WEBVTT - How the Invention of Rope Gave Us Modern Civilization 0:00:02.720 --> 0:00:15.880 Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News. 0:00:18.520 --> 0:00:22.560 Hello and welcome to another episode of The Odd Lots Podcast. 0:00:22.640 --> 0:00:25.600 I'm joll Wisenthal and I'm Tracy Alloway, Terracy. 0:00:25.680 --> 0:00:28.120 You know, it's something I've been thinking a lot about lately, 0:00:28.280 --> 0:00:30.479 especially like this year, just sort of like something on 0:00:30.560 --> 0:00:34.280 my mind, a CoA on everyone's mind. Actually, it's not 0:00:34.680 --> 0:00:37.600 just me. It's just like the extraordinary amount of rope 0:00:37.640 --> 0:00:41.240 it must have taken for wailing expeditions in the mid 0:00:41.479 --> 0:00:45.760 nineteenth century has depicted in a story such as Moby 0:00:45.800 --> 0:00:47.800 Dick and others, like just think about how much rope 0:00:47.800 --> 0:00:48.320 that requires. 0:00:48.440 --> 0:00:50.680 Is this whole episode an excuse for you to talk 0:00:50.680 --> 0:00:51.440 about Moby Dick. 0:00:51.760 --> 0:00:54.680 It's not, but it is, But it is. No, No, 0:00:54.880 --> 0:00:55.840 it's genuinely you. 0:00:55.760 --> 0:00:58.560 Know, one thing I learned actually in the course of 0:00:58.680 --> 0:01:02.680 researching this particular topic, which happens to be rope. The 0:01:02.720 --> 0:01:07.160 whale that apparently inspired Moby Dick was called Mocha Dick. 0:01:07.360 --> 0:01:07.600 Yeah. 0:01:07.640 --> 0:01:11.720 And also Dick was basically like saying Joe back then 0:01:12.120 --> 0:01:14.440 every Tom Dick and Harry, right, you hear that? So 0:01:14.560 --> 0:01:16.720 really the Moby Dick whale was Moka Joe. 0:01:17.040 --> 0:01:18.920 Oh, that's right. You know, it's funny. I used to 0:01:18.959 --> 0:01:20.800 go to a coffee shop with Bradaboro vermont Na. 0:01:20.880 --> 0:01:23.800 Moka Joe's didn't have a whaling theme. It didn't, but 0:01:23.840 --> 0:01:26.639 there's at least opportunity collicially you did that. 0:01:26.520 --> 0:01:29.320 Apparently, from what I understand, I also at one point 0:01:29.360 --> 0:01:31.279 went down this like where did this name come from? 0:01:31.640 --> 0:01:35.240 I think Dick is in Moby Dick even then carry 0:01:35.360 --> 0:01:37.080 the sort of contemporary connotation. 0:01:37.240 --> 0:01:39.000 Oh really, yeah, it was like sort of like tough. 0:01:39.120 --> 0:01:40.120 He was a jerk whale. 0:01:40.319 --> 0:01:43.880 No, like sort of like masculine. Oh like you know, 0:01:44.040 --> 0:01:45.840 like that. It was sort of like that. 0:01:45.959 --> 0:01:48.120 It even back then sort of was this sort of 0:01:48.320 --> 0:01:51.320 that was a masculine name for reasons that one would 0:01:51.400 --> 0:01:52.200 associate it. 0:01:52.720 --> 0:01:54.320 I'm not gonna say anything else. 0:01:54.760 --> 0:01:56.960 That's fine anyway, but it's interesting to think you think 0:01:56.960 --> 0:01:59.560 about the history of technologies, et cetera. 0:02:00.200 --> 0:02:01.520 We did an episode on. 0:02:01.520 --> 0:02:03.800 The history of nails and how crucial that was to 0:02:03.840 --> 0:02:06.640 the economy, and you think, like, here's this one technological 0:02:06.680 --> 0:02:08.840 breakthrough some like unlock, and then it. 0:02:08.800 --> 0:02:10.440 Opens up all of these kinds of things. 