power craft for pleasure and some very large yachts. The cruise ships with ten stories of freeboard (height above water) tie up there. Sailboats are the most popular type of boat seen.

There are a few tall ships permanently anchored around the shores of Stockholm. These are open for tours and are called "Vanderhem's" meaning in English, Wander Home.

There are very few commercial fishing boats but many water taxies cruise back and forth to the different islands of the city. A typical cruise is 11 minutes.

- Linda, Sun Jul 22 10:57:25 2001

Subject: from Museum of Atlantic Web site

Comments:
On the morning of Dec. 6, 1917, a French munitions ship and a Norwegian vessel collided in the harbour. The munitions vessel exploded, killing more than 1,600 people instantly, wounding more than 9,000 others, and damaging or destroying approximately 12,000 buildings. The statistics are astounding enough, but testimonies of personal hardship and heroism from survivors are even more astonishing. Students will learn about events leading up to this marine disaster and the effects of the explosion on the cities of Halifax and Dartmouth.

- Captain Lathrop, Sun Jul 8 11:18:10 2001

Subject: Boston and Halifax

Comments:
Voyage 2001 will have a role in the Boston (Marblehead) to Halifax Race this year, even though Easy Wind will not actually be sailing to Halifax.

We will serve as shore crew for the defending champion of the cruising class division, the ketch "Charisma", owned by Robert and Barbary Welsh.

The race takes place every two years. I believe it is part of the commemoration of the close ties between Boston, Massachusetts, USA and Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.

Early in the 1900s, an accident in the harbor in Halifax triggered a disasterous fire which killed or injured thousands of people living there.

Boston came to the rescue by sending medical supplies and doctors and nurses to Halifax to help care for the victims.

Please add information about this event or the sister city relationship, about the Halifax Race, or about the fire to our discussion zone and follow the progress of our trip to Halifax on our ship's log.

- Captain Lathrop, Fri Jul 6 06:45:55 2001

Subject: Nostalgia for "Easy Wind" in Boston Harbor

Comments:
When I first got a chance to ride out in the Boston Harbor, I had no idea what the effect on me would be. When you turned off the engine & the boat moved with the wind, I might have been a corsair in the 16th Century heading for the Orient. What a trip! Who wudda known such memories were possible? I look forward to your voyages--long or short.

- Publius Plutarchus, Thu May 31 20:10:15 2001

Subject: Answering Nancy 15

Comments:
Dear Nancy,

Zepplins! wow, where did you hear about that. Tell us more.

Boats are used extensively for trade all over the world. In the corner of the world covered by our voyage we saw tugs pushing gravel barges down the Hudson--big clusters of barges all tied together. Some of these clusters were as big as ten or twelve barges. Water transportation is the most economical way to move really heavy material (like the crushed stone that filled these barges).

On the small end of the range we met many people using very small boats for commercial fishing. We talked with these people in the Gaspe region of Quebec Province. Here it is common practice for a family to own a 15-20 foot long open boat (rowboat) with an outboard motor and fish every day in the St. Lawrence River. For the most part, these small-boat fishermen were supplementing their other incomes with fishing. Traditionally fishing has been the way farmers in this region add to the family income.

Let's ask all web site visitors to send us examples of the largest and/or the smallest boats currently used in trade around the world.

Thanks for this great question.

Captain Lathrop

- Dick, Tue Feb 27 02:38:56 2001

Subject: boats for commerce

Comments:
hi virtual voyages!

i heard that people are starting to use zepplins now to transport goods. i know that in the past, boats were mostly used for trade. are there still any people who still use boats most of the time for trade? does anyone still use really small boats (like canoes) for trade?

- nancy15, Mon Feb 26 14:15:20 2001