I particularly like “meaning that they could not sail too close to the coast” — the best preserved ancient wrecks are probably down on the abyssal plain, but most ships that foundered hit reefs or rocks which are disproportionately found near the coast. The dolts who write, “ancient sailors hugged the coastline” just simply don’t know what they’re talking about.
Thanks for that excerpt, it’s great. :^)
Glad you liked it. It’s interesting (and logical) that the merchant vessels had a deep draft for carrying capacity, not for speed (warfare) and therefore could not be near the coastline.
Imagine docking those big, heavily laden, cumbersome sailing ships with crude square sails. Once close to the dock, the oars were obviously not much use on the dock side of the ship. And there were no motorized tenders or tugs. That had to be quite a feat.