282 : The Atlantic 



Egypt. These vessels were well built and carried a large sail area but 

 neither the setting of the sail nor the shape of the hull, which was 

 iike the bottom of a bowl and which had no keel, would have per- 

 mitted the ship to work to windward. 



Toward the middle of the first century B.C., when Caesar was on 

 his way to the conquest of Britain, he came upon vessels of the 

 Veneti. He says that his own ships, driven by oars, could usually 

 overtake the ships of the Veneti. Then, using knives set on long 

 poles, they would cut the rigging of the northern ships and so dis- 

 able them and board them. He also says that when the wind was 

 blowing and when the Veneti turned their ships in the direction of 

 the wind, they were able to escape. 



Mr. Charles E. Gibson recently pointed out in The Story of the 

 Ship that this might indicate that these vessels were able to work to 

 windward. It is at least probable that they were better in this respect 

 than the Roman vessels but we have little other information on the 

 ships of the Veneti and this leaves the matter rather in the field of 

 inference and literary interpretation. In fact, the whole matter of 

 the historic origin of this ability, even after much research and specu- 

 lation, is left in doubt. This is quite a common situation in matters 

 relating to the history of ships. 



Of all the thousands of inventions and developments that have 

 contributed to the effectiveness of sailing vessels, practically none 

 are the invention and work of a single man who can be named as 

 the originator and very few can even be assigned as the work of a 

 single people at a single time. It seems more than probable that the 

 art and science of sailing to windward was independently discovered 

 and developed by different people at different times. 



In the Pacific I have sailed on proas and outrigger canoes. These 

 vessels are driven by sail of a triangular shape; that is, the shape of 

 a large slice of pie. Two of the edges of the sail are lashed to spars 

 and the spars are lashed together at their forward ends which, in 

 turn, are fastened near the bow of the canoe. The sail is raised by a 

 single rope (halyard) running from its middle point or point of bal- 

 ance of the upper spar to the top of the mast. This approximates 

 the form of sail that is known in the Mediterranean and in other 

 parts of Europe as a lateen sail and can be swung to have the effect 

 of a fore-and-aft sail. 



In cases where these canoes are given a deep hull form or employ 

 timbers which act as keels and where they are steered with long 

 sweeps which have great directive power, they can be maneuvered to 



