Were Hagoth’s Ships Canoes or Rafts, or Something Else? – Part II

Continued from the previous post, regarding regarding the nature and type of ship that Hagoth built to carry a group of emigrants to a “land which was northward.”
    In addition to the points made in the previous post, it should also be remembered that, contrary to the beliefs by most theorists and especially John L. Sorenson, the Nephites were an industrious people with skilled artisans and by 55 B.C., possessing over 500 years of experience in constructing buildings, working with wood, iron and steel, with precious ores of copper, brass, silver and gold (2 Nephi 5:15), manufacturing machinery and tools (Jarom 1:8), and building a temple to rival that of Solomon (2 Nephi 5:16).
    This is hardly a people who could only manage dugout canoes or log rafts as Sorenson claims.
    In addition, the Nephites were experienced building ships and in the shipping business (Helaman 3:14), constructing extensive roads throughout the land (3 Nephi 6:8), and adapting to and using cement for the construction of houses, temples and synagogues (Helaman 3:7,9). These accomplishments, which amazed the Spanish Conquerors 1500 years later when viewed in the Peruvian Andes, compared them to the achievements of Rome, which should indicate that the Nephites were far beyond the native-style dugout canoes and log rafts found centuries later built by a far less advanced, far less industrious and far less divinely-guided people.

Nephi and his brothers working the timbers unlike other men and building the ship that would take them across the many waters to the Land of Promise 

From the very beginning, the Nephites knew about building ships beyond the capability of men of their day. Nephi, himself, tells us: “Now I, Nephi, did not work the timbers after the manner which was learned by men, neither did I build the ship after the manner of men; but I did build it after the manner which the Lord had shown me; wherefore, it was not after the manner of men” (1 Nephi 18:2). The story of Nephi’s boat and the colony’s journey across “the many waters” would have been told and retold countless times down through the centuries—in fact, after 600 years, Ammoron, the King of the Lamanites, was still complaining about how the Nephites had stolen their birthright (Alma 54:15). No doubt, they all knew about their ancestors traveling across the waters in a large ship as well as its appearance and the special manner in which it was constructed.

Nephi taught his people how to work with wood, stone and metal 

When Nephi tells us he taught his people to work in all manner of trades, he obviously would have passed on the shipbuilding knowledge he gained from the Lord. Then, too, Nephi had help in building his boat, and at least Sam, Zoram, Jacob and Joseph were aware of the ship’s design and method of construction—which was certainly not a dugout canoe nor the deckless ships of the Near East typically seen in that era and many centuries after with their lateen sails. This appears quite clear from the scriptures: “My brethren and the sons of Ishmael and also their wives began to make themselves merry, insomuch that they began to dance, and to sing, and to speak with much rudeness” (1 Nephi 18:9). 
    Obviously, there had to be a deck of some type for dancing to take place on board the ship, as it would be extremely difficult for several people to dance in a dugout canoe, no matter how large its construction, or to dance and make merry on a log raft. Nor would a raft hardly be capable of crossing several thousand miles of ocean under the conditions and with the load indicated in the scriptures.
    Thor Heyerdahl made such a voyage, but not with women and children, and not with the numbers of people that made up the Lehi colony, nor the provisions they carried nor was the voyage anywhere near as long. The merry-making described in the scriptural record would take a plank-type deck. This is borne out by Nephi’s words describing the construction of his ship:
    As mentioned in the last post, the word “curious” meant something quite different than we use it today and as theorists like John L. Sorenson have erred in its interpretation. First of all, the word “curious,” besides its use in describing the Liahona as “a round ball of curious workmanship,” it was used only four other times in the entire Book of Mormon, and each time it was used in the context of building or creating. These were:
• “And we did work timbers of curious workmanship. And the Lord did show me from time to time after what manner I should work the timbers of the ship” (1 Nephi 18:1, emphasis added). 
• “And behold, there cannot any man work after the manner of so curious a workmanship. And behold, it was prepared to show unto our fathers the course which they should travel in the wilderness (Alma 37:39, emphasis added)
• “And behold, there was all manner of gold in both these lands, and of silver, and of precious ore of every kind; and there were also curious workmen, who did work all kinds of ore and did refine it; and thus they did become rich” (Helaman 6:11, emphasis added)
• “And they did make all manner of weapons of war. And they did work all manner of work of exceedingly curious workmanship” (Ether 10:27, emphasis added)
    Thus, when scholars of the Book of Mormon try to claim Hagoth was a curious man who was interested in exploring, they are mis-using the word as it applied in other uses in the scriptural record.