0:02:10.480 --> 0:02:14.040 So whales were very important for like whale oil and candles, 0:02:14.040 --> 0:02:17.480 et cetera. But like, what were the technologies that preceded 0:02:17.720 --> 0:02:20.040 whaling and you literally could not do it? And of 0:02:20.040 --> 0:02:22.240 course that's just one example, but there are all kinds 0:02:22.280 --> 0:02:25.680 of technologies things that you do that are economically productive. 0:02:26.160 --> 0:02:29.120 I remember in school we learned about like simple machines 0:02:29.160 --> 0:02:30.800 like the pulley, oh yeah, and stuff like that. 0:02:30.960 --> 0:02:32.519 But you can't have a pully without rope. 0:02:33.040 --> 0:02:35.800 That's true for real, like the pully. 0:02:35.520 --> 0:02:38.520 When I was in elementary school, But no one bothered 0:02:38.520 --> 0:02:40.560 mentioning when I was in elementary school that the pulley 0:02:40.560 --> 0:02:42.520 would have been useless technology without rope to. 0:02:42.480 --> 0:02:45.640 Put the rope itself is the technology behind the technology. 0:02:46.080 --> 0:02:48.640 This one's an interesting one because I think when you 0:02:48.680 --> 0:02:51.400 say the word rope, people think of something, you know, 0:02:51.560 --> 0:02:55.359 old fashion, like rope is Lindy just a bundles of cords, right, 0:02:55.480 --> 0:02:58.240 But actually, as we were about to discuss, there have 0:02:58.320 --> 0:03:01.960 been lots of technological acts in both the way rope 0:03:02.040 --> 0:03:04.960 is made and also the way rope is designed totally. 0:03:05.000 --> 0:03:07.600 Well, I'm very excited to say we do, in fact 0:03:07.639 --> 0:03:10.440 have the perfect guest, someone I've wanted to speak to 0:03:10.600 --> 0:03:13.519 since last summer. I think when I came across his work. 0:03:13.760 --> 0:03:15.840 We're going to be speaking with Tim Queeney. Here's the 0:03:15.919 --> 0:03:18.720 author of the recent book Rope, How a bundle of 0:03:18.760 --> 0:03:23.959 twisted fibers became the backbone civilization cuite A bold claims there, Tim. 0:03:24.720 --> 0:03:26.560 Hi, guys, thanks to have for having me on. Yeah, 0:03:26.600 --> 0:03:29.519 that's it's a bold plan. But you know that's the way. 0:03:29.520 --> 0:03:31.400 You have to buy the book and read it back 0:03:31.480 --> 0:03:32.320 to back it up. 0:03:32.639 --> 0:03:36.280 What is rope? No, seriously, what what makes other rope? 0:03:36.320 --> 0:03:38.520 Well that's a good question, and people have asked me 0:03:38.560 --> 0:03:41.040 how you define rope, But for this book, I defined 0:03:41.120 --> 0:03:45.200 rope in a very broad sense, from everything down from cordage, 0:03:45.280 --> 0:03:48.040 which is a thin small rope or twine or which 0:03:48.040 --> 0:03:51.240 you want to call it that up to heavy duty 0:03:51.800 --> 0:03:55.360 wire rope nave metal. So it's all rope as far 0:03:55.400 --> 0:03:57.720 as I'm concerned, and that's sort of how I went in. 0:03:57.760 --> 0:04:01.960 But basically, rope is twisted fibers that are then used 0:04:01.960 --> 0:04:03.160 to accomplish work. 0:04:03.480 --> 0:04:06.080 I definitely want to talk about space rope later on, 0:04:06.440 --> 0:04:09.880 or space elevators, because that's something I was completely unaware of, 0:04:10.560 --> 0:04:13.520 but before we do, just on the book itself. So 0:04:13.680 --> 0:04:17.520 I'm aware that these single topic books have become something 0:04:17.600 --> 0:04:21.520 of a phenomenon. So you have people talk explaining the 0:04:21.600 --> 0:04:25.839 history of human development through the medium of salt, the 0:04:25.880 --> 0:04:30.159 container box or fish cod or whatever. But what does 0:04:30.320 --> 0:04:36.000 rope actually say about civilization or human