The Wagram (1810) – a first-rate 118-gun ship of the line of the French Navy, of the Ocean type. Illustration of the 19th century. Image couresy of Adobe Stock.
In addition to the agonizingly long time it took to cross the Atlantic Ocean in the time of sail, the journey carried risk of sickness, especially from scurvy caused by the lack of fresh vegetables.
Edward Lengel provides an illustration in his book, The 10 Key Campaigns of the American Revolution.
On May 2, 1780, the first wave of French troops left France, arriving in Newport Harbor on July 11, 1780. The trip took 70 days.
Transatlantic travel time has dropped radically in the last 500 years. Time to transit the Atlantic has dropped about 99% and cost has dropped about 95% by my calculations.
Let’s look at several data points for cost and time, then calculate one indicator of improved quality of life.
Update: Added in travel time of Concorde at end of the post.
Columbus’ first trip
The 1492 trip by Christopher Columbus took two years of lobbying before the king and queen of Spain approved 2 million Spanish maravedis to fund the trip. A professor has calculated that would be comparable to about US$1,000,000 today.
The cost seems low to me. I’ll look at that more later.
Crew size was 87 according to this article. The accountant in me is driven to calculate the cost per crewman. That would give an average cost of $11,494. I’ll round that to $11,500 and ignore any adjustment for several crew members who died on the trip.
His trip took two months, nine days, which I calculate at 70 days (30+31+9).
1937 Hindenburg disaster shown on cover of magazine in 1950. Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.
A Niche in Time: “One of the Worst Catastrophes in the World”by Doug Messier at Parabolic Arc on 9/26/17describes the May 6, 1937 Hindenburg Zeppelin disaster than ended the age of passenger flights on rigid airships. More in a moment on the ticket prices for transatlantic travel.
Several factors led to the end of rigid airships. The disaster took out half of the Zeppelin fleet, the U.S. blocked export of helium so the German company had no choice but to use (and would have continued using) explosive hydrogen, fixed wing aircraft were emerging as an alternative (specifically the then-cutting edge DC-3), Zeppelin travel was more expensive than ocean liners, and the disaster destroyed public confidence in the Zeppelins.
Check out the full article for more details.
According to the article, here are some tidbits on the cost of travel to cross the Atlantic at the time on the luxurious, faster airships and slower cruise ships:
United will make a big deal of its final flight of a 747 on November 7 with retro uniforms for flight attendants, a stylized ‘70s menu, and entertainment fitting the era. Forbes reports on 9/19/17: The Boeing 747 Came In With a Bang And Now It Will Go Out With One.
Delta’s final international flight of a 747 was on September 7. Their final two domestic flights of the 747 were for evacuation of people in advance of Hurricane Irma.
Falcon 9 booster a fraction of second before successful recovery. Now *that* is rocket science. A few minutes earlier it was 120+ miles up in the air moving away from the recovery site. “Orbital Test Vehicle 5 Mission” by SpaceX is in the public domain (CC0 1.0)
Lots of fun articles in the last two months describing the wide open frontier of space exploration.
Ghana puts their first sat into orbit. Yes, Ghana. Very cool.
In the GPS world, Japan gets another sat in orbit and an Indian launch fails.
SpaceX may have more launches this year than Russia and one commentator thinks SpaceX will be dominant in the launch market for decades to come
7/8/17 – Behind the Black – Ghana launches its first satellite and 223 Live News, Ghana’s first Space Satellite enters Orbit – A cubsate built by university students in the western Africa country was launched from the ISS. The small satellite will take pictures of the country in low- and high-resolution. It will also be able to broadcast the national anthem and other music during national events.
Ghana is the first sub-Saharan country to get a satellite in space.
The sat went to the ISS on June 10 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9.
Another post has a comment on how much the DC-3 shrank travel time to cross the country. Here is a description of how much that beautiful bird cut the time:
The time for transit from New York to Washington and back home is described. For comparison, I’ll repeat the timing for a trip by William Sherman described in another book, which I mentioned a while back.
Here are the transit times:
43 days – New York to San Francisco via Isthmus of Panama – 1852
51 days – San Francisco to New York via Panama – 1854
198 days – New York to Monterey, California sailing around Cape Horn – 1847
West-bound trip
Lieutenant Grant’s unit was transferred from Michigan to the Washington territory.
At the time, there were three options for the trip. First was overland via the Oregon Trail. Second, sailing around Cape Horn at the tip of South America. Third, portage across the Isthmus of Panama.
Replica of a state-of-the-art warship in the 1800s. For a couple hundred years, this is the technology you would use to get across the ocean. Photo from San Diego Maritime Museum by James Ulvog.
There are a lot of data points on travel cost and travel time during the first half of the 1800s mentioned by Allen Guelzo in his fantastic book, Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President.
Here is the most amazing part:
Overall drop in cost to transport freight with canals, steamboats, and railroads (location 641):
95%
I want to accumulate some of these tidbits since I’m amazed at the radical change created by technology.
The time you have to invest getting from here to there is a major cost of travel. We are so astoundingly spoiled today since we can end our day anywhere in the U.S. starting from anywhere else. Within 24 or 30 hours you can get to just about any country on the planet.
We have to work to remember that speed is a relatively new development. For most of human history the huge time needed to get from here to there was a severe limit on travel and commerce.
For perspective, the maps are dawn in terms of travel time from New York City. I pulled together some of the travel times to show the improvements in speed.
Graph the inflation-adjusted cost of air travel over the last 33 years – it looks like a straight line down until a couple of years ago and then a slight increase. Average ticket prices today are about 60% of what they were in 1980. Cool.
While touring the Wells Fargo Museum in San Diego, I enjoyed their description of the Pony Express. Of course I had to convert the cost of mailing a letter to now.
According to the museum, the Pony Express ran from April 1860 to October 1861. From April 1861 until October, Wells Fargo ran the Pony route west of Salt Lake City. However, they set the rates and printed stamps for the entire cross-country run.
Wells Fargo reduced the rate to $2 per ½ ounce and then cut the rate further to $1 per ½ ounce.
In terms of average pay of the time, that is equal to about half a ticket to fly from Missouri to San Francisco today.
