Trade Secrets

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Re: Trade Secrets

Postby Mick Harper » 12:23 pm

Extract Nineteen

St Malo clearly requires investigation but the intense development of both the port and the Rance estuary in modern times means this is not a straightforward proposition. Was it, for instance, ever a causewayed tidal island? The present layout of land and water would indicate this to be a definite possibility:
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Did it have one or more Venus Pools? Again, one can only say these are unusual and not to be found in run-of-the-mill port cities:

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As for allowing boats to get far into the hinterland one could say that St Malo is rather extraordinary in that regard though the Rance Estuary, as the site of one of the world’s largest tidal power stations, is not likely to be the same today as it was thousands of years ago. But even so, since tides seem to be play a large part in Megalithic shipping generally one would have to say that St Malo and its environs are just about the most tidal piece of real estate in the entire world. Which is presumably why they sited a tidal power station there.

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In fact the best way to view St Malo – and as we shall see it is also true of its British counterpart – is not to try to work out in detail what part it played in ancient cross-Channel transport links but merely to come to the conclusion that St Malo is thoroughly peculiar, even unique, and that therefore it is an example of human construction on a scale (including a time-scale) that we have yet to come to terms with, rather than just another natural 'coincidence'.

The route out of St Malo would also appear in need of some human intervention:

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Re: Trade Secrets

Postby Mick Harper » 1:15 pm

Extract Twenty

It is always more difficult to reconstruct the software than the hardware and the Megalithic attiude to navigational hazards is especially opaque. As we have seen the route Burgh Island to Mont St Michel requires the avoiding of Guernsey, Jersey and Chausey but perhaps this is unavoidable given the advantages of using Plymouth Sound as a source for tin and the geography of Mont St Michel to land it.

The route St Malo – Weymouth is even more encumbered so the suspicion must be that Megalithic sailing actually required navigational ‘hazards’ to be maximised. In other words what chart-bound sailors might reasonably regard as things to be avoided at all costs, chart-less sailors would be obliged to use as necessary waystations. An islet sticking out of the sea is no longer something to be dreaded but rather an affirmation of being on course.

Looked at this way, St Malo is ideally placed to exploit all the 'stepping stones' from Western France to Western Britain beginning with the Minquiers:

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Re: Trade Secrets

Postby Boreades » 8:26 pm

The thread may be "Trade Secrets" but the latest installment from Mick raises (in my mind) the question of Navigation Secrets.
i.e.
How to safely avoid the known and dangerous tidal races around all the Channel Islands, in particular, and coastal hazards in general.

Fortunately I know the answer, and after I have been able to consult my Tidal Streams Atlas I will reveal the answer, with a worked example (diagrams as well). Just to whet your appetites, it happens to have something in common with how Sir Francis Chichester safely flew across thousands of miles of open sea with no modern navigational aids. Bonus points for anyone whoever twigs that first.
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Re: Trade Secrets

Postby Mick Harper » 10:10 pm

Self-steering gear.
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Re: Trade Secrets

Postby macausland » 10:37 pm

Do points mean prizes?

I don't know about Chichester but I read a book many years ago which described how south sea islanders navigated. Apparently they had a simple framework which they held over the prow of the boat and from this they could tell from the wave patterns where various islands were. The ripples from the islands continued over vast expanses of ocean until they met other ripples etc.

One question I would like to ask though is when did the megalith people start sailing to France etc?

Various internet sites state that people were living in Britain much earlier than the accepted ten thousand years ago when the ice age ended. There are maps which show that the southern extent of the ice was somewhere north of the Bristol area and went horizontally in an eastward direction.

This would suggest that the people were well established at a very early stage.

The southern coastline was continuous as far as France which means that they would have been able to walk or sail along the coastline until they reached their destination.

After the demise of 'Doggerland' and the loss of this coastline they must have still have had knowledge of directions and the best way to get there.

Perhaps the best routes changed over time as they gained expertise?
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Re: Trade Secrets

Postby Mick Harper » 5:24 pm

Extract Twenty-One

For some reason that may or may not be natural, the Minquiers are highly unusual in general but remarkably similar to the Chausey (= Causeway) Islands just outside Mont St Michel:

The Minquiers can be visited at all states of tides, however, the landscape changes dramatically. On a spring tide the islands transform from a small cluster of rocks to a large mass of rocks, gullies and sandbanks stretching for miles.

