Sorry, I just can't help myself!

http://www.tikopia.co.uk/

Are you planning to sail a beachcat to Tikopia or do you want one of those things?

I would very much like to have one. The ancient Polynesians overwhelm me with their sailing skills.

The Arabs were also known for thier sailing skills. They were the first to sail and introduce the concept of triangular sails.

Sadly, no one sees us as more than terrorists now.

Not so! If all Arabs were terroists, our problems would be insoluble absent blood shed of historic proportions.

Arabs and Polynesians also developed a number of navigation devices not used in the West.

As near as I can tell, there is a direct link from Polynesia back to the sea faring culture of India. I would guess that link would extend into the Arab world as well.

btw- in my ignorance, I didn't know proper young Arab ladies could do things like sailing. Not so? Or are you the blacksheep of the family?

LOL why do people always assume that Arab women are oppressed and have no freedom? Dont believe what you see on the news.

Here I can go swimming in a bikini if I wanted to. I live in Kuwait not Saudi Arabia. In Kuwait women have the same rights as men (women can vote unlike other Arab countries). We are enouraged to be outgoing and participate in society. Many women here hold very high job titles, and recieve the same pay as men (by law). And as you can see in the pic I dont have to cover my hair.

Thank you, I didn't know that!

Having never been to your part of the world, the news is all I have. Sadly, this isn't the first time I've found things are not exactly as the media claim.

In fairness to the media, they report so much, it's hard to sort it all out and draw an accurate conclusion.

What else might I find surprising about Kuwait?

Damn, does this mean I have to turn in like half of my coworkers/friends? :P

Sadly, people dont really take that into account when they judge people from Arab countries.



Well something you might find interesting is that Kuwait is currently working on a multi billion dollar projected to create a new city called "madeenat al-7areer" (silk city) that would contain the largest building in the world.

Heres some information:

"The 1,001m tower will form the centrepiece of the Madinat al Hareer, or "City of Silk", that would house 700,000 people.

Kuhne claims constructing the city and its infrastructure - including four ports - would cost $150bn (£75bn) and take 25 years.

The next highest building in the world is the Burj Dubai, the landmark tower in the Middle Eastern tourist hotspot designed by US architect Skidmore Owings and Merrill. Still under construction, its height is likely to be between 700 and 800m when it is completed in 2008."

EDIT: I attached an image of what the city would look like.

Very impressive! The city.

Please don't think the world only bashes Arabs, ask Wouter what he thinks about Americans, lol!

Once I was talking to a Greek and I mentioned that I don't travel in France because they are so rude to Americans. His response was, "they're rude to everybody."

I think it's all xenophobia, and part of the human condition.

I actually just read a very interesting book on Arab sailing - "Arab Seafaring" by Hourani. I don't know that they had any particular skills other than the triangular sails. They took elevation with their hands (ie no astrolabe) and didn't have anything like the kind of incredibly detailed system of star navigation that the Polynesians do. Polynesians could - and in fact still can - sail from Hawaii to New Zealand without a compass, which is like finding half a needle in an extremely large haystack. Arabs mostly stuck to the coasts - the main exception being crossing directly from Oman to southern India - but they regularly sailed from southern Iraq to Guangzhou in China, which is unbelievable. They also sailed boats that had been stitched together with coconut fibers, because nails were too expensive, so I think we can add tremendous bravery to the list.

Also aside from the obvious fact that they favored single hull canoes with outriggers I don't think there is any link between India and the Polynesians. Their sails were totally different - Indias used Arab sails - and the navigation system is pretty clearly something the Polynesians invented while sailing around the Pacific.

Has Trump shown up yet?

It's the Parisians. The rest of the French are pretty nice.

Catamaran- from the Tamil kattumaram; kattu, tie + maram, log, tree.

Arab astronomers made exquisite astrolabes, so I would think sailors would find access. I recall a "National Geographic" artcile showing a string of specific length to which was attached a disc that looked much like a coin. The string was held in the mouth and the horizon was sited through a hole in the disc. I don't recall what calculations were made.

