Wind Energy in Use - Sail Boats and Sailing Ships

It started with rowing, of course. Then some guy on the boat noticed that when he was drying his laundry on the line, that the wind pushed the boat along better, and the first sail was invented. (Just kidding!) An Egyptian vase found in an archeological dig dated from about 3500 B.C. pictured a boat with sails. Archeological digs have also found boats determined to be from about 2900 B.C. --So humans have been fooling around with boats (and sailboats in particular) for at least 5500 years!

It's been recorded from the Pharoah days of Egypt that Ptolemy the Third had sails supplementing his rowers (and he had a lot of rowers!) on his royal barges. He barged in pretty much whenever he wanted to and probably more frequently when the wind was in his sails!

While the Europeans were out fooling around with their boats and laundry on the masts (just kidding again)... the civilizations of the Pacific were also creating their own versions of sailing vessels. The ancient seafarers of the Pacific may have originated from Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, New Zealand, and other Pacific rim island areas. These folks populated the many islands of the Pacific--the Melanesians of Fiji, New Caledonia, and Papua New Guinea; the Micronesians of the islands including some of those in the Northern Marianas (Guam, Saipan, Rota, Tinian, Agupan, Agrihan, Pagan), Palau, Yap, Truk, Ponape, Enewetok, Kwajalein, and Majuro; and the Polynesians of New Zealand, Tahiti, the Marquesas, Bora Bora, Easter Island, and Hawaii.

When the Europeans finally stumbled over the various Pacific Islands,they were frequently surprised at the speed and gracefulness of the Islanders' sailing craft. Even though the Europeans (namely, the Spanish/Portuguese explorers) could get more than 10,000 miles per galleon --hey, I couldn't resist that!--compared to the lumbering, bottom-heavy galleons, the "flying proas" and "outriggers" and "giant catamarans" of the Micronesians, Melanesians, and Polynesians were truly technological marvels.

The ship's log and diaries recorded of Magellan's arrival on Guam in 1521 and then in the Philippines during the same year had all sorts of remarks about how fascinated and surprised the crewman were of the Islanders' boats.

When I first tried sailing on Guam, I had already had some experience on other boats--namely the motorized ones (Boston Whaler, Cris Craft, SunTracker pontoon boats). Sailing, however, was strangely different in many ways. The first way was that it was strangely quiet. Other than the "swish" of the boat cutting through the waves, the gentle flapping of the breeze in the sails, and the clanking of the ropes and connectors against a metal mast, the boat had an eerie silence. It was so quiet that we could hold a conversation with other sailors who had manuevered their sailboats close to our boat.

Another difference was all the complicated naming for all the different sails--the Jib, the Genoa, the Main, and more... and all the ropes used to "trim the sails"...

I also had to learn to DUCK when the boom came flying over the deck when the boat/wind changed direction. (Getting smacked in the head with the boom is not a pleasant experience!)

The names of the sailboats are mindnumbing--the sloop, ketch (or is it "kvetch"?--that's the boat on which all the complainers sail!), the yawl (the boat they sail in the Southern States...), the brig, the frigate, the catboat (meow!), and various kinds of catamarans and trimarans. It kinda makes you a bit dinghy to remember them all!

I thought learning how to tie knots when I was in Boy Scouts was tough... try doing this when you are balancing on the side of a sailboat while it's swishing through five-foot swells and your memory is a bit foggy! Ropes are used a lot more on sailboats than on regular boats. Not only (Knot Only?) are they used to tie the boat up when it comes to the dock, but they are used to fasten, adjust, and control the sails. Different knots are used for different tasks--and you have to get them right to make them work. Otherwise, you'll have a real mess on your hands.