History of sailing
Top sailors of ancient times
In times when there were no airplanes, trains or cars, water transport was the major (in some cases the only) means for going from point A to point B. But that is not all; the map of the world was being changed every few years with the new discoveries and sailing was a lifestyle. In ancient times, fleet was the decisive factor for the victory of any country in war - and no wonder the big colonizers and empires were precisely the sea fare nations - England, Spain, Portugal.
Exploring the world not only brought fortune and fame to the captains, it was very significant in all spheres of life - new markets, new people (unfortunately as slave labour force), raw materials, food and beverages (tea will always remain the most imported thing for consumption), new souls to be converted in the mainstream religion, last but not least: new land.
Many people died and many people disappeared. However, many survived, some people believe in the so-called Social Darwinism, whose postulates declare that the fittest survived. According to this doctrine, one can conclude that now the people on earth are the best peoples ever. I will leave this for everyone of you to agree or disagree with.
Undoubtedly one of the positive qualities of human beings, which strongly assisted evolution, is the desire to expand the horizons. To see what lies beyond, to explore, to learn new, also to conquer and dominate.
Both in ancient and in modern times, one expedition cost a lot. Rich people and rulers themselves had interest in investing into such risky enterprise as ship to be sent to unknown destination, because of the trade and commerce factor. They expected benefits both in the tangible material goods that the ship would brought and in the invaluable profit in discovering faster way to somewhere. Oftentimes, what was discovered in reality surpassed thousand times what was expected. Other times, the fish sank or never returned. In this respect, it is true that only the bravest men set sails, and only the fittest of them made it safe back home.
In order to understand what feats ancient sailors did, just try to imagine steering a big vessel without a GPS, without a map, without knowing where you should expect dangerous reefs or currents, without information about the weather and climatic conditions of a place you are going, without accumulators or engines aboard, without devices for easy and fast reefing... There is one interesting fact about the ships which transported tea from the West Indies - the first ship sold its cargo for the largest amount of money. So, for example 4 or 5 ships went together, took tea, and started back to England at the same time. They competed for the first place, and do you know how they arrived at London? Within an hour's distance! Do you realize what it is to travel for thousands of miles without the helpful things I enumerated and still arrive within the trifling time distance of an hour? Captains were wizards in those days!
This is related to one general and very debatable thing for modern life - do the technical innovations make our life easier or make us duller? An everyday example is the calculator - before it people used their brains to work with numbers, and now most people have difficulties in easy arithmetic operations.
The question with sailing is more open - how GPS, navigation programmes, satellite connection affect the skills and abilities of the captain. This does not have a simple answer.
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