"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.