This site, like many others on the northeastern Mediterranean coast, is most likely submerged due to earthquake activity in the region. The site here is on the coast of the Argolic Gulf, which is a graben (down-dropped tectonic block). The main fault is on land, on the southern shore[1].
I want to say some of the temples where Paul lectured to the Corinthians are also underwater due to faulting (the Gulf of Corinth is tectonically subsiding) but I can't find the reference. (I'm not actually sure that he gave lectures, either; I think I heard this in a geology class).
Yeah, it's very cool! Sadly it doesn't seem to have great performance for a multihull. The spec sheet says 14kn top speed and 5kn average, which is rather poor for a 115' cat! A sailing cat of that size should be able to get 15-16 knots running and even more on a reach. An average speed of 7-8 is not unheard of even for 40-50' cats, let alone twice that. Must be very heavy in the water.
I've read of a number of sailboat people who've replaced their old diesels with electric motor/solar panel combos and done quite well out of it. Whilst, for example, a motor can do 8kw at top speed, you usually only cruise at 3kw in and out of harbour and use the sails for the rest. Fitting enough solar for that is very doable on even a modestly sized boat. Then you can use batteries for any prolonged becalmings.
I worked for a company that did a cat electrification project circa 2008. 90ft mast 1300 sq feet of living space. Replaced a diesel in each hull with 16kw motor, inverter, and batteries. Main diesel generator remained but was only for backup. You could run the props as generators while under sail for a cost of 1/2 knot you could run all electric loads including air conditioning while charging the batteries. I guess solar could be useful at the dock...
>> I'm purchasing a cat for a circumnavigation. Where could I have such a conversion done?
That company does not exist any more - it got bought and ultimately disbanded. The boat did cross the Atlantic BTW and IIRC used no fuel to do so. I always thought it was a really good use of the technology. There are independents and small companies out there that can do that type of work - search for electric aircraft projects and find the people behind those. For a single boat you'll want an industrial drives and controls guy who can also deal with the battery and system issues.
Thanks! I'm pretty familiar with energy management, having designed stand-alone power systems (renewables + inverters + battery storage + generators) previously. I may give it a go alone, but I'll definitely start looking for the folks you mentioned if (most likely, when) I get stuck.
Thank you for taking the time to reply; I really appreciate it!
The most interesting thing to me is the picture of they guy on the deck of the boat (from the article). What is the material used to cover the solar cells? It must be tough enough to survive salt water and people walking on it. And yet it must allow most of the light thru.
Maybe it's a very newbie question to materials people. But it's interesting to me. My mental image of solar cells is they're more fragile than that.
This really reinforce something I have thought for some time now, mainly that due to sea level changes, many ancient sites are now underwater.
I even have a pet theory about Atlantis, which I will repost from /r/AskHistorians:
"Though it is probably confirmation bias due to my particular interest in Sumer, there is much evidence that what is now the Persian Gulf was flooded quite suddenly, With evidence that many of the settlements post-flood were quickly setup, in places where formerly only nomad hunter/gatherers lived.
What you have to consider is the origin of the myth when compared to the archeology. The myth starts with Plato, who cites Solon visiting Sais, Egypt and learning of Atlantis. Plato says Atlantis existed about 9600 BC.
My theory goes like this:
What Plato/Solon called Atlantis is actually the civilization that once existed in the unflooded persian gulf, from which refuges of the flood fled to surrounding areas (and further) and brought with them the knowledge of civilization they possessed. When I say civilization, I mean the transition from hunter/gatherer society to agricultural society, and possibly writing/proto-writing. (Not the super civilization myth many imagine it as)
Allow me to explain and support this assertion as best I can.
The Egyptian town Solon visited was the home town of the goddess Neith as far back as 3000 BC, and it was the priests of Neith which gave him the information about Atlantis. Neith is likely to be associated with the god Tanit, who in turn may be associated with the Akkadian god Ishtar, which is actually the counterpart of the Sumerian Inanna.
