Since when ships are sailing? If you’ve ever been on a ship motored by the wind and nothing more, you may have noticed a certain magnificence in its creation, in the little particularities, and yet simplicity of operation. One must go back to Egyptian culture, its architects and builders to talk about sailing. Not that there were no vessels previously used a sail to move, especially along rivers, but none of them, or the Eridu (a ship of 3500 BC) can be considered sailing ships, as none of them stand the marine conditions of the Mediterranean, Red Sea and Indian Ocean least.
The Egyptian ship almost recalls, in their form, in the romantic Venetian gondola, built with materials available in those regions, ie, bundles of bound papyrus reeds, could get to be 55 meters long with a crew ranging from 18 to 120 men. They soon realized that, although built by the commerce and transport, were not robust enough to support much weight. The solution they found was very simple: with the help of a rope tend to large so that it stiffen the hull, they could resist heavy weigths. They used a square sail with two horizontal bars, only propelled by the wind aft, so we can guess that the sailing techniques were still on his first steps. But at least it was a start.
James Cook
James Cook, british navigator and explorer, born in Marton-in-Cleveland in 1728. He discovered the coast of New Zealand in 1770, Caledonia and several groups of islands in the Pacific Ocean, author of Journey to the South Pole and Around the World. Died in the Sandwich Islands in 1779. For those interested there are several collections of logbooks too, such as the ones from “Resolution” and “Adventure”.
What the …. ! Sorry readers. The gentleman, if we can call it so, above is not James Cook, at least not his face. *whisper to Jason Isaacs! – “Out of here!”. “But I look better…” “I don’t care! Out!”
Whatever, for more information about this famous cartographer look at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Cook and also you can see his ‘real’ face.
Picture by Caldosangue – (http://caldosangue.deviantart.com/art/James-Jason-Cook-191405392) Thank you! 😛
On the sea 