We live in an exciting time in human history,
a time when the world has never been smaller,
a time when we can drive
sail
and fly
to almost anywhere.
We can even leave our planet.
How did this happen?
This is the incredible story
of our civilization's ceaseless desire to move.
I'm Sean Riley.
I've always been fascinated by speed.
Come with me on a journey
to better understand
the game-changing engineering,
courageous innovators.
Oh God, it really fights ya.
And the machines that take us further
higher and above all
faster.
Speeding over the earth's vast oceans
has shaped humanity.
It's led us to discover new lands,
interconnect cultures
and globalize our planet.
Our civilization developed on land.
But in terms of speed
we learned to conquer the oceans
long before we spread across the continents.
Whoo!
Now we're movin'.
Thanks to the ingenuity
and bravery
of intrepid pioneers.
This is exploration at it's greatest,
the epic story of traveling ever faster over the waves.
The journey begins at the dawn of humanity.
You stand on the beach and look out over the water
and it is impossible not to feel something in your heart,
awe, excitement, fear.
Now, imagine how our ancestors must have felt
not knowing what or if anything was out there.
Must have been pretty scary.
Some people say space is the final frontier today.
But back then this was the ultimate frontier.
And leaving the safety of land
heading out into the unknown
it had to have been terrifying.
It must have felt like any journey could be your last.
But brave the oceans they did.
Archeological evidence suggests our ancestors
were capable of building boats up to 800,000 years ago.
The wheel was invented less than 6,000 years ago.
Not surprisingly, the first boats are relatively simple.
They're just logs lashed together to make a raft.
But venturing out onto the ocean
with no idea what's out there,
that required humans to develop something more complex.
And a great example of one of those
early ocean going vessels is right here in Hawai'i.
Over 1,500 years ago humans first reach Hawai'i.
How they did it it is one of the greatest stories
of maritime exploration.
The volcanic chain of Hawai'ian islands
is one of the most remote places on earth.
But it's here in the Marquesas Islands
that the Polynesians are said to have begun
their incredible 2,000 mile journey to Hawai'i
a voyage as epic as it is courageous.
Why they set sail is still a mystery.
Maybe their islands are overpopulated,
maybe it's just out of curiosity.
Being out here, sailing with no motor on board
you just have the sound of the waves
and the wind in the sails, it's lovely.
But I know that standing here on deck
I'm just getting a taste of what it must have been like
to stand on a canoe and watch
your home island sink over the horizon
knowing that you might never see it again.
(upbeat drumming)
Building a fast boat is critical for the Polynesians.
With no idea if they'll find any land
and with limited supplies
these early sailors know
traveling quickly will give them
the best chance of survival.
To achieve the speeds they need
the Polynesian boat builders
develop a vessel with two hulls
known as a catamaran.
Catamarans are fast.
They sit high in the water radically reducing drag.
Working together the two hulls also increase stability.
So the Polynesians can push their boats to the edge
even in the roughest of seas.
The vessel's very different.
She sails really nicely.
You're open to the elements all the time.
Yeah.
We love her, ya know.
We're going pretty good.
How fast are we going?
Earlier we were going like 6 1/2 knots.
But know that we're going off the wind
we're going about four knots. Yeah.
Turned around, came about
and the wind filled the sails from the other direction
and we just started sailing off beautifully.
It's a dry boat, it handles really well and it's fast.
It's a testament to the original builders.
I mean, they knew what they were doing.
Oh they knew what they were doing.
Yeah. -: Yeah.
With limited island resources
the Polynesians come up with an inventive way
of constructing their extraordinary vessels.
With no nails or screws
they use only rope to hold their boats together.
The word catamaran actually means, tied wood.
So there's no nails, there's no fasteners.
There's no nails. -: On the whole canoe.
There's over six miles of lashing
holding all these pieces together.
And if you went with a knife and you started cutting it
it would just all fall apart.
I won't do that. (Bruce laughing)
Drawing on the Polynesian's inspired boat design
modern day catamarans
are capable of reaching astonishing speeds.
Sailing at over 50 miles per hour
these hyper-tuned multi-hulls
are traveling almost three times the wind speed,
a feat made possible by high tech sails,
engineered to optimize the force of the wind.
With hulls honed to keep drag to a minimum
these technological marvels literally fly over the water
accelerating far faster
than the wind that's propelling them.
The Polynesian's breakthrough in catamaran design
opens up the vast Pacific to their intrepid sailors.
They stock their fast, stable craft
with sweet potatoes, nuts and livestock.
And around the third century
the Polynesian migration begins.
