Nagasaki to Lisbon via Spice Route by boat

[ketsudan]

I am writing a short story, and a small detail that I need is how long it took a ship (typically one of the larger ships during the 1600s) to travel from Nagasaki to Lisbon using this trade route.

Comments

[nuranar]

Just to clarify - you're wanting information on how long it would take to sail a seventeenth century ship over the Spice Route in the nineteenth century?

[ketsudan]

I'm sorry, I should have probably made this more clear and double checked the years those ships were used... I'm wanting to know how long it would take to sail those ships within the eras that they were commonly used, so, not modern times. Sorry, I didn't mean to confuse!

[nuranar]

No worries! I know it was a *really long time*, but no specifics. Clipper ships were about the fastest sailing cargo ships ever, so 19-th century comparisons won't be very helpful. Also, you might want to narrow it down further. Shipbuilding progressed an immense amount from the 1500s to the 1700s. Early Portuguese trading ships and Spanish galleons would be much slower than Pirates of the Caribbean-era traders and warships. :)

[ketsudan]

True; so if those ships from the 17 and 1800s moved about eight or so knots according to that one site, I can assume those from the 1600s moved anywhere from... two to maybe four or five at best? And the larger cargo ships designed to hold hundreds of tons of cargo would move even slower?

[duckodeath]

Yeah, I'm confused too. What century are you talking about here? The trade route existed in the 16th century (1500s) and 17th century (1600s) so I'm not sure why you are looking at tags for the 19th century (1800s).

If it's in the 17th century, which I think is what you really mean from the context, the ship would be entirely dependent on the wind and current for speed, and since longitude had not been discovered, navigation would be extremely iffy in all but the best weather conditions. I would think between one thing and another it would take 8 months to a year if shipwreck, pirates, and disease didn't kill everyone first. I would also think the 8 knots is pretty generous and refers only to ideal sailing which would not be that often.

[duckodeath]

Yes, I'm so cool replying to myself.

I just found this link http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~vaucher/Genealogy/Documents/Asia/EuropeanExploration.html with this specific information which is referenced from the book The Portuguese empire, 1415-1808:
a world on the move by A.J.R. Russell-Wood:

On the Goa-Japan run, captains would leave Goa in April or May to arrive in Macao in June or August where they would stay as little as a few weeks or as much as a year if they missed the south-west monsoon in the China Sea or the biannual (June & january) silk fair at Canton. Favorable winds to Japan blew in June-August and the trip took 2-4 weeks. In late October or November, the onset of the north-east monsoon permitted the return trip at any time until the following March. Under ideal conditions the Goa-Japan return trip was 6 months. All in all, a sailor leaving Lisbon for a round trip to Japan could be gone anywhere between 18

[ketsudan]

Oh, wow, that is a long trip! Thank you for finding that!

And thanks for being patient with my post and I'm sorry for confusing people... I'll go back and clarify, because rereading that, it is pretty confusing. Especially since I really didn't make sure to see when it was used. I assumed that after Japan reopened itself to foreigners after it's isolation period, the same routes the Portuguese used before that time were just used again.

[nuranar]

That would be a fair assumption, except that the Suez Canal was opened in I think the late 1860s. 1868, maybe? So the routes could funnel through the Mediterranean instead of taking the long way around Africa. And with the advent of steamships in the mid-1800s, trade was no longer dependent upon sailing ships. It really was a whole different ballgame. So I'm afraid the more modern trade examples really won't be a helpful comparison. :)

[reconditarmonia]

Yeah, what? Why would a ship traveling in 1870-90 use a 16th-century route? Why would either of those require you to look up the speed of seventeenth-century ships?

Somewhat relatedly, "1800s" is not a good search term: at the beginning of the 1800s you have the heyday of the Age of Sail for warships, but a lot of trade ships to the Far East are still slow and not always well handled. By your period, you've got super-fast clipper traders like the Cutty Sark and Flying Cloud, but you also have steam-powered vessels, meaning that both time and route are going to be different.

[ketsudan]

Ah, that is true. I should have probably double checked my dates... well, this means that I'll need to go back and edit a lot of details then, if not the whole time period. Thank you for pointing these errors out to me. Sorry again about all of this.

[reconditarmonia]

Not only might routes be less dependent on prevailing winds because of steam power, there were also, as noted above, actually new routes like the Suez Canal. Anyway, I hope you'll post again when you know more about what you're looking for - I'm always happy to help with nautical questions.

[ketsudan]

Thanks again, and I will! Of course, I could also go the library; I have been meaning to for a while now.

MOD NOTE

[kutsuwamushi]

Please edit your post to remove the strikethrough tags.

Re: MOD NOTE

[ketsudan]

Oh, sorry! I'll do that right now.

[stormwreath]

For an actual historical example: the first Dutch voyage to Japan left the Netherlands on 21 December 1607 and arrived at Bantam in Java on 15 February 1609. Some of the ships remained there, but two of them continued on and reached Japan on 2 July 1609. Total voyage time, one and a half years