Comments by "Luredreier" (@Luredreier) on "History Summarized: The Portuguese Empire" video.

Regarding that bit about those sails. It's a truth with modifications. Here in Norway both types of sail where in use for quite a bit of time. The thing is that you can tack up against the wind with a square sail rig, it's just not as efficient as with a gaff rig for instance. On the other hand it's more efficent with certain wind directions. The gaff rig also has some other advantages like not needing quite as big a crew. That economic aspect was probably more important for its adoption then its abilities in tacking (allthough that's also important). Another thing to keep in mind is that neither rig type is able to sail in all directions, even modern sailing ships can't sail directly against the wind.
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