Could Columbus have made it to "Asia"?

silverharp

The question is based on a throwaway comment I came across that people at the time thought Columbus was mad, not because the Earth wasnt round but that he didnt have the supplies to make it to Asia as they knew how big the Earth was.
what was his plan? was he hoping to hit islands along the way?

DarkyHughes

If the Americas were not there I very much doubt he would have made it across the Atlantic & Pacific oceans back in those days. Not only did the Americas make him famous they all so probably saved his life. Unless of course Atlantis hadn't sunk yet

silverharp

DarkyHughes wrote: »

If the Americas were not there I very much doubt he would have made it across the Atlantic & Pacific oceans back in those days. Not only did the Americas make him famous they all so probably saved his life. Unless of course Atlantis hadn't sunk yet

Indeed , I did a bit of reading around in the meantime so I see where he went wrong now

Tabnabs

From my limited knowledge of the Columbus story, he had information from Portuguese sailors about ocean currents and wind directions, hence why he made the classic sailing round trip trans-Atlantic. Coupled with early charts/maps and texts in Scandinavia outlining a coastline, so many days sailing west of Norway, Iceland or Greenland.

He could not have reached the Asian continent without running out of water and food had there been one big stretch of ocean only.

endacl

DarkyHughes wrote: »

If the Americas were not there I very much doubt he would have made it across the Atlantic & Pacific oceans back in those days. Not only did the Americas make him famous they all so probably saved his life. Unless of course Atlantis hadn't sunk yet

If the Americas weren't there, the space occupied by the mass of that land would have been occupied by water. Sea levels would there for have been much lower. Chains of islands would have appeared and it's likely Columbus could have nearly walked to Asia! Only, he wouldn't have been the first if it had been that easy.

More of a geography than a history question...

:pac:

Manach

While only mentioning Columbus in passing, Laurence Bergreen's wrote a book on the first circumnavigation. This occurred a generation after Colombus. What struck me of the sailors were their navigation skills, toughness and a determination to succeed. That coupled with the various pieces of research that Colombus was said to have done would suggest he would not have started out without a fair degree of expectation he could have supplied on route.

pedroeibar1

It was standard procedure for ships on long passages to collect water from rain showers and to stock up on fresh food at islands. Columbus would have expected to encounter islands and rain showers as he had made several long voyages prior to his voyage west. In later centuries whaling ships regularly made 2-year and longer voyages round the Horn and into the Pacific, replenishing from rain and islands.

One of Columbus’ earlier voyages was to Iceland or/and the Faroes, when he called at Galway and heard reports of a dead couple, from “Cathay” that had drifted ashore on two pieces of wood. He also was an exceptional navigator for his day, as he understood the Trade Winds - it cannot have been a coincidence that he took a southern route out (via the Canary Islands, 1000 miles from Lisbon) and a north-easterly one back. The Romans were exiling people to the Canary Islands two thousand years ago (and Ptolemy had them marked on his map).

Navigation from Columbus’ era did not improve much until the development of the chronometer in the mid 1700s. Early navigators used the cross-staff / Jacob’s staff to find their latitude, although it has been contended that these were not used at sea in the era of Columbus’ voyage. (The cross-staff is why pirates and old sea dogs have eye patches). Later instruments such as the quadrant, sextant and octant use the same principles, but it was not until they could be combined with a chronometer that they could accurately ascertain longitude, so Columbus would have been ‘plane’ sailing and estimating his distance run to give an estimated longitude.

Voyagers - particularly the Polynesians – made very long trips e.g. to New Zealand and were very much in tune with and used geophysics for navigation – wave motion, cloud formations, colour of the seawater and clouds, bird flight, etc. and had rudimentary charts constructed from bamboo and seashells.
All the early mariners were very tough people!

ChicagoJoe

Didn't Marco Polo make it to Asia a long time before Columbus crash landed into Cuba ?

DarkyHughes

ChicagoJoe wrote: »

Didn't Marco Polo make it to Asia a long time before Columbus crash landed into Cuba ?

Other people found them (the America's) by crossing from Eurasia along the Bering strait when it had a land bridge about 11,000 years ago. Or so I read somewhere.

silverharp

Columbus seemed to have believed that Canaries to Japan was less than 4000KM so he thought the earth was smaller than it was. Would he have made the trip if he knew i was over 12000km?


toscanelli map

Zebra3

DarkyHughes wrote: »

If the Americas were not there I very much doubt he would have made it across the Atlantic & Pacific oceans back in those days. Not only did the Americas make him famous they all so probably saved his life. Unless of course Atlantis hadn't sunk yet

Saved his life and millions of others paid for it with theirs.

pedroeibar1

Zebra3 wrote: »

Saved his life and millions of others paid for it with theirs.

Rather trite one-dimensional remark.

Zebra3

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

Rather trite one-dimensional remark.

If that's how you wanna dismiss genocide, feel free to do so... :rolleyes:

pedroeibar1

Zebra3 wrote: »

If that's how you wanna dismiss genocide, feel free to do so... :rolleyes:

The only thing I’m dismissing is ignorance:rolleyes:. Misuse of the word “genocide” confirms it.
You might like to check

• the definition of genocide
• where Columbus actually landed
• what he brought out and brought back
• the social impact on populations (both sides) of new foodstuffs and products
• (like maize, the potato, rice and fertilizer)
• the economic impact of New World wealth (like the Potosi mine)
• the impact of the opening up of China, a result of said silver.
• Etc.

As I said, a trite remark.;)