# Speed of Walking vs. Riding vs. Sailing **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 23, 2011, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speed-of-walking-vs-riding-vs-sailing/603844 "2011-11-23T04:06:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![by-tor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/by-tor/32/266_2.png) [@by-tor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/by-tor)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2011, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speed-of-walking-vs-riding-vs-sailing/603844/1 "2011-11-23T04:06:19Z")
Hi. I am trying to figure out how much faster traveling by a non-modern wooden, wind powered ship would be, compared to covering approximately the same distance by horse and then compared to walking. I realize that it would depend on the design of the ship, and how fast you rode the horse etc. Just assume a normal pace and that the ship isn’t amazingly sleek or modern. I just need a guess of the range of speeds and distances coverable over say, one week of travel. Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2011, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speed-of-walking-vs-riding-vs-sailing/603844/2 "2011-11-23T04:56:03Z")
Anything worthy of being called a ship would have a crew capable of keeping it moving 24/7, which on long trips gives a huge advantage over modes of transport that involve traveling only in daylight. For rough numbers, figure a slow ship does 120 miles per day for as long as you like. At a guess, an average horse carrying a rider can perhaps do 50 miles per day for a week, and an average person on foot can probably manage 20 miles per day for that time. ---
**Author:** ![gazpacho](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6f9a4e/32.png) [@gazpacho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gazpacho)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2011, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speed-of-walking-vs-riding-vs-sailing/603844/3 "2011-11-23T05:09:43Z")
120 miles per day is as good an estimate for ships as you are going to get with out narrowing things down. That is 5 mph 24/7. The trans Atlantic record from 1905 to 2002 was 11.8 miles per hour for the trip. This was a boat purpose built to make the trip fast with little concern for cargo or comfort and it was going from america to Europe and as such had favorable winds and currents. > **[Atlantic (yacht)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_(yacht))** > > The Atlantic was built in 1903 by Townsend and Downey shipyard, and designed by William Gardner, and Frederick Maxfield Hoyt (yacht designer) for Wilson Marshall. The three-masted schooner was skippered by Charlie Barr who was accompanied by navigator and tactician Frederick Maxfield Hoyt when it set the record for fastest transatlantic passage by a monohull in the 1905 Kaiser's Cup race. The record remained unbroken for nearly 100 years. > Her speed and elegance have made her the subject of a bo... 20 miles per day is a pretty aggressive pace if you need to carry things like food and shelter. When I went backpacking as a fit young man we planned for 7 miles a day. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2011, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speed-of-walking-vs-riding-vs-sailing/603844/4 "2011-11-23T16:39:54Z")
If you’re trying to get from Town A to Village B, traveling by horse & by foot will (probably) take the same route. Even if both are harbor towns, the ship will take a different route. Route differences can be huge. From Gibralter to Tangier taking a ship \*across \*the mouth of the Med is gonna be a lot shorter than riding a horse \*around \*the Med through Turkey. Conversely, getting from Barcelona to Santander (Both on the coast of Spain near the French border) is about 300 miles overland \*through \*the Pyrenees vs. about 1500 miles by sea \*around \*the entire Iberian penninsula. Finally, wind-powered ships need to tack to go upwind. For boats with modern fore-and-aft rigs this can increase the distance traveled by about 1.5x. For old square-rigged ships, the difference can be 8 or 10x. In other words, sail 10 miles across the water to make one mile of progress upwind towards the destination. All the above considerations don’t affect the actual speed of the mode of transport. But they sure affect what travelers \*really \*care about: How soon am I gonna get there? ---
**Author:** ![Hello\_Again](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/85e7bf/32.png) [@Hello\_Again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hello_Again)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2011, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speed-of-walking-vs-riding-vs-sailing/603844/5 "2011-11-23T17:31:19Z")
Horses can trot 8-10 miles an hour, walk 4-5 miles an hour, and can continue at a mixed walk-trot pace all day for several days, assuming they are in good health, get rest and feed and water each day, are accustomed to such work, and that the footing is not rocky and reasonably level. ---
