Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Q: Do sailors today regularly rely on any tools that sailors two hundred years ago used?

Sure, how about:
  • Crew knife
  • Ship's compass
  • Hand bearing compass
  • Telescope/binoculars
  • Marlinspike
  • Sextant (still required to earn the Offshore Passagemaking certification from the American Sailing Association)
  • Chronometer/ship's clock
  • Charting tools (parallel rules, dividers, pencil)
  • Nautical charts
  • Depth sounder (to make the nautical chart)
  • Boat hook
  • Telltales and sail ticklers (little bits of yarn to indicate wind direction and flow around the sails)
  • Hand pump
  • Bailing bucket
  • Wind vane (masthead fly)
  • Anchor
  • Oar
  • "Tools" used to hold things to things on the boat: blocks and tackles, shackles, cleats, winches, turnbuckles, padeyes, cotter pins, sheaves
  • Cannon. Unfortunately few sailors today really know how to fire their ship's cannon properly.

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