A Non-Stop Voyage? – Part I

We received a long critique on one of our favorite subjects, the sailing of Lehi in the Southern Ocean and the type of voyage he undertook compared to what everyone thinks. It seems to us that until an individual comes to understand this voyage that Nephi briefly describes, he in no way can come to an understanding of where he landed, and thus, where the Land of Promise is located. To best answer this it seems to us that a singular comment article dealing with each individual idea one at a time would be the best way to provide a response. 
    First of all, unlike picking out a spot where one thinks the Land of Promise was located, as Sorenson did with Mesoamerica, Phyllis Carol Olive did with the Great Lakes because of the hill Cumorah, or Rod Meldrum did with his “Heartland” theory, etc., it is imperative to understand how Nephi’s ship could have sailed to the Western Hemisphere and the course it would have been restricted to sailing.
    We will list the Reader Comments, and our own Responses:
    Reader Comment: “It seems to me that Nephi’s voyage to the promised land was not a non-stop affair as you claim. The record doesn’t say either way…”

Response: The record gives no indication that any events happened at all, which should suggest a lack of events. Surely, if Nephi was to land his ship for repairs, water or food replenishment, etc., Laman and Lemuel and the sons of Ishmael would have found some way to effect a rebellion that they had fomented many times before. The lack of any comment along this line should suggest that they did not have an opportunity, i.e., that no landing took place anywhere. 
    Reader Comment: “…reason and similar experiences seem to provide an answer. If for nothing else, stops would be necessary to replenish their water supply. Repairs, other provisions, and the scraping of barnacles are other conditions which have forced all ancient seamen to make frequent stops as they have pursued similar voyages.”

Response: The “biofouling” of ships has been a problem for seamen forever; however, pulling into an island during a voyage is not sufficient to scaping the barnacles off the hull—it literally requires a dry dock, or the practice anciently of tipping a vessel over on its side to expose the hull sufficiently to scrape it clean--a skill unknown to Lehi and his family and one requiring a great deal of skill to keep from damaging the ship and sinking it entirely as often happened in the days of tipping. But the important thing to keep in mind for the Lehi voyage is that the practice of scraping barnacles ancientl off wooden sailing vessels occurred about every two months—or stated differently, not sufficient barnacles would have built up in a short one time voyage of Nephi’s ship from Arabia to the Western Hemisphere. The build up begins and progresses in series or singular events, i.e., first, a new ship like Nephi’s would have been coated with microbes in a day—not enough to see, but the first microbes start to lie down. Then the slime begins to grow over the course of weeks, which is nothing more than a gateway community (beginning) to the barnacles and other things to follow.
    This slime is a biofilm, a thin sheet of bacteria that stick to each other and to a matrix of molecules they exude to communicate with each other and to provide a hospitable environment for themselves. Once the slime forms, the rush is on, as algae and the larvae of creatures such as barnacles attach and begin to grow. In the era of Lehi, the primary threat to wooden hulls, came not from barnacles that attached to the outside of ships, but from marine worms—actually, long, thin, soft-bodied clams—that tunneled through the wood. The Romans used lead sheeting to protect against shipworms, giving their ships an edge in commerce and in war. (It added substantial weight, but it was on the ships’ bottoms, contributing to the vessels’ stability) Lead-covered hulls still hosted barnacles that had to be scraped, but at least the wood remained strong.

In the mid 1700s, the British began sheathing ship bottoms with copper, which repelled barnacles and other organisms and warded off wood-wasting worms. This was a radical technical advance for the time, but certainly within the knowledge of the Lore in his instructing Nephi how to build his ship, which was “not after the manner of men,” and to work his timbers “not after the manner of men.” There was also another technique, one less radical for the time, and that was paint containing copper. This caused small amounts of copper to leach into the water immediately next to the ship, poisoning any small creatures that approached, but certainly usuable in a pristine environment and on such a short voyage. 
    Several other toxic ingredients were also tried, including arsenic, mercury, strychnine, cyanide, and radioactive materials. Other than the latter, all were available to Nephi to use with a little special instruction. So was a tin-based antifouling paint, which proved in wooden ships to eliminate barnacle scraping for five years.  In addition, man is just now coming up with a “fouling release” paint that keeps things from sticking to the ship’s hull—and plying the fast currents of the Southern Ocean, this latter would have been ideal and obviously within the instructional realm of what the Lord was teaching Nephi in building his ship—which is much like Noah being taught to apply pitch to his ship to make it seaworthy.

Several Options were available to the Lord to instruct Nephi during the construction of his ship and its finishing coat of paint, varnish, oil, or whatever was added to make it seaworthy

    Any of these solutions would have been simple to apply for Nephi and certainly cause his ship to last the short trip to the Western Hemisphere. Remember, Lehi’s voyage would have lasted less than two months in the Southern Ocean and closer to 6 weeks or less. It was a one-way, one-time only voyage. The worse that barnacle build-up on such a short voyage would be to slow down the vessel, which would not have to have been cleared away.
    Reader Comment: “Lehi's journey would have taken them more than half way around the world. For comparison, Lehi's voyage would have traversed at least 200° compared to about 55° for Columbus's voyage to America. Of course, Lehi did not travel in a straight line. Sorenson estimates that Lehi's journey would have been about seventeen thousand miles as compared to about three thousand for Columbus.”
    Response: This is typical Sorenson rhetoric. No understanding shipwright knowing the courses available for the voyage would even concern himself with such a problem, and certainly not think in terms of such a lengthy voyage. In the first place, almost all ocean voyages in deep water are on pretty much of a straight line. Secondly, since the currents and winds would have led directly through the Sea of Arabia into the Indian Ocean and then the Southern Ocean, the actual distance traveled would have been minimal since the Southern Ocean, unlike the Pacific at the equator, is very short all the way around the globe. As an example, sailing in the latitude of the 40s in the Southern Ocean saves many thousands of miles from traveling around the equatorial area across the Pacific. Dropping into the 60s, would save another thousand miles around the globe.

The yellow arrow shows (white circle) much smaller around than the green arrows. 

As an example, were this the world (turned upside down for viewing), the movement (white circle) around the globe would be a much shorter distance than that of the equator, shown by the green arrows

    To understand what we are talking about one must think of the voyage on a globe, not a flat map. Think of it as an orange cut in half. Place the cut end flat on a table and then compare the circumference of that on the table to the rounded end sticking up. The distance is four or five times further around at the table than what is in the air.
    Reader Comment: “No, this was not a non-stop voyage.”
    Response: Of course it was. Any stops would have created problems and the voyage would have been short enough around the lower latitudes of the Roaring Forties, Furious Fifties and Screaming Sixties, as to make it a short voyage.
(See the next post, “A Non-Stop Voyage? – Part II,” for more on the understanding of why the Southern Ocean route was the only course that could have taken a ship “driven forth before the wind from the Arabian Peninsula to the Western Hemisphere)