Skilled or Unskilled Sailing—What is the Difference?

We get a lot of inquiries, and numerous theorists write about, how Lehi sailed here or there, needed or didn’t need help from mariners in the building and/or sailing,, what was the design of his ship, the course he took, and what difference all of this made in his voyage to the Land of Promise.
     For those who have been following us for some time, and those who have read our book “Lehi Never Saw Mesoamerica,” I apologize for all the redundancy and the over-stressing this point, but it seems that after eight years involved in this blog and the hundreds upon hundreds of inquiries received via email as well as comments made in the blog, it seems it is an idea, twice stated by Nephi, that is simply not understood by the typical reader of the scriptural record or even the self-assumed intelligent individual, and seems to be one of the most glaring errors nearly everyone makes in understanding what is meant when Nephi wrote:
    “And it came to pass after we had all gone down into the ship, and had taken with us our provisions and things which had been commanded us, we did put forth into the sea and were driven forth before the wind towards the promised land” (1 Nephi 18:8,emphasis ladded). To show that this was not just a one-time thought, Nephi adds in the next verse, “And after we had been driven forth before the wind for the space of many days” (1 Nephi 18:9, emphasis added), showing us that this was their means of travel, he continues with his narrative.

Driven forth before the wind is to be driven with the wind behind the sail and pushed forward in the direction the wind is blowing

As an example of a recent comment made on our blog by a rather persistent individual on this subject, he wrote: “If Lehi and his family (and the Mulekites) weren't skilled enough to sail 4000 miles to the Malay Peninsula, then how did they sail the 14,000 miles to Chile?”
    The problem some evidently have is in misunderstanding what took place then as opposed to now in regard to sailing capability, knowledge and understanding, for it is not a matter of skill, as anyone would well know as a long-time reader of our blog. It seems that one would know it is not a matter of skill we are dealing with (though that is a separate issue), but a matter of possibility. That is, no matter how skilled a sailor was anciently when on a square-rigged, fixed-sail ship that was “driven forth before the wind,” he could not sail into the wind—into the “no-go zone”—or even to windward or close-hauled—he had to have the wind behind him.
    That is not rocket science. 
    The only alternative to that is when man learned to tack in large ships, and later when he learned to use the sail like the wing of an airplane, i.e., to create lift--that is, for the wind to pull the vessel forward by means of the sail. None of this occurred for more than 1000 years after Lehi sailed.
    Evidently, however, far too many readers today have lived far too long in a world of diesel engines, and where upwind, tri-radial, stratis, and crosscut sails dominate capability, along with custom-laid fiber-aligned sail laminates for overcoming variant load paths, with iQ technology for design on racing sails and high-tech shape dynamics on cat-rigged or sailing sloops, ketches, yawls or gaff-rigged schooners with flying jibs and mounted spade, skeg or full keel rudders.
    Lehi did not live in a world where sailing toward the direction of the wind was a possibility in his type of ship (though that could have been done and had been for centuries in a small, coastal dhow type trading or fishing boat)—this is what Nephi told us when he twice stated that he was “driven forth before the wind.”

The winch allows you to tighten or loosen the sail by grinding the lines in or out; however, overlapping turns could trap the jib sheet and turn the boat on its side

Keep in mind, that the numerous free-sailing ships seen today where very experienced and fully capable crews can grind the sails on tight and then reset them as the boat changes tack (direction), which involves turning the boat so the bow passes through the wind while the sails and the crew change sides. The skipper will call out “Ready to go” then “Tacking” as they change the direction of the boat. The other exciting part is crossing tacks with other boats, avoiding them of course, and knowing who is ahead—which are all highly maneuverable acts, in which the boat will usually heel (lean) over a fair 

Racing and sailing boats need to move through the water as efficiently as possible, and when a steady heel angle is maintained, the blades and sails efficiently glide through tghe flow of the water and wind

A yacht with a keel usually isn’t tipped over by the wind, and as the wind powers up the   sails the heavy lead keel under the boat balances the force. A yacht can sail along heeling over at about forty-five degrees. It is advised to hold onto the boat, keep your feet pointed down and be aware that the boat will be angled down when you need to move, and as the boat sails around the course it will be on different angles to the wind. After the first windward mark the boat will normally be “reaching” (the wind coming from the side), and the boat is moving fastest on this course leg although it doesn’t seem as hectic as going to windward. Here the crew will ease the sheets a bit and it will seem less windy, where one can feel the sensation of speed as the gusts hit and watch the way the crew works the sheets.
    Then, when the wind is coming from behind it’s known as the downwind leg. Because the boat is moving along with the wind it will feel like the wind has stopped blowing. On this leg the crew will ease the sails right out to the sides and sometimes a spinnaker will be hoisted, though often twilight races do not allow spinnakers to promote the social aspect of the race. On the downwind leg the boat might need to gybe, which takes the boat from one tack to the other when sailing downwind by turning the stern through the wind. During the gybe the boom swings quickly from one side of the boat to the other. It’s important to keep your head low during this maneuver, with the skipper often yelling “heads” for a warning.

