Why Muslims are under rated.

[Minimalist]

I think there were evidence roman commercial vessels were able to undertake multi-day trips across the mediterranean, say from the Aegean to Alexandrea, almost entirely out of sight of land.

It would be with roman technical capability to sail on a beam reach down Mauritanian coast of Africa to Guinea and there sail large and cross on the trade wind over to Recife in brazil. The crossing would be less than twice the distance from Aegean to Alexandrea.

As for the return journey, it takes a greater stretch of imagination, but they can sail south on a beam reach until they hit the westerlies, and there cross back to east to south Africa or nimibian coast, and there follow the easterly trade around to gulf of guinea, and then sail up on a beam reach to canaries, and there tack slightly to Portugal.

There was this little dust up a few years ago when a Roman wreck was discovered in deep water...

http://www.uticaod.com/news/x358806665/G...-mile-deep

Two Roman-era shipwrecks have been found in deep water off a western Greek island, challenging the conventional theory that ancient shipmasters stuck to coastal routes rather than risking the open sea, an official said Tuesday.

The next paragraph points out that the wrecks were found between Corfu and Italy. Well....



That's a pretty easy hop across the Strait of Otronto and it would have been stupid to sail all the way up and around the Adriatic coast to get to south Italy. Of course, as those captains probably learned, if a storm comes up on you while you are out there you are pretty well screwed. To a degree the seamanship of the captain would have been paramount. An experienced sea captain may have well risked sailing in a full moon period. As long as you can see water breaking over any potential shoals it should have been safe enough.

Now, granted there were huge grain carriers operating between Carthage and Rome in the Imperial period but the Romans would have had no cause to expose those ships to the Atlantic. They were far too necessary to maintaining the food supply in the capital. While military vessels may have had the capability to remain at sea for longer periods of time it is also true that when Pompey the Great campaigned against the Cilician pirates he did it by conquering the land they were based in - not by sinking every individual pirate ship.

As for getting back...we know NOW where the westerlies are. They would have had no such information.

Finally, there is nothing in the record which indicates that anyone ever claimed to have made such a trip.

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Sorry - I don't know how to make that picture smaller.