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Sailing boat rescued by the Götheborg

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Re: Sailing boat rescued by the Götheborg

#121

Post by simonh »

jiggywiggy wrote: post #116
cjrp wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also why things like Lloyds of London started; to insure the risk of ships not returning.

Yeah seems to be one of the foundational pieces of modern finance

The stock exchange was about spreading risk too. You could raise equity from many small investors that individually are assuming a relatively low risk.

So arguably this was the foundation of modern capitalism too, just in time for the development of capital intensive industry to take advantage of the same financial structures.

Re: Sailing boat rescued by the Götheborg

#122

Post by Gwypaas »

roflyear wrote: post #95
Gwypaas wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For commercial vessels like Götheborg they usually bring many hundreds of meters of mooring lines. Easy to get 20-30m runs on several lines when mooring.

yeah makes sense. That is least a few hundred meters! Unless I were to start using halyards, I probably do not have more than 300' of line on my boat, which is really way more than I need for a smaller boat.

Yep, and the Götheborg have hand spun tarred hemp for all the running rigging so using that as a towline is a no go.

Re: Sailing boat rescued by the Götheborg

#123

Post by Jolter »

somat wrote: post #38
FartyMcFarter wrote: post #33

I know nothing about sailing so this is probably wrong, but I was slightly surprised at the fact that the people on board the small boat didn't get rescued onto the Götheborg. Given the concerns in the article about the size difference possibly causing problems, wouldn't that have been safer?

I suspect they were not in immediate danger, the small boats rudder was inoperative, so they had little to no steering control. I suspect mainly poising a navigation hazard for other boats in the area. What they needed, and got was a tow. The funny thing is, they were grateful for the assistants of the Götheborg, but a bit incredulous that such a large ship would go out of it's way to help them. (they were also worri…

I think they were worried about speed because it was a large ship, regardless of propulsion method. I believe that the longer a sailing ship is, the faster it can sail. This affects the construction/dimensioning. So this small boat would have a hull that can withstand the seas at a certain speed, but might have trouble if towed faster. And they worried that a large sailboat, built to go quite a bit faster, might accidentally go too fast.

Re: Sailing boat rescued by the Götheborg

#124

Post by vidarh »

giantrobot wrote: post #114
vidarh wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but "volk" is IPA /fɔlk/ while Wolke is /ˈvɔlkə/. That's a major difference. But in this context, the "v" we're talking about is the English IPA /'v/ (e.g. valley /ˈvæli/) vs. IPA /w/ (e.g. wool, IPA /wʊl/) and that difference is far less noticeable.

Ah, yes. IPA. Now it's super obvious how it sounds.

I find IPA terribly confusing myself, but I think the starting sounds give a decent indication to people how the starting sound of Volk differs more from that of Wolke than that of "valley" from "wool", and it's that latter distinction that is hard for those of us used to languages where that distinction is near non-existent or one of the sounds is rare/not in use.

For an English speaker, to put it differently, while the words as a whole are not pronounced exactly the same, the starting sound of German "Volk" is the same as for English "folk", while the starting sound of "Wolke" is the same as for "valley".

Re: Sailing boat rescued by the Götheborg

#125

Post by Mavvie »

javajosh wrote: post #74

Wonderful story of comraderie on the high seas. It's one of the best things about cruising. Its as close to space travel as you're going to get, and you really stop taking humans for granted out there. I've been sailing my whole life, but never lost a rudder (thank God!). With dinghy racing (as opposed to cruising) it's common to learn how to steer without the rudder, using the trim of the sails and your weight in th…

I've only ever done river sailing (including some intentional rudderless sailing), but I imagine in the open seas rudderless sailing isn't really feasible (at least in some conditions). Waves might make it impossible on their own.

Re: Sailing boat rescued by the Götheborg

#126

Post by dehrmann »

wpietri wrote: post #115
srj wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't imagine how the polynesians discovered Hawaii. Sailing thousands of miles in a small wooden boat and finding a speck of land in the pacific ocean.

Polynesian navigational techniques are very interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polynesian_navigation

To what extent were they good at navigating, and to what extent is there a survivorship bias?

Re: Sailing boat rescued by the Götheborg

#127

Post by dehrmann »

checkyoursudo wrote: post #22
nixass wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At least it wasn't Wasa showing up.. *Vasa

In Swedish, the v and the w only became distinct pretty recently. There are still people alive today who don't know which to pick if they don't already know how a v-sounding word is spelled. Also, the same person might say "Vilma" one day and "Wilma" the next, just as an example of the confusion (and Wilma is their own daughter...) Also, also, I have had older Swedes be completely unable to hear a difference between…

I used to work for a Swedish company with a system named "foo-ws," as in Foo Web Service. It's pronounced "foo vee ess." Because Swedish. IIRC, www is vee vee vee.

Re: Sailing boat rescued by the Götheborg

#128

Post by dehrmann »

jimmySixDOF wrote: post #67
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Japan, "L" and "R" are often interchangeable. Their pronunciation is somewhere between. That's a cool story.

In Arabic the hard "P" is often swapped with "B" and it's also the case that real pronunciation is somewhere between.

I think P and B are closer phonetically than L and R, though.

Re: Sailing boat rescued by the Götheborg

#129

Post by btilly »

sandworm101 wrote: post #56

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6theborg_(ship) Fysa, they almost certainly completed the rescue using their twin 500hp diesels rather than sail power. One sailboat towing another creates a host of sail/wind/wave issues. Almost every large sailing vessel, including historic replicas, has diesel engines for those times that sail is just too awkward.

The pictures from the towed boat verify this. The sails were reefed during the tow, which says that it wasn't wind that was supplying the power.

Re: Sailing boat rescued by the Götheborg

#130

Post by asdfman123 »

srj wrote: post #105
jiggywiggy wrote: post #66

Just imagine in the 1500's deciding to set sail to Asia. Hardly having a map. No communication means, food that's not easy to store, nothing more then a compass and if lucky a shitty map. If things go wrong no one is coming to help. Wild times. Was actually the reason they founded the Amsterdam stock market to spread & share the risk of the ships not returning. I know many bad things happen at well, but it's still a…

I can't imagine how the polynesians discovered Hawaii. Sailing thousands of miles in a small wooden boat and finding a speck of land in the pacific ocean.

Apparently they could sink their double-hulled canoes into the water a little if storms hit so they didn’t get the full brunt of the waves.
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