# Which Way Did They Go? \[Vanished explorers\]

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-way-did-they-go-vanished-explorers/561357>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [November 20, 2010, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-way-did-they-go-vanished-explorers/561357 "2010-11-20T19:15:56Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![FrankieDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frankiedee/32/88_2.png) [@FrankieDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FrankieDee)\
**Post date:** [November 26, 2010, 11:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-way-did-they-go-vanished-explorers/561357/41 "2010-11-26T11:14:08Z")

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_When they didn’t come back, it wasn’t like ‘Famous Explorer Disappears On Voyage Of Discovery!’ It was more like, ‘Oh, Captain Llama didn’t come back. Too bad.’ Nobody ever heard of them because they didn’t come back._  
I think this is closest to the answer I was looking for. If I am reading this right, it says that usually it was no big deal if someone set sail in say, 1515, and by 1530 or so, had not returned, By then, they were most likely forgotten.  
Thanks for the great stories. I’ll have to read The Discoverers.

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**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\
**Post date:** [November 26, 2010, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-way-did-they-go-vanished-explorers/561357/42 "2010-11-26T15:17:31Z")

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> [@FrankieDee](#):
>
> _When they didn’t come back, it wasn’t like ‘Famous Explorer Disappears On Voyage Of Discovery!’ It was more like, ‘Oh, Captain Llama didn’t come back. Too bad.’ Nobody ever heard of them because they didn’t come back._  
> I think this is closest to the answer I was looking for. If I am reading this right, it says that usually it was no big deal if someone set sail in say, 1515, and by 1530 or so, had not returned, By then, they were most likely forgotten.  
> Thanks for the great stories. I’ll have to read The Discoverers.

In the sixteenth century, meeting disaster at sea was by no means an uncommon occurence. Storms could sink even the best built ship, there were rocks, reefs and shoals to run aground on, scurvy would inevitably occur when the crew had gone long enough without fresh food, and a lot of places had unfriendly natives. And this was on known routes; double the risk when exploring uncharted waters.

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