development that other 0:04:36.560 --> 0:04:39.520 single object stories maybe miss well. 0:04:39.560 --> 0:04:41.880 Of course, rope, as we've already just talked about, is 0:04:41.920 --> 0:04:45.440 made up of fibers. There's little strands of fiber, and 0:04:46.000 --> 0:04:47.320 if you want to talk about it in sort of 0:04:47.320 --> 0:04:50.880 a thematic way, each one of those individual fibers can't 0:04:50.880 --> 0:04:53.160 do much on its own. But if you twist them 0:04:53.160 --> 0:04:56.279 all together, now you have a tool that's immensely useful. 0:04:56.680 --> 0:04:59.240 And it's sort of like the way a single person 0:04:59.320 --> 0:05:01.919 can't do all that much on their own, but people 0:05:02.080 --> 0:05:05.120 working together in groups can accomplish great things, and they 0:05:05.400 --> 0:05:08.400 often accomplish those great things down through history using rope. 0:05:08.480 --> 0:05:10.839 So what is it about fibers so you twist them together? 0:05:10.880 --> 0:05:12.680 I mean, there's going to sound dumb, but I really 0:05:12.720 --> 0:05:15.080 never like thought about it before, even like paid attention. 0:05:15.200 --> 0:05:18.000 But what is it about the property of a strand, 0:05:18.480 --> 0:05:20.960 the property of a fiber, or even the property of 0:05:21.000 --> 0:05:24.960 a long metal rod such that when you twist them together, 0:05:25.839 --> 0:05:27.520 it becomes very load bearing. 0:05:27.800 --> 0:05:31.719 It's a combination of friction, especially with fibers, it's a 0:05:31.720 --> 0:05:36.320 combination of friction, twist, and something you could call the 0:05:36.320 --> 0:05:39.560 helix effect. The friction, of course, is just the individual 0:05:39.600 --> 0:05:42.800 fibers as they're twisted together, they're rubbing up against each 0:05:42.800 --> 0:05:46.719 other and engaging those little nooks and crannies of the 0:05:46.720 --> 0:05:49.280 fiber or all engaging with other nooks and crannies on 0:05:49.320 --> 0:05:52.479 other fibers. And so there's that friction that's stopping it 0:05:52.800 --> 0:05:55.480 and a certain amount of physical locking in that's going 0:05:55.480 --> 0:05:58.479 on that's stopping them from sliding past each other. But 0:05:58.520 --> 0:06:01.760 then you twist it, and by twisting him, you're re 0:06:01.880 --> 0:06:05.159 engaging those fibers in a new way, even more deeply. 0:06:05.920 --> 0:06:08.960 And then finally the last thing is what you might 0:06:09.000 --> 0:06:11.719 call the helix effect, which is if you were to 0:06:11.920 --> 0:06:14.720 take a rope and to wrap it around your arm. 0:06:14.800 --> 0:06:17.480 So for listeners, you should go over to the YouTube 0:06:17.520 --> 0:06:20.280 because Tim is actually wrapping a rope around his arm. 0:06:20.320 --> 0:06:21.680 It looks a little bit like a TI fill him. 0:06:21.960 --> 0:06:23.960 But yeah, tell us what's going on here for the 0:06:24.080 --> 0:06:25.599 especially for those who are just listening. 0:06:25.640 --> 0:06:28.279 So I'm just wrapping this rope around my arm, and 0:06:27.520 --> 0:06:32.000 I'm not actually sorry to maybe see, I'm not actually 0:06:32.120 --> 0:06:34.400 nailing this to my arm or gluing it to my 0:06:34.600 --> 0:06:37.000 arm or riveting it to my arm. But I'm just 0:06:37.040 --> 0:06:39.240 putting it on my arm. And then if you can't 0:06:39.279 --> 0:06:41.599 see maybe too well, hear if I pull it on 0:06:41.680 --> 0:06:44.800 the same axis on which I've wrapped it around my arm, 0:06:45.240 --> 0:06:48.239 it stays. I've literally