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"How Vikings Might Have Navigated on Cloudy Days&q... - 3/11/2007 1:29:39 PM

Vendaval

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"How Vikings Might Have Navigated on Cloudy Days"

By Corey Binns
Special to LiveScience
posted: 02 March 2007
08:33 am ET

"Vikings navigated the oceans with sundials aboard their Norse ships. But on an overcast day, sundials would have been useless. Many researchers have suggested that the on foggy days, Vikings looked toward the sky through rock crystals called sunstones to give them direction.

No one had tested the theory until recently.

A team sailed the Arctic Ocean aboard the Swedish icebreaker Oden and found that sunstones could indeed light the way in foggy and cloudy conditions."

http://www.livescience.com/history/070302_viking_navigation.html

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RE: "How Vikings Might Have Navigated on Cloudy Da... - 3/11/2007 2:14:58 PM

outlier

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Interesting post, thank you

We need a science and tech forum here.
Not a compliant, a suggestion.

Outlier

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RE: "How Vikings Might Have Navigated on Cloudy Da... - 3/11/2007 2:21:32 PM

FukinTroll

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Ven they also had this nifty little compass, of sorts, that always showed them East/West. They had some very interesting navigational tactics.

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RE: "How Vikings Might Have Navigated on Cloudy Da... - 3/11/2007 2:31:32 PM

popeye1250

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RE: "How Vikings Might Have Navigated on Cloudy Da... - 3/11/2007 4:24:56 PM

popeye1250

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Seroiusly though, the Vikings were some of the best Sailors who ever lived and their Viking Longboats were some of the best sailing vessels of the Ancient world.

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RE: "How Vikings Might Have Navigated on Cloudy Da... - 3/11/2007 7:55:11 PM

thompsonx

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quote:

ORIGINAL: popeye1250

Seroiusly though, the Vikings were some of the best Sailors who ever lived and their Viking Longboats were some of the best sailing vessels of the Ancient world.

popeye1250:
Viking long boats were essentially row boats with a square sail for help on the down wind pull. they were never able to sail closer than 90 degrees to the wind.
The vikings were day sailors when compared to the polynesians who were real sailors...no crystals...no compass...no chronometer...no sextant 5000 miles across open ocean to a landfall on a spot that cannot be seen from ten miles up in the air. Then turn around and go back and find a similar tiny spot in the ocean. They did this not with a boat load of warriors but with boat loads of families with kids and live stock. Now that is a blue water sailor.
thompson

< Message edited by thompsonx -- 3/11/2007 8:12:58 PM >

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RE: "How Vikings Might Have Navigated on Cloudy Da... - 3/11/2007 8:06:30 PM

azzmaster

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interesting.. i have wondered many times how those long ago sailors managed... pretty amazing how ingenious people can be

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RE: "How Vikings Might Have Navigated on Cloudy Da... - 3/11/2007 9:54:34 PM

Vendaval

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You are most welcome, outlier. There is the health and safety forum and the off-topic forum here,
but a real science and tech geek forum on CM would be just grand.

quote:

ORIGINAL: outlier
Interesting post, thank you

We need a science and tech forum here.
Not a compliant, a suggestion.

Outlier

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RE: "How Vikings Might Have Navigated on Cloudy Da... - 3/11/2007 10:01:29 PM

domiguy

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I'm dissapointed I was sure the azzmaster was going to comment on those lonely Viking voyages....and all of the ass fucking that had to go on....

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RE: "How Vikings Might Have Navigated on Cloudy Da... - 3/11/2007 10:50:15 PM

popeye1250

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There's also the possability that the Vikings had people like me who always know where N,S,E, and W are to within 5 degrees either way.
Maybe that's why the Navy put me in Navigation.

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RE: "How Vikings Might Have Navigated on Cloudy Da... - 3/11/2007 10:54:28 PM

FangsNfeet

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Sail forward, hit land, kill and plunder.

"To Cloudy? Don't worry, we'll hit something. Pray that it's a rich town."

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RE: "How Vikings Might Have Navigated on Cloudy Da... - 3/12/2007 10:11:13 AM

Sinergy

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quote:

ORIGINAL: thompsonx

quote:

ORIGINAL: popeye1250

Seroiusly though, the Vikings were some of the best Sailors who ever lived and their Viking Longboats were some of the best sailing vessels of the Ancient world.

popeye1250:
Viking long boats were essentially row boats with a square sail for help on the down wind pull. they were never able to sail closer than 90 degrees to the wind.
The vikings were day sailors when compared to the polynesians who were real sailors...no crystals...no compass...no chronometer...no sextant 5000 miles across open ocean to a landfall on a spot that cannot be seen from ten miles up in the air. Then turn around and go back and find a similar tiny spot in the ocean. They did this not with a boat load of warriors but with boat loads of families with kids and live stock. Now that is a blue water sailor.
thompson

On a related note, Viking ships were not overly effective in open oceans. Their general approach was to hug the coastline.

