Using the sun to precisly navigate, at night?

[Ross]

Sorry charlie, But there are nordic runes on rocks around the great lakes. The native americans could have carved them I suppose. According to wikipedia the location of Iceland was well established before the ninth century. I don't know how those folk found their way or why they left their mark. perhaps graffiti is older than we would like to believe.

 

[AtlanticAl]

"Fabled Viking 'sunstone' shown to really work"

"These sunstones are mentioned in several contemporary texts, and were said to work even when the sky was completely overcast or the sun was below the horizon - as it is for long periods at such northern latitudes"

http://www.tgdaily.com/general-sciences-features/59451-fabled-viking-sunstone-shown-to-really-work

http://rspa.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2011/10/28/rspa.2011.0369.abstract

really interresting how they were able to use these stones to determine the direction of the sun for precise navigation, even in near endlass nights of the polar winters...

The vikings didnt sail during winter in the northern hemisphere, they sailed in summer. I have been out in the north atlantic in winter, as far north as the pharo islands, on a government ship, and we got thrown about for days at a time. If you ever saw the reach and the fetch on those waves, in the north east atlantic, you would easily understand why the vikings couldnt take their open boats out their in winter.
Dont take your boat across their in an attempt to prove me wrong, because you will surf down those waves, at ten knots, and that is on the bare poles, and you will burry the bow, lose the rig, then you are jury rigged, and you are not sleeping, and you are halucinating, then you get to the norwegian coast, and have you ever seen the norwegian coast, their is no coast line in the world, that is less welcoming, than the norwegian coast, its just cliffs rocks, an fjords, some of which are deadly when you enter them.
The wind blows constantly, from west to east across the atlantic at those latitudes, and the seas build up towards the eastern atlantic, the waves become high, and long, and everything wind, and waves, go east, as they have for thosands of years, leaving exposed land, turned into cliffs, in the exact same way, that in the northern hemisphere, the north face of a mountain, is always the most extreme, because the frost, and weather, erode the rock, and leave it vertical, well in the north east atlantic, the coast is eroded by the sea, to the point, that all that is left of the coast are high cliffs, and fallen rock under your keel.

 

[Stu Jackson]

Yes dummy, had you bothered reading my post and reference to hebrew, you would know i said it was a written language, it was me who mentioned the dead sea scrolls,

This is from your post, #44. You're lying.

Take for instance, the dead see scrolls, hebrew is a simple language, it was a spoken language, not a written one, and its hard to read it and understand it, because the meaning of something,

Your words, not mine.

Credibility?

 

[AtlanticAl]

This is from your post, #44. You're lying.



Your words, not mine.

Credibility?

Ok my appologies, i didnt make myself quite clear. The dead sea scrolls are amongst the first writings ever disovered that were written by the jews. The egyptians didnt have writing, the jews didnt learn writing from the egyptians, but what the egiptians did, as in use hyrogliphics, may have influenced the jews, however,up until the point of the dead sea scrolls, the jewish language was only a spoke language, not a writen one, the scrolls are the oldest known writings of the jews, and they were written when the language was starting to include writing, but they didnt have the vocabulary to express their words in wrting.

The ten commandments have been argued about for years and years, due to the same problem, does it say, "though shalt not kill" or does it say "though shalt not murder" they only had one word at the time for "kill" and it was the same word, if you killed someone in battle, as if you crept up on your neighbour, and hit him over the back of the head and killed him. so at the most extremes of todays interpritation, some people say, "though shalt not kill anything" and in the other extreme, people say, its ok to kill for food, or sport, if its animals you are killing, because the ten commandments were not for them, and its ok to kill other people, if you kill them in war, because, the commandments say "though shalt not murder" and killing in war, is not murdering. So even if you did drop a bomb on some school in Iraq, and kill all those little children, you still have a chance of getting to heaven, unlike the child molester down the road from you, who went too far, and sufocated little tommy, he is going to hell, Ok you killed three hundred little tommys, and he killed one, but you didnt murder.

 

[Bill Roosa]

I was under the impression that the Vikings used Polaris to determine their latitude and just did the dead reckoning (speed * time = distance) to tell how far they where along the parallel of latitude. This would not require much in the way of corrections during daylight I'm thinking as they were not going warp 9 and could tell generally which way was East and West. I remember seeing the tool they (possibly some other group) used. It was a rectangular wood piece with a string attached. The wood piece was sized to fit "between Polaris and the horizon" for the destination latitude when you held the wood at the distance of the string from the eye.

 

[AtlanticAl]

I was under the impression that the Vikings used Polaris to determine their latitude and just did the dead reckoning (speed * time = distance) to tell how far they where along the parallel of latitude. This would not require much in the way of corrections during daylight I'm thinking as they were not going warp 9 and could tell generally which way was East and West. I remember seeing the tool they (possibly some other group) used. It was a rectangular wood piece with a string attached. The wood piece was sized to fit "between Polaris and the horizon" for the destination latitude when you held the wood at the distance of the string from the eye.

Thats what i said, and came in for a lot of criticism, why would you use the sun, when you can use polaris, if you can see polaris, and you are sailing west, its on your starboard side, (that actually may have been where the term "starboar" came from, though it could also be steerboard, a board that was hung over the side to steer, but if it was starboard, because polaris was on that side on your way west, and port, because heading back to port, polaris was on the other side, which you called the port side, that would make perfect sense, remembe, i thought of this first, didnt read it anywhere, and if you repeat it you have to say, "according to AtlantcAl" I believe polaris would be the main thing they used, they knew they were heading west be heading into the sun, but by holding polaris true on their starboard, they couldnt find at sunrise, that the sun came up on their bow. You dont need the sun at night to navigate, not if you have the stars. And they never sailed in winter, that was home time.

 

[FourPoints]

that actually may have been where the term "starboar" came from, though it could also be steerboard, a board that was hung over the side to steer

the commonly accepted origin for term starboard is from the old steering board (precursers to modern rudders), and it wasn't called port until somewhat recently, it used to be called "larboard" (I forget the origin of that), but was too confusing when yelled at people in instructions and too often resulted in misunderstanding, so around the 1700's it was converted to "port" as there is no way to mistake an order to port vs starboard.

 

[ljsailing]

Here is a book that may help with your questions on Viking Navigation;

Secrets of the Viking Navigators
by Leif K. Karlsen
A new look at viking navigation, sun stones, and related topics

 

[waternwaves]

Probably the primary reason the spanish get credit (i.e. most advertising) was because the primary technological difference between the viking explorers and the spanish...........


The spanish had cannons and muskets and the printing press had been developed.


QED

Also explains why the spainsh colonized and didnt visit. They could safely stay against great odds.........

Kinda like american expeditionary forces it seems.