done nothing to make this rope 0:06:48.240 --> 0:06:50.480 stay other than the fact that it's all wrapped around 0:06:50.560 --> 0:06:54.320 my arm. So what's actually happening here is you have 0:06:54.520 --> 0:06:57.360 this helix of rope that when you pull on it 0:06:57.440 --> 0:07:00.440 on that same axis on which it was twisted, the 0:07:00.480 --> 0:07:05.680 helix collapses. And you might remember those party toys you 0:07:05.720 --> 0:07:08.040 got when you were a kid where you stick your 0:07:08.040 --> 0:07:11.040 fingers in both ends and pull on them the finger 0:07:11.160 --> 0:07:13.880 so called finger trap. And what happens is is, though 0:07:14.160 --> 0:07:17.120 those toys are made up of a whole series of helixes, 0:07:17.160 --> 0:07:19.360 and when you pull on them, all the helixes collapse 0:07:19.800 --> 0:07:23.040 and they tighten up. And that's what happens with rope, 0:07:23.080 --> 0:07:25.800 with multiple strand rope. This rope I have right here 0:07:25.840 --> 0:07:29.480 is actually made of jute, and that's a natural fiber, 0:07:29.600 --> 0:07:33.000 and this is actually a four strand rope. If you 0:07:33.000 --> 0:07:34.080 can see the four strands. 0:07:34.080 --> 0:07:35.880 The listener's got to watch this on YouTube. 0:07:35.880 --> 0:07:37.560 This is so much better as a video than just 0:07:37.640 --> 0:07:39.760 on you because you can see all the other jute. 0:07:40.160 --> 0:07:43.480 The four strands still strands, and most rope all through 0:07:43.560 --> 0:07:46.840 history has been three strand rope. And I'll talk about 0:07:46.880 --> 0:07:49.120 why that is in a second. But the strands and 0:07:49.160 --> 0:07:51.160 when you pull on them, the strands all do that 0:07:51.240 --> 0:07:54.800 helix effect that one strand wraps is wrapped around the 0:07:54.800 --> 0:07:58.120 other two three strands, and it's collapsing down on the 0:07:58.120 --> 0:08:01.040 other three and so on and so on. With all 0:08:01.080 --> 0:08:03.880 four strands, they're all collapsing around each other. And that's 0:08:03.920 --> 0:08:07.400 what makes it incredibly strong, is this helix effect. And 0:08:07.400 --> 0:08:10.240 that was actually told to me by a German engineer 0:08:10.320 --> 0:08:14.160 who works in the industry, and he's so well known 0:08:14.760 --> 0:08:17.360 that he's called the Pope of rope. 0:08:17.520 --> 0:08:18.760 A rope celebrities. 0:08:18.800 --> 0:08:21.360 Oh we should have added him on it, said, yeah, yeah, 0:08:21.400 --> 0:08:22.920 he's the real celebrity. 0:08:23.120 --> 0:08:25.560 But he told me about this helix effect. And so 0:08:25.720 --> 0:08:30.040 it's really those three things that the friction, the twisting, 0:08:30.240 --> 0:08:33.600 and then the helix effect that causes three strand rope 0:08:33.600 --> 0:08:36.719 to work so well. And three strand, of course is 0:08:36.800 --> 0:08:41.360 most commonly made because it's the least number of strands 0:08:41.400 --> 0:08:44.199 you can use to have this helix effect, so it's 0:08:44.240 --> 0:08:46.920 sort of the most economical way to get the helix effect. 0:08:46.960 --> 0:08:50.240 It's maximum without having to add more strands, which of 0:08:50.240 --> 0:08:53.400 course can add costs. So three strand is the way 0:08:53.440 --> 0:08:53.679 to go. 0:08:54.400 --> 0:08:57.640 So we're talking about the basic design of rope, walk 0:08:57.720 --> 0:09:02.440 us through I guess the technological breakthroughs when it comes 0:09:02.520 --> 0:09:05.760 to designing rope. Was there a moment, you know, when 0:09:06.000 --> 0:09:09.120 the fourth cord was added or I don't know, they 0:09:09.120 --> 0:09:12.760 were twisted in a different way where someone was like, aha, 0:09:12.800 --> 0:09:16.079 I have invented the better rope that will now allow 0:09:16.160 --> 0:09:18.000 us to accomplish some great thing. 