Posted by Magnus Smith on June 13, 2014 at 04:39:36 user Magnus.
I had a little idea last night, but I lack the time to execute it. Perhaps some other geeky/obsessed type of Tarboardian would like to carry it out? If you love S&A stats, that is.
I was pondering how Swallow is both a sailing boat and a rowing boat, and that the crew had to row whenever there was no wind. I wondered how often they had to do this, according to each journey described in the book(s).
I was even thinking of plotting each journey on the endpaper map, to calculate total distance rowed (native miles!) versus distance sailed. Certainly they often had to row for milk, and rowed the time they collected firewood off the island, and when John spoke to Capt Flint...perhaps there are more occasions.
I confess that this curiosity grew from worrying about the boat trips that I offer to people in the movie 'Swallow': I fret about the wind being too little to give people a great day's sailing....but I ought to take comfort from the fact that the fictional Swallow was rowed nearly as often(???) as she was sailed.