🚀 go-pugleaf

From Dave Rickel <drickel@bounce.mentorg.com>


In article <C19ny0.3Gs@law7.DaytonOH.NCR.COM>, "patterson,george r" <patter@dasher.cc.bellcore.com> writes:
|> The Roman ships of this period were typically sailed (or rowed) only
|> within sight of land. It was common practice to anchor, or even haul out
|> (though you're not going to beach a trireme) to sleep every night. This
|> was also true of the earlier Greeks.

Let's see.  Scientific American a while back had an article on triremes.
I don't remember the issue, you should be able to find it in an index.  There
is also a book, ENGINEERING IN THE ANCIENT WORLD, by Landels or something
similar, that has a chapter on ships.

>From what i recall, triremes were sailed mainly within sight of land--no
compass, no chronometer.  The mediterranean was only navigable for about eight
months of the year (give or take, depending on how desperate you were).  I'm
not sure about the comment about not beaching triremes--i remember something
about them getting waterlogged if they weren't.  The Landels book guessed that
the merchants could probably sail a point or two into the wind (i think that
was the terminology--so that the angle from the direction your craft is
pointing to the direction the wind comes from is about 70 to 80 degrees).
That's another reason for sailing close to shore--that way the winds should be
somewhat favorable at least twice a day.

There was a comment about Ben Hur not being very factual on it's maritime
portion.  Quite right--galley slaves didn't come into being until later.

The Romans were much less nautical than the Greeks, for what it's worth.

|> Towards the end of this period, the lateen was becoming popular in the
|> middle east, and that's a different story, but the galleys generally
|> stayed close to shore for as long as they stayed in use. Some nations
|> still used them into the 19th century, and they weren't completely
|> outclassed until steam power became commonplace.

Umm.  These galleys were different from the biremes and triremes, and did
use galley slaves.  They tended to be good for sprints and for maneuvering
in the confused winds close to shore (i'm not really contradicting the bit
on winds above), and tended to be used for piracy.


david rickel
drickel@sjc.mentorg.com