Sailing questions

Draken Harald Hårfagre is the largest Viking ship built in modern times. It is a ship that combines ocean-crossing sailing capabilities with a warship's use of oars. The longship is 35 metres (115 ft) long with a beam of approximately 8 metres (26 ft) and a displacement of about 95 metric tons. It is equipped with 50 oars.

The first person to complete a single handed circumnavigation was a retired Master Mariner, originally from Canada, but subsequently a citizen of the USA, Joshua Slocum. He sailed in 1895 on a route that took him across the Atlantic, down South America and through the Magellan passage, and then on to Australia, South Africa and home. He had rebuilt his 35 foot sloop Spray by himself before he sailed and proved a good and safe seaboat and brought him safely home in 1898.

The knot is a unit of speed equal to one nautical mile per hour, exactly 1.852 km/h. The ISO standard symbol for the knot is kn. Worldwide, the knot is used in meteorology, and in maritime and air navigation—for example, a vessel travelling at 1 knot along a meridian travels approximately one minute of geographic latitude in one hour.

A cog is a type of ship that first appeared in the 10th century, and was widely used from around the 12th century on. Cogs were clinker-built, generally of oak. This vessel was fitted with a single mast and a square-rigged single sail. These vessels were mostly associated with seagoing trade in medieval Europe, especially the Hanseatic League.

Queen Anne's Revenge was a fully rigged ship, most famously used as a flagship by the pirate Blackbeard (Edward Teach). Although the date and place of the ship's construction are unclear, it is believed she was built in Bristol in 1710 and named Concord. Blackbeard used the ship for less than a year,[5] but captured numerous prizes using her as his flagship.

John Cabot (Italian: Giovanni Caboto, Venetian: Zuan Chabotto) was a Venetian navigator and explorer whose 1497 discovery of the coast of North America under the commission of Henry VII of England was the first European exploration of the mainland of North America.

In sailing, the great capes are three major capes of the continents in the Southern Ocean — Africa's Cape of Good Hope, Australia's Cape Leeuwin, and South America's Cape Horn. Cape Hafun is the extreme eastern point of Africa, not included in the list.

The topping lift (more rarely known as an uphaul) is a line which applies upward force on a boom on a sailboat. Part of the running rigging, topping lifts are primarily used to hold a boom up when the sail is lowered. This line would run from near the free end of the boom forward to the top of the mast. The line may be run over a block at the top of the mast and down to the deck to allow it to be adjusted.

HMS Endeavour was a British Royal Navy research vessel that Lieutenant James Cook commanded on his first voyage of discovery, to Australia and New Zealand, from 1769 to 1771. In April 1770, Endeavour became the first ship to reach the east coast of Australia, when Cook went ashore at what is now known as Botany Bay. Endeavour then sailed north along the Australian coast.

An opisometer, also called a curvimeter, meilograph, or map measurer, is an instrument for measuring the lengths of arbitrary curved lines. A simple opisometer consists of a toothed wheel of known circumference on a handle. The wheel is placed in contact with the curved line to be measured and run along its length. The instrument is most commonly used to measure the lengths of roads, rivers and other line features on maps.