Racing yachts and boats have a totally different sail arrangement that was unknown on the sea until only recently

The point of this is to show that, depending on which leg of a race (or which direction in sailing) a ship is engaged, the crew’s experience and expertise varies from a great deal when sailing at all into the wind, to almost none when being driven forward by the wind behind the vessel. Thus, the comment: “If Lehi and his family (and the Mulekites) weren't skilled enough to sail 4000 miles to the Malay Peninsula, then how did they sail the 14,000 miles to Chile?” meaningless.
    In addition, the idea of sailing to Malay, as we have hammered away about time and again, would require sailing into the wind to some degree, which would negate the accuracy of Nephi’s statement: “driven forth before the wind.”
    So let’s take a quick look at Nephi’s words and meaning from the 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language:
1. Driven: “Urged forward by force”
2. Forth: “Forward”
3. Before: “in front of” “in the power of” “prior to” (“before the wind, is to move in the direction of the wind by its impulse”)
4. Wind: “Air in motion with any degree of velocity”
    We can easily see that Nephi is telling us that his ship was propelled forward or powered by the wind pushing it from behind, referred to by mariners as sailing “before the wind” or “with the wind.” This means that a ship must sail “downwind” if it is to reach its objective by sailing in the same direction as the wind blows. It is a simple statement, but one that carries with it a very important fact that cannot be ignored, though almost every theorist who writes about a specific Land of Promise location does so—for this simple reason: The point where Lehi set sail and the point where he landed will depend on the winds and ocean currents involved. If the winds and currents do not move in that direction, then Lehi could not have landed there—it is as simple as that. And unlike wind on land, that is effected by terrain, buildings, and mountains, the wind at sea does not change direction, and the sea currents maintain a steady direction other than twice a year change during monsoons. So when a ship is at sea, its direction is determined by a steady wind direction and a steady current direction.
    Thus, a square-rigged ship will perform well when sailing before the wind, though the fewer masts, the better since the wind first hits the aft-most sails, and has to move around them to reach the next set of sails, becoming less potent in the process. If there are three, four or five masts, by the time the wind moves around to reach the fore-sails, it can exert little power on them.

 

Left: “Driven forth before the wind,” Right: “Running Broad Reach”

As a result, Square Rigged ships get a good push forward, with a following wind first hitting the Main Sail and then the Fore Sail, but any more masts and the wind has less effect. Better when the wind comes in slightly to one side of the ship, in which case all sets of sails can receive at least some of the wind at full potential. So while Square Rigged ships can still sail fast at this heading, they perform a little better at “Running Broad Reach,” a benefit in sailing unknown for 1000 years after Lehi.
    This knowledge eventually led to ship design that added more and more masts and sail sets since all sails could receive equal wind velocity, such as the later 5-masted bargue and the "tea" clippers.

Three, four, five and six masted sailing ships. Learning to sail from the side, “Running Broad Reach” and “Broad Reach” allowed far more masts with sails open to the wind

When Christopher Columbus sailed to the New World, he was faced with the same problem that every sea captain of his age and hundreds of years before him were face, and that was finding winds to push his ship in the direction he wanted to go. The winds heading westward across the Atlantic happened to be at the Canary Islands, and once understood, Columbus was able to drop down to the Canaries and then head west across the Atlantic to the Bahamas. Until then, they could only sail south along the African coast, or northward along the Spanish and French coast to England and Gaul.
    So if you want to know where Lehi landed, take the ocean currents and winds blowing off the coast of the Arabian Peninsula and follow them to their destination, which happens to be to the Southern Ocean and across the Pacific to South America as we have illustrated here so many times.
    If the wind didn’t blow a certain direction, Lehi did not go in that direction. It is as simple as that!
    Back to the Reader’s comments: “Now I understand you believe that Lehi went south and did not pass this way [meaning toward Indonesia and Malay], and I find that to be a solid argument for New World models. But I find it extremely difficult to believe that anybody in 600 BC, regardless of what path they took, could have sailed from Oman to Chile.”
    When all the evidence shows you that is the direction they took, when Nephi tells you that he was driven by the winds, and NASA, NOAA, and every other oceanographic science tells you that is where the winds and currents went, then climb on board or give it a rest. If you want to remain on the wrong side of the issue, then of course, that is your right. But as the old saying goes, stop beating a dead horse.

Lehi’s Course, “being driven forth before the wind”