This is forwarded from another list.  But the topic should be of interest 
here on the VA list.

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Charles L. Dibble
Post Office Drawer 1240
Columbia, South Carolina 29202-1240
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-----Original Message-----
From: [log in to unmask]
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of [log in to unmask]
Sent: Sunday, May 13, 2007 15:58 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [ORANGEBURGH_SC] Sailing Ships, Winds, and Currents

Now that I have more pressing matters out of the way, I’ll expand on my 
earlier comment regarding ships calling at Philadelphia and SC.  My comment 
was not about the relative merits of one or the other but about the question 
raised as to which port a ship would call at FIRST if it were going to BOTH. 
Then, our Webmeister, Jim R., threw in the question of ocean currents.  
Another factor
would be the state of sailing technology for any given period and the extent 
a ship had kept up with the latest Until not too long before Columbus made 
his first epic voyage to America in 1492. Europeans had square-riggers that 
were very cumbersome, not very maneuverable, and not very good for long 
voyages.  A few decades before Columbus’s first trip, however, Prince Henry 
the Navigator made a big breakthrough in Portugal by inventing the caravel.
All three of Columbus’s three ships on his first voyage, the Niña, the 
Pinta, and the Santa María, were caravels.  The caravel had triangular 
sails, particularly on the forward mast.  Called a lateen sail, for “Latin” 
spelled phonetically, they were actually from the Arabs who used triangular 
sails in
traveling across the Indian Ocean to India.  There they might wait as long 
as six months for the wind to turn around and blow in the opposite direction 
so they could get home.
Columbus was living in Portugal and tried to sail to America for the King of 
Portugal, in which case he would have dropped down the African coast only as 
far as the Azores, that belonged to Portugal, and may very well have not 
made it to America or been heard from again.  Such are the happenstances of 
history.
Since he wound up sailing for Spain, he dropped farther south to the 
Canaries, which belonged to Spain, and jumped off from there.
By doing so he picked up the Guinea Current that crosses the Atlantic to the 
Caribbean.  This strong current, as much as five knots per hour, flows along 
both the northern and southern coast of large islands in the Caribbean such 
as Puerto Rico, Hispañola, and Cuba.  If one looks at a map of all four of 
Columbus voyages, they follow the same general pattern---south to the Guinea 
Current, west to the Caribbean, north picking up the Gulf Stream for a 
while, and then back across the Atlantic to Portugal or Spain.  These 
voyages look like the shape of the state of Tennessee.
Even with Columbus’s three ships named above, he could make no progress 
directly into a wind.  If the wind were blowing straight east and he was 
trying to go west, the best he could do was to race up and down, north and 
south, without making any progress to the west.  With sailing vessels today, 
whether a day-sailor, a yacht, or a sailing ship, one can close-haul up to 
within 45 degrees of the direction of the wind.  This is due to the 
interaction between the keel and the sails.  It is like pinching a 
watermelon seed just right to make it shoot out!  One sails within 45 
degrees of the wind, tacks and goes within 45 degrees on the other side of 
the wind, and with this zigzag pattern, sails due west against a wind 
blowing due east.
The Gulf of Mexico is almost surrounded by land and produces very warm seas.

Thus the Gulf Stream comes out of the Gulf between Florida and Cuba, and 
follows the east coast of the US up to Cape Hatteras, NC, where it leaves 
the East Coast and heads in a northeasterly direction, warming all of 
Europe.
Although Europe is on the same level as Canada, there are palm trees in 
Cornwall at the southwestern tip of England.  England has very mild winters 
compared to Canada.
Flash-forward a century from Columbus.  The three ships from England, the 
Godspeed, the Susan B. Constant, and Discovery, that dropped anchor in the 
James River and started Jamestown exactly 400 years ago tomorrow, May 14, 
took “the scenic route,” the really long way around, wandering into the 
Caribbean, out of the Caribbean up the Mona Passage between Puerto Rico and 
the Dominican Republic, and up to Virginia.  They traveled 6,000 miles and 
took six months.
Nevertheless Norman fishermen were on the Grand Banks off Newfoundland by 
1504.  Sir Humphrey Gilbert took possession of Newfoundland for England in 
1583.
Through most of the 1500s fishermen from England’s West Country, along with 
French, Basque, and Portuguese, fished off Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and 
Maine.  Since the season’s catch had to be salted down and dried before the 
long voyage home, it was necessary to go ashore in North America to cure the 
fish.
Just 13 years after the founding of Jamestown, the Mayflower sailed for 
Virginia where those on board had permission to land and start a colony.  As 
every schoolchild knows, or should know, they landed too far north in Mass.  
They traveled half as far and took half as long as the Jamestown ships.
Certainly by a hundred years after that, which is the period the discussion 
group is referring to in colonizing SC, there was no problem crossing the 
North Atlantic.  A ship captain sailing out of Hamburg, Bremerhaven, 
Rotterdam, London, Plymouth, Liverpool, or Belfast, knew the shortest route 
would first be somewhat north and then a southwesterly direction.
That can perhaps best be explain by the example of how commercial airliners,

such as those of Northwest, fly from New York to Japan or China.  They do 
not fly over California or near Hawaii but over Alaska.  That is the 
shortest route because the world is round, not flat.
The distance from Europe to Phila is considerably shorter than to SC.  A 
ship captain would want to get rid of some of his cargo, and take on fresh 
food and water.  Those carrying passengers would often have some indentured 
servants.
The captain was out the expense of feeding these.  He got his money back for 
indentured servants by auctioning them off at dockside.  Ergo:  He would go 
first to Phila.

Dane Bowen in Alexandria, Va., researching Bowen, Bacon, Cannon, Carlton 
(Carleton), Chaudoin (Chaudoins), Gye (Guy, Guye), Harris, Porter, Luker, 
Richey (Ritchie, Richie, Ritchey), Sanders (Saunders), Spence, Sloan, Way, 
Weaver, and Wells families.
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