Over a period of 800 years
Polynesian sailors explore
over 10 million square miles of ocean
and settle on every habitable island in the Pacific.
On land, settling a comparable area
takes humanity tens of thousands of years.
Going on a journey like that seems terrifying to us
because it is the unknown to us, it's a scary place.
But for these people they lived on the ocean.
That's right, they were oceanic people.
They had the skill and the knowledge and the courage
to keep going over the horizon.
The speed with which the Polynesians
traversed the open water
allows them to peacefully migrate across the Pacific.
But for other seafarers
swift moving vessels
are used for another reason entirely,
war.
The sight of a Viking ship approaching your coastline,
that'd be enough to strike terror
into the heart of even the bravest warrior.
In popular culture, the Vikings of Europe
are branded as Barbarian raiders.
But they're also arguably
one of the greatest seafaring civilizations
the world has ever seen
whose ships set a new benchmark
for speed.
I've come aboard the Saga Oseberg
an exact copy of a Viking ship.
That's over 300 pounds of sail going up right there.
Putting it up with the wind blowing
takes the entire crew.
The innovative design of these huge sails
makes Viking ships the fastest vessels of their time.
So this is a square sail. It's a square sail.
It's set in front of the mast, right.
So the wind needs to come more or less from behind.
It actually goes faster when we have
the wind from the side. Right.
Due to the shape of the sail.
Curved sails force air to move faster
over their front than their rear side
causing a difference in pressure,
pulling sail ships forward.
By supersizing sails the Vikings take full advantage
of the power of the wind
resulting in unprecedented speeds over water.
It's made for power.
It's built to cope with the heavy wind.
So with a huge sail like this it's kind of overpowered.
It's sort of like the sports car of its day, right.
There's a lot of power there.
You don't use it all the time
but if you need to put the pedal to the metal
you could really go.
So they start to reach out using these boats
and these big sails.
How far out do they go?
We know it went to Greenland, Iceland, England.
They traded to further, out into Asia.
They went to Istanbul, most of Europe
all over the place. Wow.
By the ninth century
the Vikings fast ships established them
as a dominant force in the Western world.
They also allow one Viking
to voyage far into the unknown.
Leif Erikson is the son
of the famous Norse explorer Erik the Red.
Intrigued by tales of mythical lands to the west
Erikson sets off on a bold mission to find them.
He knows the faster he travels
the greater the chances of achieving his goal.
Even a lack of wind isn't allowed to slow his progress.
Because Viking ships are so long and thin
they are incredibly hydrodynamic.
Muscle power alone is enough to propel them forward.
Rowing on a Viking ship
the rhythm has this lovely little pause in it, right there.
It's like a mini vacation.
And you take that every stroke.
And that's because these guys have no time to waste.
The wind doesn't work, they gotta go where they gotta go.
And that means they could be rowing all day
and all night for days on end.
If you're gonna do that you gotta have mini vacations.
(mid-tempo energetic drumming)
Erikson makes it to what we now know as North America
500 years before
Columbus makes his first transatlantic crossing.
What's always intrigued me about Erikson's journey
is how his ship maintains it's speed
while surviving the worst the Atlantic can throw at it.
How do the hulls withstand what can be
a very rough North Atlantic?
It's different kind of techniques used to set the hull.
The planks are connected to the inner part of the ship
using a bale from the whales.
Whale baleen. -: Yeah.
Inside the mouths of some whales
are thousands of long strands of baleen.
Made of keratin
it's the same substance as our outer skin and hair.
Whales use it to filter food from seawater.
To see how baleen can hold a ship together
I need to get into the guts of the Saga Oseberg.
Can I take these planks out?
Yeah, let's get some light in here.
So down here I'm looking at the rib.
Now this rib is tied to the outer planking
with whale baleen.
That's the only connection is just that baleen, that tie.
The Vikings heat up the whale baleen
allowing it to be stretched
into a length of strong springy cord.
These cords are then used to lash
each plank to the ship's skeleton.
The result is a vessel whose hull
can adapt to the movements of the water.
This is one of the aspects
that makes the Viking ships so successful, right.
Apart from the sail it's the flexibility of the hull.
Instead of banging into the waves
it can swim through the ocean.
That's what allows them to go so far and so fast.
When this boat starts to accelerate it really comes alive.
Look Sean, you see it.
The spiral of bubbles. -: Yeah.
We call it the green heel. Green heel.
Yeah.
We're moving fast.
The water's pushed under the heel of the ship
creating a turbulence.
And catching all the air that has been sucked under the hull
and it creates this heel radial.
It's a measurement for how good we are sailing the ship.
