The document reflects on the changes in nautical history, particularly the transition from family-owned ship fleets to modern commercial shipping operations, which prioritize efficiency and financial returns over tradition. It discusses navigation challenges faced by sailors, including the limitations of early navigation methods and the struggles of managing sailing vessels under adverse conditions. The text emphasizes the complexity of seafaring and human interactions with the sea, revealing insights into the evolution of maritime practices and perceptions.

1. Discourse
of the Winds
REFLECTIONS ON NAUTICAL HISTORY, NAVIGATION,
MAPPING THE EARTH, AND MY SEAFARING LIFE
JOHN K. FORD
JOHN K. FORD DISCOURSE OF THE WINDS

2. Discourse
of the Winds
REFLECTIONS ON NAUTICAL HISTORY, NAVIGATION,
MAPPING THE EARTH, AND MY SEAFARING LIFE
JOHN K. FORD

3. DISCOURSE OF THE WINDS
last fifty years have no such capacity, nor do they have the
huge graving docks and heavy-lift cranes to build large
hulls, and because of environmental considerations, no
new steel yards are in the works at present.
The days when fleets of ships were owned by families
such as the Holts or the Houlders, or by the Lykes family
in New Orleans, was an age when they were part of a
family business and tradition, dating back into the last
century. The vessels were named after members of the
owning families, so that Mrs. Nancy Lykes might take
an interest in the S.S. Nancy Lykes, but not when they’re
swapped out every few years for a new depreciation cycle.
The great seagoing fleets of Cunard and P&O were
changing irrevocably, we sensed, and not to our advan-tage.
The supertanker I was looking at that afternoon was
the replacement for a whole fleet of fifty thousand ton-ners,
and her value lay in the tax credits she could spin off
as much as her hull integrity. I was on the edge of a new
age of fast-turnaround ships, where seaports were no lon-ger
seaports but tank farms and dusty wastelands, the
intermodal container terminals.
Of Clocks and Tides
and Curvature
A
phenomenon of great importance to sailors are
the tides, and while tidal flood was seen as con-nected
with the moon’s meridianal passage, this isn’t
exactly so, and no one knew why. Francis Bacon thought
that the moon’s rays might draw up the waters as vapor as
it passed overhead, causing the ocean to swell, and at the
same time he was aware of and apologetic of the inade-quacy
of his occult explanation. The moon was a feminine
figure, freighted with mysteries, and drawing up vapors
has a pleasantly Midsummer’s Night Dream wistfulness
to it. It’s not that the explanation wasn’t right, as Wolf-gang
Pauli famously observed, it wasn’t even wrong. The
more interesting question is not just that it’s wrong, but
why it’s wrong, and coiled up in that question is the whole
mystery of human perception, and our wishes and needs.
Perhaps we want a gentle moon to draw us up, to see us
through the night.
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4. DISCOURSE OF THE WINDS Of Clocks and Tides and Curvature
schooners, the most weatherly and most expertly handled
sailing vessels on the seas, could claw up 55° to windward.
The speeds that a laden sailing vessel could make good
were minute compared to the distances involved; they had
to work their way across the wind in order to make good
on a course; weed accumulated underwater on the hull,
reducing their speed, and inshore, approaching port, these
vessels were dangerous to all aboard. Few merchants
risked their goods to an ocean crossing during winter
months, so that vessels became idle from October to
March, and for good reason. The performances of all sail-ing
craft fell off when it was needed most; which was
when the wind came in off the sea, raising short, steep
waves in the shallow waters that drastically reduced their
ability to fight their way upwind and stay off the lee shore.
These vessels were not only difficult to handle, they
were impossible to navigate on the high seas. The sailors
of the Mediterranean navigated by way of charts and com-pass
bearings, clear-weather piloting in other words,
mostly in sight of land, while the northern Europeans,
who had no charts, were able to find their way around only
in the shallow continental shelf. With their lead-lines they
had developed a comprehensive knowledge of the sea bot-tom,
or “grounds” as it was known. Tallow was stuck onto
the bottom of the lead, so that when the depth was taken
traces of sand or shells were brought up were examined on
deck. This type of navigation had the advantage that it
could be done in the dark or in fog, and the traces of sand
brought up were compared against their sailing directions.
The sailing directions, (called “rutters”, a corruption of
routier) were not much bothered with distances run on any
particular leg; a straight run, unless directly downwind,
wasn’t doable, so a vessel was instructed to “run south a
glass or two”, referring to turns of its hour-glass, and the
rutter seemed more concerned with keeping mariners off
the shoals than anything else. Because of its impractical-ity,
the use of stars to keep the ship out of trouble is never
mentioned in these accounts. For centuries sailors did not
venture into the Atlantic, for very good reason, for none of
the known navigation of the time was of any use to them
there. According to an Arab writer:
The Sea of Darkness is boundless, so that ships dared
not venture out of sight of land: for even if the sailors
knew the direction of the winds, they would not
know whither those winds would carry them, and as
there is no inhabited country beyond, they would risk
being lost in mists and fogs.
The merchant traders saw no percentage in it anyway.
The Norse spirit of exploration was over, it seems, and the
sailor went about his business of earning freights, port to
port.
The investigation into longitude suffered from the lack
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