Most Important Advancement to Sailing?

[Alan Wheeler]

I am Sad to say this, but it would have to be Oil. And no it's not just the fact we would have no fuel or lubrication. Besides, there are enough alternatives for those purposes.

But without Oil, most of the synthetics for cloths and thus the new sail technology wouldn't exist, along with many of the new technology ropes that have tremendouse strength and nice to handle.
Resins wouldn't exist, so we wouldn't have glassfibre boats and a lot of the water resistant and super strong glues and fillers would be gone.
We wouldn't have the specialist paints, so Steel boats would be harder to keep rust free.
No plastics for Instruments, so they would be the old heavey metal cases. The list goes on and on. There are very few products that we use today, that are not in someway totaly reliant on the existance of oil, to exist themselves.

[Alan Wheeler]

What the blazes happend there. Three posts????
Sorry guy's, my computor must have had a brainfart.

[Boracay]

What about epoxy? Can't go cruising without epoxy!

[Alan Wheeler]

And Epoxy is made from Petroleum Distilates, or Oil.

[Strygaldwir]

Important innovations that promote sailing:

Mapmaking

Fiberglass

Synthetic sails

Synthetic lines

GPS

VHF radio

EPIRB

Rum

[Starbuck]

Alan, you have identified the grandparent of all this synthetic brood, are so are quite correct, though oil itself isn't a technologcal advancement. It's a resource that has been around for a long tme. Technology is what one does with the resource: all those nice things you mention.

Everything you list directly impacts the area of strengh and weight (and secondarily, ease of maintenance), and it is easy to see how that (higher strength, lighter, synthetic materials) has changed sailing.

All because we've discovered the many uses for oil.

[GordMay]

To quote Jon Stewart: “Why did God have to put our oil there? It would be just as delicious if were in New Jersey.”

The question was "what is the most important advancement in sailing?" The answer is clear, navigational aids such as Loran, SatNavs, and most importantly GPS. GPS technology has brought ocean voyaging within reach of many who do not belong out there. The age old mistique and fear of the unknown was long perpetuated by the dark art of celestial navigation. This kept a lot of weekend warriors in their 16' runnabouts, and off of cruising vessels. While I admit, I am of the belief that, at least the basics of celestial navigation should be learned by every sailor who leaves the dock, I am far more likely to by a spare GPS than I am a spare sextant.

[Thermal]

So, some electronic gadgets that results in "many who do not belong out there" being out there is an advancement?

Absolutely! Darwinism at it's finest!