And are we doing well?
Right now, really good. -: Great.
Whoo!
Now we're movin'.
The ingenuity of the Vikings makes them master mariners.
And their iconic craft
will inspire almost a thousand years of sail ship design.
Flexible and streamlined Viking craft
rule the waves for centuries
until other ship builders improve on the design.
By adding more masts the 15th century carrack
can carry six sails.
Large fast and stable, the carrack sets a new benchmark
for long distance voyaging, ushering in global exploration
but also the trans-Atlantic slave trade.
With decks bristling with heavy iron weapons
the longer, lower and narrower 16th century galleons
are swift, maneuverable and deadly.
These purpose-built battle ships
dominate war at sea for over a century.
Sail ship design culminates in the clipper.
They are slim, lengthy, multi-masted
with an impressive spread of canvas.
Sailing all over the globe,
these rapid trade ships cover a remarkable 400 miles a day,
their sheer velocity shrinking the world below their prow.
By the 17th century the race is well and truly on
for the maritime powers of Europe.
England, France, Holland, Spain, Portugal
they're all duking it out on the waves
because they know whoever owns the ocean owns the world.
Traveling swiftly and safely across the oceans
now holds the key to a nation's prosperity.
Unlocking a bounty of riches beyond belief.
Riches fueled not my money
but by new commodities like sugar and spices.
Even today if you travel along the River Thames in London
it's easy to see the influence
that ocean trading has had on the city.
Now it's great to have these big stores of raw materials
but the only way to cash in on that
is to get them to market back in Europe.
And the best way to do that is to have your fastest ships
sailing the fastest routes.
But having the latest in fast ship design
doesn't amount to much if you get lost.
At the time, a ships position is calculated
using little more than guesswork,
a situation that can spell disaster.
So losing your way at sea, how bad can it get?
It could get as bad as it's possible to get really.
There's a case in 1707 when the British fleet,
the British Navy was coming up from Gibraltar
towards the English Channel.
After leaving Gibraltar the British fleets
sail north up the coast of Portugal and France.
But after weeks of being battered by storms
the ships are pushed off their planned course.
The navigators believe they are safe here in open water
when in fact they are really here,
hurdling towards a small group of islands
known as the Scilly's.
This is the most terrible place.
To this day it is a maelstrom of rocks and sharp reefs.
To be in amongst it is an unthinkable
well, a nightmare really.
Four of the British Navy's biggest warships
strike the rocks and sink.
Over 1,300 sailors lose their lives.
It's one of the worst disasters in British naval history.
It created such a stir in the establishment of Britain
that finally it was decided
that something had to be done about this navigation.
The catastrophe is blamed on the navigator's
having no way of calculating how far east or west they are
that is, their longitude.
So a board of longitude was formed
with a 20,000 pound prize,
$5 million dollars in today's money.
In the 17th century the theory of longitude
is well understood.
Navigators from this time imagined the sun
going 360 degrees around the earth in 24 hours.
From this they know that every hour difference
between where they set off and their current location
they've traveled 15 degrees east or west.
Out at sea sailors can determine their local time
by observing the sun at it's highest point
telling you it's noon.
But they have no idea what time it is back home.
They have no way of knowing the time difference
between their local position at sea
and the location that they set sail from.
So they can't calculate
how many degrees they've sailed east or west,
their longitude.
What the mariners needed was a chronometer
that would tell them the time accurately to the second
when they were out on the far reaches of the deep.
And if they have that they would know that longitude.
If they knew their longitude they had cracked
the problem of navigation.
Back then the most accurate time pieces
are pendulum clocks which prove useless on a rolling deck.
To solve the problem of longitude
sailors need an entirely new type of clock.
Everybody was tryin' for the prize.
Yeah but a man called Harrison
he was not a scientist he was an artisan.
Yeah.
Of the highest quality.
And he started working on clocks.
But creating a timepiece
that's not affected by temperature, humidity, corrosion
and a constantly moving ship doesn't prove easy.
Years become decades.
And still John Harrison can't build a clock
that's up to the task.
Finally in 1761, 30 years after he started
Harrison presents a working chronometer
to the British government.
This is a late example of a ship's chronometer
based on Harrison's work.
It's sitting here in it's little box.
It's all gimbaled, look.
So it can move with the movement of the ship.
He put proper bearings in so that things could move nicely.
In the springs he might put two metals together
so that they would expand and contract at different rates
and cancel each other out
so that the thing remained exactly as it should have been.
Harrison's accurate chronometer
revolutionizes naval navigation.
Sailors can finally pinpoint how far east or west they are.