**Author:** ![Walther\_Ego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8dc957/32.png) [@Walther\_Ego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walther_Ego)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2011, 8:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speed-of-walking-vs-riding-vs-sailing/603844/6 "2011-11-24T08:54:30Z")
The crucial difference is uncertainty. Smaller vessels could try tacking, large square-rigged ships would stay at port until they have favourable wind. The type of ship would affect even more that the type of mount or person. But weather conditions would affect even more. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2011, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speed-of-walking-vs-riding-vs-sailing/603844/7 "2011-11-24T13:09:49Z")
Well, the [Cutty Sark](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cutty_sark) once made it from Australia to Britain in 67 days, entirely under sail, and her best recorded daily speed (i.e., speed averaged over the course of one day) was 28 km/hr (that is about 17.4mph). That was in the 19th century, but in sailing ship terms the Cutty Sark was indeed very “sleek and modern”, being one of the last sailing vessels built for commerce, and a record breaker, very much optimized for speed, so I don’t know if it is quite what you want. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2011, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speed-of-walking-vs-riding-vs-sailing/603844/8 "2011-11-24T17:42:25Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Conversely, getting from Barcelona to Santander (Both on the coast of Spain near the French border) is about 300 miles overland \*through \*the Pyrenees vs. about 1500 miles by sea \*around \*the entire Iberian penninsula. The route from Barcelona to Santander would never go “through the Pyrinees” (unless you happened to have business in Lyon or Avignon), more like “up the Ebro River”, for a distance of some 450 miles. Longer, but actually walkable (and, in Roman times, you could sail upriver to thereabouts of Logroño, although you would stop at night - by the late Middle Ages this wasn’t doable any more). ---
**Author:** ![mac\_bolan00](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b3f665/32.png) [@mac\_bolan00](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mac_bolan00)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2011, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speed-of-walking-vs-riding-vs-sailing/603844/9 "2011-11-25T02:54:07Z")
the fastest sail vehicles can top 90 miles per hour but that’s with blades done on fozen lakes and rivers. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2011, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speed-of-walking-vs-riding-vs-sailing/603844/10 "2011-11-25T04:16:11Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > in sailing ship terms the Cutty Sark was indeed very “sleek and modern”, being one of the last sailing vessels built for commerce Sleek she was, but she was built in 1869, and was thus a very long way from being among the last sailing vessels built for commerce. Much later examples include the [_Magdalene Vinnen II_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedov), built in 1921 (and still afloat as the _Sedov_), and the [_Padua_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Padua_%28ship%29), built in 1926 (now known as the _Kruzenshtern_). ---
**Author:** ![appleciders](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85f322/32.png) [@appleciders](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/appleciders)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2011, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speed-of-walking-vs-riding-vs-sailing/603844/11 "2011-11-25T04:30:12Z")
> [@Xema](#): > > Sleek she was, but she was built in 1869, and was thus a very long way from being among the last sailing vessels built for commerce. Much later examples include the [_Magdalene Vinnen II_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedov), built in 1921 (and still afloat as the _Sedov_), and the [_Padua_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Padua_%28ship%29), built in 1926 (now known as the _Kruzenshtern_). OK, but the Cutty Sark was built for the Tea Races, and so speed was a much larger concern than average tons hauled per year, or per dollar. Later sailing ships might be built to take drastically more cargo at the expense of a little speed, or in order to be crewed by fewer hands. The Cutty Sark was as optimized for speed as a cargo ship could possibly be at the time. ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2011, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speed-of-walking-vs-riding-vs-sailing/603844/12 "2011-11-25T19:22:23Z")
> [@appleciders](#): > > the Cutty Sark was built for the Tea Races, and so speed was a much larger concern than average tons hauled per year, or per dollar. Later sailing ships might be built to take drastically more cargo at the expense of a little speed But it fact later ships were not only larger but faster. Perhaps the outstanding example was the _Pruessen_ (built in 1902) which managed as much as 426nm in 24 hours. The _Cutty Sark_’s best was 360nm (which is certainly far from bad). > [@](#): > > The Cutty Sark was as optimized for speed as a cargo ship could possibly be at the time. No argument there. But it’s scarcely surprising that the start of the art improved over the next 50 years.