And here is a modern sailors-eye perspective when approaching them:

First view of the islands was amazing, just a mound of rocks surrounded by masses of rocky outcrops which were visible or just beneath the Sea as the waves crashed over. Indeed a very treacherous part of the Sea and many of the outcrops were not visible, not marked on the map and only known about by people with local knowledge.

A pretty bleak prospect except:

Some of them had markers on such as a buoy, a wooden cross or just wooden poles. We later found out that not only did these mark the dangers but they were actually used as a route into the islands. By aligning these crosses and poles at certain angles and from certain directions, one could plot the safest way into the main Island but again, only with excellent local knowledge.

So, again, we are faced with the same phenomenon as with the Great Circle route into Mont St Michel which appeared positively to invite the mariner into dangerous waters. Are the Minquiers to be regarded in a modern light as a navigational hazard or are they, in a chartless past, something of a waystation?

One explanation that might hesitantly be put forward for both sets of 'unusual' islands arises because of an unavoidable characteristic of the metals trade. If it is accepted that the Burgh Island - Mont St Michel route is primarily for tin and the Weymouth - St Malo route is for copper, then the question prompted in either case is, “What is the return cargo?” And if the answer is, “Whatever it was it must have been a damn sight lighter than copper or tin” then there is the requirement for ballasting when returning from either Mont St Michel or St Malo.

If there are some ‘ordinary’ islands immediately out of respectively Mont St Michel and St Malo suitable for quarrying rock for ballasting (and loading aboard primitive ships at high tide) and which were therefore used for that purpose on a daily basis over many, many centuries then would the net result be something like The Chauseys and The Minquiers respectively?

Perhaps these questions are too large for this stage of enquiries so let us for the moment skirt The Minquiers and resume our journey towards Weymouth. Since we are now approaching the south coast of Jersey there really must ex hypothesi be a Megalithic Warning situated somewhere here.
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Re: Trade Secrets

Postby Boreades » 8:37 pm

Mick Harper wrote:Self-steering gear.


No, try again.
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Re: Trade Secrets

Postby macausland » 9:59 pm

He tied a crow to the mast to keep an eye on the sun and shout 'caw' when they went off course.
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Re: Trade Secrets

Postby hvered » 8:25 am

With a tidal race in full flow, the ship's crow, or more likely cormorant, would almost certainly return empty-beaked. Sailors might very well prefer to 'wait and see'. Isn't releasing a bird towards land what Noah did?
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Re: Trade Secrets

Postby Mick Harper » 1:13 pm

Extract Twenty-Two

The Megalithic navigational system was organised in the same way as the modern one is, as any 'system' must be. There are the main, fixed ‘liner’ routes running regular ferry and freight services, for which specific and even elaborate provision is made, and then there is the ordinary navigational devices that anyone sailing from anywhere to anywhere can make use of.

The Channel Islands have two ‘through’ routes serving the main freight demands – Burgh Island to Mont St Michel and Weymouth to St Malo – but there are enough markers to ensure that all sailors approaching from any direction are catered for. And not forgetting intra-island travel.

To understand how this was done it is best to think of the Channel Islands as a box, with navigational beacons at sides and corners. In theory each navigational beacon should consist of a) a tidal island with b) a causeway and c) a Venus Pool.

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Approaching from the west means first contact will be Lihou Island (Guernsey), a causewayed tidal island with a Venus Pool; from the south-west, the sailor initially encounters Corbiere (Jersey) which is a causewayed tidal island with a Venus Pool; from the north and north-west it will Vale Island (Guernsey) which is (was) a causewayed tidal island (which has some interesting tidal ‘quarries’ but no extant Venus Pool). Coming from north or north-east, it is the causewayed tidal island of Fort Houmet Herbe on Alderney:

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There is no extant Venus Pool but, as the name suggests, the islet has been substantially remodelled for military purposes in modern times so anything that was there is unlikely to have survived. Coming from the east generally towards the Islands seems to have been discouraged – this is the ‘Race of Alderney’ so-called because of the treacherous nature of the waters here – but special arrangements have been made on Sark which will be considered with the internal Channel Island navigational system.

This leaves the vital matter of the approach from the south and south-east, whether from St Malo, from Mont St Michel or just generally.
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