Why did it used to be harder to sail over deep ocean, compared to shallow waters

Question

Why did it used to be harder to sail over deep ocean, compared to shallow waters

In: 152

Answer 1

There’s a really good book about this: Longitude. One.of the reasons to stay in sight of it the shore was because you knew where you were.

Before accurate sea going clocks (not until the 1700s for all practical matters), once you couldn’t see the land you had only a rough guess as to where you were.

This is caused [huge problems](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scilly_naval_disaster_of_1707) – 2000 British sailors died because the *British royal navy* didn’t know where they were. In 1707.

It’s really hard to fathom what travel was like just a few hundred years ago – most long journeys (even over land) were very uncertain.