Ships can now take quicker, safer routes
across the world's oceans.
This is what it's all about, right here.
This line in Greenwich, England
is the historic prime meridian.
This is longitude zero.
Every point on the planet
is measured in terms of distance
either to the east or the west of this line.
So if you have one of Harrison's chronometer's
set accurately to the time here
you know that for every hour of difference
you've moved 15 degrees around the surface of the planet.
The importance of Harrison's marine chronometer
can't be over stated.
Armed with his clocks ships crossed the ocean
faster than ever before.
His invention becomes a fundamental key
in opening up the modern age.
By the 19th century
seafaring voyages once considered too dangerous
or too ambitious are now commonplace.
The swiftest clippers can now cross
from the Americas to Europe in weeks rather than months.
But humanity's need for speed
demands we look beyond the sail.
Look at that, that's what I'm talkin' about.
300 tons of ship being pulled up out of the water.
Big projects, big engineering, big rigging.
This is my world.
By the early 1800s
the time has come for the next generation
of fast ships to hit the high seas.
It's thanks to an extraordinary technological explosion
that's happening on both sides of the Atlantic
that finally allows ships to break away
from their reliance on wind.
For those of us who love engineering
the industrial revolution is one of those
moments in time that captures the imagination,
at least it does for me.
That move to using machines,
well, it's one of the most important
turning points in human history.
The industrial revolution
is sparked by a miracle substance,
coal.
Out go horses, oxen, wood and waterwheels.
In come fast spinning machines
fed by hydrocarbon fuels.
Ships are now powered by steam and not wind.
With global domination of the seas at stake
the race is on to build the ultimate marine engine,
one that's smaller, lighter,
more efficient and above all faster.
And it's one of engineering's unsung heroes
and a personal favorite of mine
who ends up building the power unit
that will kickstart the age of the truly fast ship.
From an early age Charles A. Parsons
is fascinated by the idea of harnessing steam
as a way of powering engines.
In 1884 at the age of 30
Parsons designs a new type of fast,
spinning steam-driven motor.
Capable of generating huge amounts of energy
it's known as a turbine.
Parson's turbines immediately find use in power stations
making cheap and plentiful electricity a reality.
But it's the challenge of using his turbines to propel boats
that really captures his technological imagination.
Parsons builds what he believes
is the ultimate marine motor.
But there's a problem.
When Parsons uses his turbine engines
to spin a boat propellor
the blades spin so fast that vapor bubbles form around them.
It's an effect called cavitation
that drastically reduces the thrust.
Parsons tries again and again and again
to come up with a new screw propellor.
But he can't get around the problem of cavitation.
And then he has this idea:
to make the surface of the propellor blades larger.
Even a small increase in surface area
drastically improves the thrust that the prop generates
meaning the blades don't need to spin as quickly
so the adverse effects of cavitation are reduced.
It's a game changer.
Parsons names his boat the Turbinia.
With it's state of the art propulsion system
it hits a top speed close to 40 miles an hour,
the fastest boat ever seen.
Within a few years
thanks to Parson's innovations
power boats start to hit speeds previously unimaginable.
(dramatic lively orchestral music)
Today, Charles Parson's innovations
are embodied by H1 Unlimited hydroplanes
the fastest racing boats in the world.
These boats are so cool, right.
They are lean, mean machines.
There's not an ounce of fat on 'em.
It's all designed to do one thing and one thing only
and that is go really, really fast.
How fast have you gone?
The fastest I've been in this hull is 209 miles per hour.
209 miles an hour over the water.
Over the water.
We have a Chinook helicopter engine in the back.
And that is turning a 16 inch diameter prop.
It's just basically a giant engine
strapped to a tiny gas tank strapped to a seat, right.
Absolutely, yeah.
The drive unit pushes the H1's hydrodynamic hull so fast
that air is pulled underneath it
creating lift, reducing drag to almost zero.
The result, a race boat that skips
at phenomenal speed over the water's surface.
We designed the boats to get 'em up out of the water
and fly 'em above the water.
So we're actually flying six to 12 inches above the water
and we're controlling it like an airplane.
It's kinda half boat and half plane
and that's where we get our name hydroplane.
Charles Parsons would have definitely approved.
Being here, this close to the race course
is a visceral experience.
I mean, you can hear the slap of the boat on the water.
You can hear the whine of the turbine.
Look how fast they're going.
Those are some incredible machines.
By the 1900s turbines and propellors are firmly established
as the best way of powering ships.
But in their quest to dominate the waves
the engineers of that era
need their ships to not only be fast but massive.