As far as the Polynesians are concerned, birds nest on islands. Since the Polynesians would row over open water in a general direction, they would look for birds and follow them in the direction they were flying. This makes a footprint of an island (instead of the physical geographic footprint) much, much larger.

Jared Diamond discusses this extensively in Collapse, among other sources.

Sinergy

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RE: "How Vikings Might Have Navigated on Cloudy Da... - 3/12/2007 12:50:49 PM

popeye1250

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Yes, I was going to mention the Polynesians as well.
The only reason the Polynesians didn't "hug the coast" is because in the vast Pacific ocean there's not much "coast" to hug in the thousands of miles between archipelagos.
When you fly from Boston to Europe say the planes go up over canada and within a few hundred miles of Iceland kind of "hugging the coast" in "great circle sailing."
On a mercator projection that would look like "circular" flying but on a Gnomonic projection it would look like a straight line from point to point due to the curvature of the earth.

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RE: "How Vikings Might Have Navigated on Cloudy Da... - 3/12/2007 9:40:01 PM

thompsonx

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Sinergy:
Perhaps you should read Jared Diamond before you start qouting him.
Then get out a map and look at the distances we are talking about and how many islands there are and how far apart they are and the fact that the polynisians did not island hop. The boats they sailed in were not the kind you paddle. They were twin hulled 60'+, with no rudder and twin upside down sails. Their gig was celestial navigation not following birds.
thompson

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RE: "How Vikings Might Have Navigated on Cloudy Da... - 3/12/2007 9:47:50 PM

Sinergy

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quote:

ORIGINAL: thompsonx

Sinergy:
Perhaps you should read Jared Diamond before you start qouting him.
Then get out a map and look at the distances we are talking about and how many islands there are and how far apart they are and the fact that the polynisians did not island hop. The boats they sailed in were not the kind you paddle. They were twin hulled 60'+, with no rudder and twin upside down sails. Their gig was celestial navigation not following birds.
thompson

Weird. I wonder whose books I was reading.

Please clarify how the Polynesians found Easter Island the first time using celestial navigation.

It is lovely that they used celestial navigation to find islands they already knew about, there was a great deal of general exploring they did and the approach they used was to paddle around and follow birds, according to Collapse. Which explains the racial makeup of the Hawaiian islanders, among others.

Please clarify.

Sinergy

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RE: "How Vikings Might Have Navigated on Cloudy Da... - 3/12/2007 9:55:25 PM

juliaoceania

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Sinergy

quote:

ORIGINAL: thompsonx

Sinergy:
Perhaps you should read Jared Diamond before you start qouting him.
Then get out a map and look at the distances we are talking about and how many islands there are and how far apart they are and the fact that the polynisians did not island hop. The boats they sailed in were not the kind you paddle. They were twin hulled 60'+, with no rudder and twin upside down sails. Their gig was celestial navigation not following birds.
thompson

Weird. I wonder whose books I was reading.

Please clarify how the Polynesians found Easter Island the first time using celestial navigation.

It is lovely that they used celestial navigation to find islands they already knew about, there was a great deal of general exploring they did and the approach they used was to paddle around and follow birds, according to Collapse. Which explains the racial makeup of the Hawaiian islanders, among others.

Please clarify.

Sinergy

You mean those Jared Diamond books with all the little receipt bookmarks holding different places were not actually read by you? If they weren't I am wondering why they were in the boxes I just unpacked (scratches head)

Edited to add, it really stood out for me that I unpacked Guns, Germs and Steel because I noted how much better condition my copy is in

< Message edited by juliaoceania -- 3/12/2007 9:56:36 PM >

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RE: "How Vikings Might Have Navigated on Cloudy Da... - 3/12/2007 10:03:21 PM

Sinergy

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quote:

ORIGINAL: juliaoceania

Edited to add, it really stood out for me that I unpacked Guns, Germs and Steel because I noted how much better
condition my copy is in

Maybe he meant to say that I should read good condition copies of Jared Diamonds work, as opposed to saying I never read his works.

Maybe we should wait for him/her/it to clarify their point.

sinergy

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RE: "How Vikings Might Have Navigated on Cloudy Da... - 3/12/2007 10:27:15 PM

FukinTroll

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Fess up Sinergy. You know your copies have the covers removed. Fake, fake, fakey, fakerton.

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RE: "How Vikings Might Have Navigated on Cloudy Da... - 3/12/2007 10:31:30 PM

Sinergy

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quote:

ORIGINAL: FukinTroll

Fess up Sinergy. You know your copies have the covers removed. Fake, fake, fakey, fakerton.

^breaks out into Dominant sobs^

Working on the docks destroys whatever I take down there....

Sinergy

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David St. Hubbins "This Is Spinal Tap"

"Every so often you let a word or phrase out and you want to catch it and bring it back. You cant do that, it is gone, gone forever." J. Danforth Quayle

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RE: "How Vikings Might Have Navigated on Cloudy Da... - 3/12/2007 10:37:54 PM

FukinTroll

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