If I can ever find my copy of "Canoes of Oceania" I'll look for more specific reference to Indo-Polynesian cultural link. I'm sure it exists.

In any case, if "they took elevations with their hands. . ." and "they regularly sailed from Southern Iraq to Guangzhou in China. . ." then they are skilled enough to meet my personal test.

This is all I have time for this afternoon, but I'll get back to it, soonest.

http://www.mat.uc.pt/~helios/Mestre/Novemb00/H61iflan.htm

Additionally, from the introduction of "The Cruising Multihull", by Chris White, we find; "For thousands of years, multihulls were the vehicle of choice throughout much of India, Indonesia, Malaysia, southeast Asia, parts of China, the Philippines, Polynesia, Melanesia, and Micronesia." Hardly definitive proof of an Indo-Polynesian sailing tradition, but a reputable source never the less.

Absent a common cultural link, what then, spontaneous generation?

Cool. Good link. You are totally right about astrolabes (I was confusing them with sextants), however (I had to go back to the book for this) Hourani cites writings from the time of the Abbasid caliphate to the effect that they weren't used at sea because the rolling of the ships made them inaccurate, but were used on shore to determine the location of ports. The finger method was used while at sea.

As for the link between Indians and Polynesians, I'm fairly sure that you won't find anything. Guns Germs and Steel uses linguistic and archaeological evidence to show that the Polynesians developing their sailing technology on Taiwan and spread from there. That is a really long way from India. Also, I don't believe Indians or anyone else for that matter uses a navigation system similar to that used by Polynesians. However Indians and Polynesians could have come into contact when the Polynesians (Austronesians really, but related, and using the same boats and navigational techniques) spread from Sumatra to Madagascar around I think 500 AD. But, I still think it's not likely. The Indian Ocean trade at that time was apparently completely in the hands of the Arabs, and while there was definitely contact between Polynesian sailors and Arabs, they don't seem to have learned much from one another. Arabs sailed monohulls and steered by the sun, and Polynesians sailed cats (like us!) and steered by the moon.

If you haven't seen the website of the Polynesian Voyaging Society, your should check it out: http://pvs.kcc.hawaii.edu/welcome.html These are the guys that have preserved the old way of navigating, and still make long voyages between remote islands with no GPS and no compass. Pretty crazy.

Well said. I think there linguistic studies to support my point, but until I can cite them, the point is yours.

That was a great article. One of my winter projects I have planned is to make a sextant and learn how to use it. This project came from sailing on replica vessles from the War of 1812.

I have to agree that we're all xenophobic to a certain extent; didn't your mother tell you not to talk to strangers (your earliest lesson that "unknown" = "fear")

Those who are lazy enough to be "fed" knowledge by the media rather than seeking "fair and balanced" information on their own are destined to stereotype others.

Are all Arabs terrorist zealots? About as much as all Americans are skinhead racists, or all French people are as snobbish as the Parisians, or all illegal immigrants in the USA are hispanic. I could go on...

But Stereotyping is FUN. Not to mention easier than actually creating your own opinion.

I mean, where would we be without the term "redneck"? Would we all be driving cars with low clearance and no place to hold large quantities of firearms? Would there be no such thing as "manufactured housing"? Or "Milwaulkee's Best" beer in aluminum cans?

Or what about "pimp"? Without them, men would not be allowed to wear fur coats or gold chains. And Cadillac would probably have gone out of business. And pants would actually fit. And prison outfits would be worn by...well, prisoners.

There seems to be a fringe element in all social, ethnic, and societal groups, and it is they who garner the most media coverage (a building NOT on fire is hardly newsworthy). I would venture a guess that the SILENT majority (rational, wise, or whatever you'd call them) would view these stereotypes with the grain of salt that they require.

As long as this thread is meandering around the library, looking for a topic, I might as well post one of my favorite essays by one of my favorite authors. Pretty much the opposite of xenophobia.

The Dogma of Otherness, by David Brin

And phooey on catamarans, real Pacific voyagers used proas.