Why pirates & not honest traders?

Phantman wrote:
Maybe they pirated the idea from the honest traders? Anyhow, the
pirates made such good use of it, the honest traders were forced to
change their shipping strategy to numerous smaller ships and shipments
rather than large ones... to spread the risk.


True, at some points. Piracy has followed cycles (just like most
economic activity) and there were certainly periods in antiquity when
pirates were a very strong factor in shipping. Julius Ceasar was
captured and held for ransom by pirates in his early days.


Anyway, the lateen was devloped along the Med coast, possibly by the
Phoenicians.

Seems to me they'd definitely have the incentive. That galley rowing
all the time's a killer. Wikopedia says the Romans introduced it, and
later developed by Byzantines and Arabs. I guess it depends on who's
history you believe.

I'm not going to jump into a debate that maritime historians have
argued for decades (possibly centuries). But at this point, we have a
lot of physical remains of ships from antiquity, and find different
structures (including mast steps & partners) that could have supported
a fore-n-aft rig... and others that definitely could not have. For
example, the Egyptians did a lot of coastal trading about the eastern
Med but apparently did not use the lateen until long after other
people had proven it's worth. Personally my vote is for either the
Phoenicians or the Minoans, both of whom had extensive sea trade and
were technological innovators. The Romans were great at copying other
people's inventions, but were not really a nation of inventors &
tinkerers.

-shrug- Personally, I don't remember.

Hah!
If you were an *old* old salt, you'd have been there!

... Anyhow, whoever invented it, changed the nature of
sailing and international commerce from then on.


Agreed. Sailing to windward was in invention ranking right up there
with the wheel IMHO... and more important for many centuries, in terms
of tonnage carried.

Fresh Breezes- Doug King