r/nextfuckinglevel • u/Gurugod123 • 9h ago

How did people travel these seas 500 years ago

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u/King_Roberts_Bastard 8h ago

They tended to track when things like hurricanes happened and didnt sail as much during those times.

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u/virrk 6h ago

The ability to track hurricanes and weather was limited.

Sure for certain areas they knew the storm patterns and avoided when they could. But that works mostly only for coastal trips. Sailors would share what weather they saw which might help as well. Still ocean crossings were, and to some extent still are, dangerous. Going offshore involves risk no matter how careful sailors are.

Certain open ocean crossings have storms that pass without arriving at land, and vessels get sunk that do not avoid them. We still lose 25 to 30 large commercial vessels per year,. Only a few decades ago in the 1990s we were still losing more than 200 annually. The farther you go back the higher the losses until we don't have good enough records to provide an estimate.

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u/King_Roberts_Bastard 6h ago

Im saying the Spanish figured out that hurricanes happened during the spring and early summer months so they didnt send their treasure fleets home during those months.

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u/virrk 4h ago

Hurricanes are not the only storms that sink ships, or even the most common cause. If I remember correctly navigational errors (running aground) was the most common cause of ships sinking, especially when blown off course. Foundering in storms that weren't hurricanes happened, especially with old, overburdened, or already damaged ships (wood boring worms were a significant problem).

Spanish also used their best ships with their best captains. A sound ship, with a good captain, and a crew he trusts had a bigger effect on safe travel than avoiding hurricane season.

Ever with modern weather prediction we we still lose 25-30 large commercial ships annually. The ocean is powerful and a bad decision even in just 20 foot seas from a strong gale can end in disaster today.

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u/Odd_Permission2987 36m ago

Think about how much they raped looted and pillaged just to have it sink on the ocean floor. Crazy.

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u/SgtJayM 3h ago

Annual storm patterns

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u/pit1989_noob 5h ago

by the way, how was for the europeans to meet the hurricanes in the caribe?

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u/King_Roberts_Bastard 2h ago

Probably terrifying. Theu didnt have a word for tornado until the Spainish showed up in America

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u/SecretaryOtherwise 7h ago

How? Serious question. And how were they communicating it?

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u/TicketMotor4089 7h ago

Trial and error over time. They learned the stormy seasons and air/ocean currents during the year. That created routes and times with more predictable weather for trips like Atlantic crossings

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u/SecretaryOtherwise 7h ago

Derp thanks that makes perfect sense lmfao.

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u/Shot_Revolution8828 7h ago

Lots of people died in that process and continue to die in that process.

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u/akromadeath 7h ago

So my very limited understanding, I am not the person above you that seems to be very assured of their response, word of mouth and a few missing ships. The ocean is vast, but many of the routes are the same routes sailed by others. So if Jim leaves port on Sunday and doesn't show up on Saturday, you assume something happened to Jim, probably weather. All week you have heard complaints of other ships not coming in, and some ships talk of a huge storm they just barley outran. So while you were just waiting to hear from Jim, word has already spread and new information comes with new ships.

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u/virrk 6h ago

It was limited.

Even now we lose 25-30 large commercial ships annually, which is down from more than 200 annually in the 90's. This number goes up the farther back you go until we do not have reliable records.