On: Sailing boat rescued by the Götheborg

[wpietri]

Polynesian navigational techniques are very interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polynesian_navigation

[kqr → wpietri]

The power of oral tradition is nuts. It can preserve information for thousands of years.

[twic → kqr]

Speaking of Polynesian navigation being nuts: https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/testicular-navigation

[dehrmann → wpietri]

To what extent were they good at navigating, and to what extent is there a survivorship bias?

[btilly → dehrmann]

This came up in a college course I took.

Traditional Polynesian boats were operating alongside modern technology in the 1950s and 1969s. The Polynesian boats put up a better safety record!

So yeah, they really were good at navigating. And to think, they did it lying on their back! The cues that they were using were from the swell, the stars, and birds. You feel the swell most clearly lying down. The other two are above you.