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Chinese ships in On the trail of Marco Polo
Chinese ships in On the trail of Marco Polo
Marco describes the Chinese ships in some detail:
They have but one deck, though each of them contains some 50 or 60 cabins... The ship hath but one rudder, but it hath four masts; and sometimes they have two additional masts... Each of their great ships requires at least 200 mariners [some of them 300].
... some thirteen compartments or severances in the interior, made with planking strongly framed, in case mayhap the ship should spring a leak... the planking is so well fitted that the water cannot pass from one compartment to another.
These are much larger than European vessels of the day and the system of watertight compartments was far ahead of contemporary European methods. The Chinese routinely sailed to India, Arabia and even East Africa several hundred years before the great European voyages of discovery, and Arabs and Persians sailed to China.
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