"Hey, hey, Gardner McKay, take us on the Leaky Tiki with you." - Jimmy Buffett, We Are The People Our Parents Warned Us About
Posted on 09/24/2022 10:12:58 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
...At Dyrrhachium in what is now Albania, Caesar attacked Pompey's supply base on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. Because of the vagaries of the wind, Caesar sent supply ships to several destinations across the Mediterranean Sea to ensure his own troops could be fed and outfitted in the coming campaign...
An Israeli researcher... studied wind patterns and ancient texts about the weather. And then he did something more unusual. He and a team of experts built a replica of a 5th century B.C. boat and sailed it across part of the Mediterranean to test his theory...
In addition, by examining Roman and Greek texts about the weather, he discovered that those breeze cycles are virtually unchanged over the past three millennia.
Gal said the sailors' lives depended on anticipating weather patterns, so they knew when to begin a journey and when to find a safe port. They often waited days before catching the right winds to begin or resume travel...
The second phase of the study involved understanding the weather. In addition to reading 3,000-year-old texts, Gal reviewed modern records of the winds and waves around the Mediterranean. He collected data points from 7,000 different locations, taken every hour over the past 15 years...
Gal found that ancient vessels were able to locate brief breezes blowing to the west that usually occurred in the early mornings and late evenings. Those light airflows would enable the ships to sail for a short time toward Rome. Once the winds stalled, the crews would drop anchor and wait until they started again.
(Excerpt) Read more at stripes.com ...
:^) When the Kontiki cracked up at the end of the voyage, they barely saved the radio.
My pleasure.
"Hey, hey, Gardner McKay, take us on the Leaky Tiki with you." - Jimmy Buffett, We Are The People Our Parents Warned Us About
Thank you!
My pleasure.
It was not until the era of the RR that the cargo capacity of sailing ships was equaled. And RRs still could not cross oceans or even large rivers.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.