Reading about old shipwrecks reminds one of how brave, or crazy — take your pick — sailors were back in the, say, late 1400s when Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue, all the way through the 1600s when sailing vessels were so flimsy, like timber boxes, so prone to sinking in high winds and high waves. Add to that, the fact that most sailors in that time period didn’t know how to swim. Not a good combo.In that time period, there was still no way to gauge the longitude. No weather forecasts were available on the smart phone. A category ...