That's a lot of connections to make, but what does it matter relevant to this? Well, it matters in two main ways. First, the greek Athena (and hence Athens) is actually derived from, if the above connection is true, the Sumerian Inanna. Plato/Solon placed too much importance on this connection, and in seeking to tie their Athens to the myth of Atlantis, fouled the myth up a bit. (The part about Atlantis and a war with Athens) This is why for so long before the good science of plate tectonics and geology Atlantis was sought in places it could never have been, such as the Atlantic and Mediterranean. The real connection is Sumeria and before.
The second part about why the Sumerian connection is so important is purely about timelines. If indeed there was a flood in the Persian Gulf as some of the recent science suggests, at around 8000 BC, it could possibly match the Sumerian King's list, which states there was a flood roughly that long ago. (the oldest king on the list verified is back to about 2600 BC, past that the list itself is the only source, which is why I say roughly) So I find it highly likely that much of the ancient history known by the priests of Sais that told Solon about Atlantis is actually the slightly adopted and modified version of the Sumerian flood myth, and this is supported by the study of the evolution of Egyptian religion/history as supported by archaeology.
So there you have it. My theory that the flooded southern tip of the fertile crescent at about 8000 BC is the true "Atlantis". Feel free to poke holes in it or make corrections for any sloppiness on my part. This is something I have thought about for a while but just now put into words.
The key thing I would focus on to expand this would be the writings of Plato regarding Solon. I have heard that it was a mistranslation that Plato said 9000 years and that it really reads 900 years, but I have not yet been able to find out where the original text is to ask to for a picture in order confirm/deny this."
Wasn't "Atlantis" as it was discussed by Plato a purely theoretical location? Like if I made up the "United States of Omerico" for the purposes of argument - and then a thousand years later, people were like "where is this mythical sister state to America described by the philosopher devindotcom?!"
I could be mistaken, but I thought the whole lost sunken state thing was just a conceit for a political discussion.
"The key thing I would focus on to expand this would be the writings of Plato regarding Solon. I have heard that it was a mistranslation that Plato said 9000 years and that it really reads 900 years, but I have not yet been able to find out where the original text is to ask to for a picture in order confirm/deny this"
If you want to go back to the original Egyptian myths that likely gave rise to the Atlantis story, I would recommend reading "The Mythical Origin of the Egyptian Temple". (They don't mention any dates as far as I remember).
Similar theory, though using the Red Sea, is used in the book Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus.
What do you think of the maybe prevailing theory that Atlantis was actually located on Santorini? Wikipedia has all the links, but I like the fact that it is close to Greece, as it seems Improbable that Atlantis would not be mentioned elsewhere beside Plato (although perhaps other sources mention similar events??)
That there are a lot of undiscovered sites just off our coasts is a well understood fact in Archaeology. For most of history a very high percentage of people lived on the coast. We know that ocean levels are higher now than they were several thousand years ago. That necessarily means a lot of sites are under water.
So why aren't there more underwater archaeological digs? Underwater sites are harder to find and they're hideously expensive to dig up. Archaeology is, traditionally, not that well funded. If, for whatever reason, the Earth were plunged into an ice age (and our civilization didn't collapse), there would be a golden age of archaeology as thousands of sites are discovered and studied.
I remember when i was living in LA, i read some theory about how the mini-mammoths got to the channel islands, and why there is little archaeological sites in southern California. He proposed that at some point in history, people lived in a valley, that is now the waterway between the mainland and the channel islands. He surmised that as the waters rose, they erased the evidence of the man, and stranded a group of mammoths on the island, who slowly shrunk due to limited area and resources. Always thought it was an interesting theory.
It doesn't even require big earthquakes - the pillars of the Macellum of Pozzuoli are famous because they show that the ground sank down to submerge them and them rose back up again:
Dozens of cities and probably several civilisations have been sunk/flooded by earthquake/environmental change over history.
While you've done an impressive amount of research and have a lovely narrative, isn't it a simpler solution to suppose that it was simply a myth that evolved out of the stories d lost cultures and civilisations?
I want to say some of the temples where Paul lectured to the Corinthians are also underwater due to faulting (the Gulf of Corinth is tectonically subsiding) but I can't find the reference. (I'm not actually sure that he gave lectures, either; I think I heard this in a geology class).
[1]: http://eqgeogr.weebly.com/blog/active-faults-of-greece-map-a...