Research! It's FUN

[annathepiper]

So I've got me a setting in this book where Point A is fifty miles upriver from Point B. On the assumption that transport by ship will get my characters from Point A to Point B faster than transport by horse, I have been wandering around Wikipedia looking up data on assorted flavors of sailing ship, average speeds of same, what a nautical mile is, and such. I've also been wandering around looking for data on horses, for comparison purposes.

And I just found Wikipedia's entry on the Equus family, which includes a critter called the Onager, and which is sometimes referred to as the "Half Ass".

I shall never again think of doing a half-assed job quite the same way.

Comments

[kathrynelaraine.livejournal.com]

I did similar research for my story (the horse transportation end, and found the "half-ass" I have since never used that expression, lol :) )

Sounds like you had too much fun!

Hope the writting is going smoothly!

[annathepiper]

No new writing yet, actually--I've been working on planning for this chapter for the last two nights. I've realized that what happens in this chapter is going to be a big piece of what sets the stage for the rest of this particular book if not the entire story arc. So I've been having to put a LOT of thought into what my bad guys are about to do, even aside from the little bits of research I've also been doing.

But I had a great little brainstorm session with mizkit tonight, and I am about to sleep on it, so we'll see what I come up with in the morning. :)

[kaseido.livejournal.com]

nifty!

I never knew....

See your half-ass and raise you a capybara (http://www.johncartermcknight.com/Photos/capybara.htm) -

[annathepiper]

Oh cool! I think I'd heard of those critters at some point, for the word is familiar, but I don't recall ever seeing pictures. :)

[kaseido.livejournal.com]

mmm, if you're a fan of The Tick cartoon, you might remember Speak, the capybara -which is where I came across them, AFAIK. World's largest rodent...

[annathepiper]

Ah! Come to think of it, this does ring vague bells in the back of my memory. :) It's been a while since I've seen that cartoon!

[kieri.livejournal.com]

Only 50 miles? Upstream? It'd be a push whether or not the river was faster, depending largely on how good the roads are and what sort of power the boat on the river was using. If it's oars, and they have enough men to row pretty much constantly, it'd probably take about the same. If they can use some sort of mechanism (like steam paddles) it'd be faster.

A horse & rider can do 30 miles in a day if they're not heavily encumbered and the roads are passable. If the roads are very good they could do 50 in a day, but it'd be late and they'd be damn tired. :)

[annathepiper]

I am assuming that most ships in this culture are still sailing vessels. Although the 'feel' of the culture in my head is edging along far enough that they could be coming up with steam-powered ships in the next couple of decades of their timeline, my brain is telling me 'not quite yet'. At most, if there are any steam-powered ships at all, I'm pretty sure they wouldn't be in the locale I'm writing about since it's one of the outlying provinces of the country in question.

My characters need to get downstream, not upstream, so the current would be in their favor, yes? Though it would be also appropriate to not necessarily assume that the wind would be in their favor, yeah.

I suppose that I should think a bit more about the geography of the area in question and decide how far a journey it is from Point A to Point B by road. Since Point A is a good-sized town and Point B is a major seaport, it would seem reasonable to me that there should be decent roads between them. It hasn't been a detail I've had to settle in the story yet, so it hasn't come up before now!

[kieri.livejournal.com]

Ah, downstream is no problem. Boat would definitely be faster, because they're moving even when not under power -- ie, oars, or sails or the wind or whatever.

Depending on the size and depth of said river, sails might not be awfully useful. The wind tends to be a lot less reliable inland, and it tends to blow off the sea anyway. (So it'd be useful going upriver, for instance, but less useful going down.)

[annathepiper]

Okay, good to know. :) Thanks!

[chamois-shimi.livejournal.com]

And it'd be a one-shot day, too! Can't ask the horse to do that for days on end, or the thing'll founder or something. :P

[annathepiper]

Yeah, the Googling I was doing was saying the average horse could do 25-30 miles in a day. Which is why I was leaning more towards the ship idea--partly a matter of speed and partly a matter of providing less opportunity to my heroes, who have been taken prisoner, opportunity to escape. ;)

[chamois-shimi.livejournal.com]

This is kind of interesting "France as being twenty-two days wide and nineteen days long" heh- scroll down to the travel/england, travel times sections: http://www.kathylynnemerson.com/guide.html

The Long Riders Guild website makes reference to a bet someone made in the 1800s- travel 800 miles in less than 8 days, and he won it, but he killed three horses and two mules doing it. So, well, in desperation, I suppose many things are possible!

Well, here's a source I didn't think of- the Bible. Travel times for camel caravans, groups of folks with livestock, huh! http://abr.christiananswers.net/jebel_thoughts.html

And when Lewis and Clark were hauling their boats upriver, they were doing good to make 14 miles a day. On the way home, they could do 75 miles on a good day. Yay for current!