To achieve that goal will take a revolutionary ingredient.
For the engineers of the time
iron is a dream come true.
It's strong in both tension and compression.
You can melt it, it's malleable.
You can form it into all sorts of great shapes.
It's kind of a magic material.
And when the industrial revolution
suddenly makes it available on a massive scale
well, it opens up a whole new world of possibilities.
Armed with iron, shipwrights are able to build vessels
bigger and stronger than ever before.
And a bold new period of ocean pioneering begins.
It's an era that's dominated by the ocean liner.
And for me just hearing those words
conjures up these images of these grand,
sleek, tall powerful ships,
vessels like the opulent RMS Lusitania.
At almost 800 feet in length
the Lusitania is the largest ship of it's time.
Driven by four Charles Parson designed turbines,
generating 76,000 horsepower
and with a hull made of lightweight high tensile steel
the Lusitania sets new records in speed
for such an enormous vessel,
topping out at around 30 miles per hour.
These huge, fast vessels make global mass transit a reality.
In America, between 1880 and 1930
more than 27 million immigrants arrive by ship.
And New York is transformed into one of the largest,
most multicultural cities on the planet.
And it's not just people.
Swift merchant ships transform the world
into one massive marketplace
signaling a new dawn of globalization.
Nowadays shipping accounts for a staggering
90% of world trade
with over 50,000 cargo ships
speeding across the oceans daily.
To keep these super sized cargo ships
running at full velocity without risk of collision
will take one more incredible spark of ingenuity.
(ominous slow synthesizer music)
Remarkably, the ability to know
where a ship is to within inches only happens by accident.
October, 1957 the Soviet union launches Sputnik 1.
Little more than a small beacon inside a tin can
Sputnik is the first artificial satellite
to orbit the earth.
In the U.S. two young scientists
set up a listening station
to try and pick up Sputnik's signal.
The men are research physicists
William Guier and George Weiffenbach.
When they listened to Sputnik's signal
they noticed tiny changes in its frequency.
By analyzing the shift Guier and Weiffenbach
realized they can calculate Sputnik's position
relative to their receiver
and so predict the satellite's path.
In a moment of inspiration
the physicists realize
that if they can work out where Sputnik is
they can also work out where they are on earth
with an incredible degree of precision.
In that moment GPS is born.
Today a constellation of over 30 navigational satellites
circle the earth.
By knowing the position and time
of at least three satellites
a GPS receiver can accurately pinpoint
a ship's location anywhere on the ocean waves.
Today, using GPS as part of a collision avoidance system
drastically reduces the chances of ships crashing
allowing the biggest ships to maintain maximum speed.
A thousand years on
from Polynesian's lashing their boats together
our desire to speed over water is as great as ever.
It's a desire that continues to push the limits
of what we can do on, over and under it,
to create futuristic vessels that one day
could give us all the opportunity to speed over the oceans.
What is this thing?
I mean, it's part speedboat, part dolphin, part submarine.
It's hard to categorize but it is very, very cool.
The Seabreacher is the latest development
in personal high speed aquatic craft.
Drawing inspiration from both
technological know-how and marine life.
Time to take one for a ride.
Okay, red button to stop.
To the right pedal, right pedal.
Little bit a throttle. This is awesome.
Punch it.
Got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it
more faster, faster, faster.
Craft like the Seabreacher
represent a dramatic breakthrough in boating technology.
Now I want you to go full circle.
(upbeat electronic dance music)
The Seabreacher's radical design
is based on the hydrodynamic shape of a dolphin.
Are you gettin' the hang of it?
Now I can do that.
This is awesome.
That is incredibly loud and there's so much going on.
I can't be afraid to use the gas
'cause you really have no control unless you're moving.
On the surface the Seabreacher can hit speeds
of over 50 miles an hour.
And below the waves this incredible machine
can speed at around 25 miles an hour.
And there's more.
That was funny. -: Whoo!
Currently the Seabreacher is only for recreation purposes
but it's speed and maneuverability
opens up its use to untold potential.
It's possible to see the future
in which we can all be zipping around
in our own personal watercrafts.
With so much of our planet submerged
our destiny will always be linked
to its vast expanses of water.
I've always loved the ocean.
Today I live on the edge of the Pacific
and I kayak on it and I sail on it
and I watch the sunset on it.
And when I do, I feel the same deep pull to the open ocean
that humans before me have felt for centuries.
My voyage over the waves has made me realize
that this elemental pull fuels humanity's need
to race ever faster over water
giving us survival, exploration,
technology,
prosperity.
This is our story of speed.
(dramatic lively orchestral music)