Location of Hagoth’s shipyard within the sea that divides the land, where “he went forth an exceedingly large ship, on the borders of the land Bountiful, by the land Desolation, and launched it forth into the west sea, by the narrow neck which led into the land northward

 

In addition, these scholars, such as Sorenson can say that Hagoth’s ship “could hardly have been a complex planked vessel,” but since Nephi built a ship obviously far beyond the sixth century B.C. level of ability, and his descendants, who were involved in the shipbuilding business (Helaman 3:14), certainly would have developed advanced skills in this trade, especially in light of understanding that the Nephites were involved in shipping and the building of ships.
    However, because no evidence can be found of such ships, scholars claim no such ability existed among the Nephites and that current reed boats in use (as well as those found in picture-form on pottery) indicate that the ancients must have used such meager construction.

The raft Kon-Tiki built by Thor Heyerdahl and sailed from Peru to Polynesia showed that it was possible, but dangerous—few would have taken their families on such a voyage unless the vessel was much larger and more sturdy

It should be noted that the Kon-Tiki voyagers carried with them some modern equipment, such as a radio, sextant, watches, charts and metal knives. In addition, Heyerdahl knew where he was headed, where it located, and how he was going to get there—something neither Lehi, no later voyages out of the sight of land were advantaged. However, both were drift voyages, carried along on the ocean currents and “driven forth before the wind.”
    Some critics claim that because no such ships have been recovered, that Nephi’s ship was less than what is claimed, matching those outrigger canoes that have been recovered.
    At the same time, we need to keep in mind that wooden ships do not last forever. As an example, when the famed wooden clipper ships of the 19^th century were launched, their projected lifespan (working life) was only ten to twelve years. Keeping a wooden hulls seaworthy has always been an endless and generally an up-hill battle.
    However, the remains of ships submerged in tropical waters and the chances of finding such remains is far less likely than those of northern latitudes like the Viking and European vessels that have been found. According to Douglas Myles, “contrary to well-established motion picture tradition, the intact hulls of such long-sunken ships are not to be found today by divers in tropical seas, though occasionally part of a keel or keelson or even pieces of frames are discovered.
    For the most part, the wood is gone, salt water action and the teredo worm having caused it to disintegrate long ago. The remaining metal objects are usually so thickly encrusted with coral and other forms of sea life as often to be unrecognizable until cleaned” (Douglas Myles, The Great Waves, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1985).

The 1733 wreck of the El Infante, a Spanish plate fleet wrecked in the Florida Keys. Not the disintegration and that it is barely recognizable after less than 300 years

Thus it would not be unusual to find no sign of the types of ships Nephi built and the Nephites used throughout their 1000-year history in the land of promise. In South American waters, the depth of the ocean off the coast of Chile and Peru is very deep, about 3,666 feet in depth, with constant swirling of upwelling waters from the Peruvian (Humboldt) Current, earthquakes and tsunamis hitting along the coastal areas. Finding any antiquitous ship intact or partially intact buried in the coastal waters would be next to impossible.
    That later Lamanite occupants of the land of promise used a less advanced method of shipbuilding should not be surprising. It would certainly be expected that the Lamanites would not have used anything Nephite, for their entire purpose was to eradicate the Nephites and every sign of them from off the face of the earth. But Nephi, himself, tells us about his ability to build a ship—a ship, it might be remembered, that would have been similar to, but different from, those of the region he knew (1 Nephi 18:2).
    Thus, we can conclude that Hagoth’s ships must have been of a planked, deck- type construction, far ahead of the world’s shipbuilding expertise of the day, and large enough to make it profitable or worthwhile to transport hundreds, probably thousands of people by sea to a land which was northward.
    Consequently, we should understand that the ships Hagoth built were large by any standard, decked, and ocean-seaworthy.