Pacific Crest Trail equestrian info says a good pace is 20 miles per day for 6 days followed by a day of rest. That's with sometimes pretty mountainous terrain. Here's the link- there's stuff on weight for packhorses and things too. http://www.pcta.org/planning/equestrian.asp

interesting quote from the southwestern historical quarterly: "the cheap class of horses, which, though able to travel twenty-five or twenty-eight miles per day, would fail within a few hours if ridden at the rate of thirty-five miles per day."

Waterloo gaming stuff has interesting movement rules: http://www.fortunecity.com/underworld/corridors/329/Campaign_Rules.htm

May not be useful right now, but I sure bookmarked it: http://bnrg.eecs.berkeley.edu/~randy/Courses/CS39C.S97/beginning/beginning.html

Stern-wheelers took 7 weeks to travel 3,000 miles upstream on the Mississippi, only two and a half weeks downstream.

from http://www.earlychicago.com/encyclopedia.php?letter=k
"keelboat: a large flat boat used early on the rivers, carrying from 20 to 30 tons; usually manned by 10 hands, including a steersman and a captain or master or "patroon" [Canadian jargon]; could maneuver the Chicago portage during favorable water conditions; upstream travel was tedious and time-consuming, the trip from New Orleans to Louisville, KY - a distance by river of 1,500 miles, took from three to six months, rowing and staking most of the way, sometimes supported by a sail, if conditions were right."


OK, I'm going to bed now, no more being sucked in by interesting web searches. Wish I could have found more on river travel.

[annathepiper]

OH COOL. Thank you for a most excellent collection of links. :)

Boat-vs-horse

[(Anonymous)]

In this instance, I'd bet on the boat-it doesn't have to stop, horses will..to get water and food. Assuming no hidden hazards(like sandbars or something for the boat to run into),I'd go with the boat. Too many novels treat horses like trucks, something to load up and just drive..but if I'm not mistaken, they need frequent breaks..thus sayeth Laura Reynolds, who owns a horse...Scott

Re: Boat-vs-horse

[annathepiper]

Yes, the "your horse is not a motorcycle" problem is something I've seen decried before, and it's something I will need to be careful to watch out for when I start editing this book.

The river in question is a long and well-travelled river, the major waterway in the province. Trade goods are sent up and down it all the time between the seaport at its mouth (the aforementioned Point B), and the towns further up its length. So all of its details such as sandbars and the like will be well-known to any boat or ship captains who regularly travel it.

[cafiorello.livejournal.com]

An onager is also a type of catapult, because of the kick!

http://www.legionxxiv.org/warlordonager/

One learns many interesting things from Carl....

Cathy

[annathepiper]

Heh! That's funny! And if there's anybody I'd trust to know about catapults, it would indeed be Carl!

[tinlail.livejournal.com]

See what a stagecoach can do. I think they were good for about 50 miles a day, based on the spread of cities in the southwest.

[annathepiper]

I thought about a stagecoach, yeah. Not sure yet. The situation I have is that my hero and his partner have been taken prisoner and the priest who's to oversee them is supposed to convey them to Point B, which is the nearest major city, to turn them over to the proper authorities. I'm weighing the nuances of the situation and trying to decide which would be the most appropriate means of transport, given the tech I have to work with, the rank of the prisoners, and the rank of the priest conveying them. Fairly important guys on all counts--not really a scenario where you'd just clap the prisoners in irons and toss 'em into the hold of the next barge going downriver. :)

Also pertinent to the situation is that the priest has recently been wounded, so he'd be mindful of this when arranging his travel--he'd be wanting something that would allow for speed and comfort.

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

What kind of important are they? The kind of important whereby it's politically useful to display the fact that you've captured them to anybody you may happen to pass on the road to Point B? Or the kind of important whereby it's a political liability to be seen ill-treating them? Is the captor concerned about creating martyrs? Inflaming public sentiment? Making an example of upstarts? Calling his superior's attention to his success at the hunt?

Two oversimplifications:
Horse=Display.
Boat=Concealment.

[annathepiper]

Oooooh... extremely good questions.

The extremely short answer to this is that my hero and his partner--my hero especially, for assorted reasons--are important in the vein of 'it would be Uncomfortable if they were seen to be publically mistreated'.

However, after the brainstorm I had with Kit last night, I need to do a bit of writing first before I get to the point where the actual transport needs to happen. My bad guys are driving events in this chapter--and I need to satisfy myself as to what exactly their motivations are before I can properly address what exactly they're going to do. And I'm having this impulse of 'go ahead and write the scene and see what the characters are telling me', which has led me through nearly 400 words so far tonight. ^_^

Your questions crystallize a lot of the things I need to figure out very nicely--thank you!