0:09:18.520 --> 0:09:21.040 Well, that's really good question that I can't answer. And 0:09:21.080 --> 0:09:23.480 the reason why we can't answer that is because rope 0:09:23.520 --> 0:09:27.360 is such an ancient human tool that we just don't 0:09:27.400 --> 0:09:31.199 know when the first multi strand rope was developed and made. 0:09:31.760 --> 0:09:35.000 The oldest rope that's ever been found is fifty thousand 0:09:35.120 --> 0:09:37.680 years old, and that's a piece of cordage that was 0:09:37.679 --> 0:09:40.120 found on the bottom of a flint flake in a 0:09:40.160 --> 0:09:44.160 cave in southeastern France, and it was twisted by a 0:09:44.240 --> 0:09:49.160 Neanderthal person fifty thousand years ago, and there may indeed 0:09:49.240 --> 0:09:52.680 have been rope much older than that that was manufactured. 0:09:52.720 --> 0:09:55.800 But the problem with rope, a natural fiber rope is 0:09:55.840 --> 0:09:58.680 that it's made of plant material and it tends to 0:09:58.760 --> 0:10:02.600 rot away. Maybe seventy thousand year old rope that was made, 0:10:02.640 --> 0:10:03.800 but we just we don't know. 0:10:04.200 --> 0:10:06.080 One thing that really struck me, and you said this 0:10:06.400 --> 0:10:09.480 in your book, but you know, these days, you invent 0:10:09.520 --> 0:10:12.319 a new technology, it feels like in a year later, 0:10:12.720 --> 0:10:16.000 it's obsolete, right, And this pace seems to be accelerating. 0:10:16.160 --> 0:10:18.240 And one thing that I really appreciated it from your 0:10:18.280 --> 0:10:22.640 book is that in the old days, a new technological 0:10:22.640 --> 0:10:25.400 innovation would come around like maybe like once every couple 0:10:25.559 --> 0:10:27.560 hundred thousand years or a million. I think you make 0:10:27.600 --> 0:10:30.800 the point that Homo erectus, I guess we're our uncles, 0:10:30.840 --> 0:10:34.720 there's something like that basically had one invention the hand 0:10:34.840 --> 0:10:37.440 acts in a million and a half years. They basically 0:10:37.480 --> 0:10:41.680 figured out one thing. Like technological revolutions were pretty slow 0:10:41.720 --> 0:10:42.559 back in the old days. 0:10:42.920 --> 0:10:45.840 Yeah, that's right, that the hand acts, which from what 0:10:45.920 --> 0:10:48.760 I understand that people have talked to. There's still archaeologists 0:10:48.800 --> 0:10:51.920 still aren't completely sure what those things were used for, 0:10:52.520 --> 0:10:54.439 but there are so many of those around and that 0:10:54.600 --> 0:10:57.080 they were used for such a long time. And in 0:10:57.120 --> 0:10:59.400 my book I talk about the hand ACKs and stone 0:10:59.440 --> 0:11:02.839 tools happening before rope, but it's quite possible that they 0:11:02.840 --> 0:11:06.120 were around contemporaneously with rope. But we have that issue 0:11:06.160 --> 0:11:10.079 of them running away. But once you've developed this multi 0:11:10.160 --> 0:11:13.839 strand rope, it now has all these great uses that 0:11:13.880 --> 0:11:16.400 it can be put to. Probably the biggest use for 0:11:16.720 --> 0:11:20.400 early people's was just the ability to organize your stuff. 0:11:20.960 --> 0:11:23.840 You can tie things together in bundles, which sounds maybe 0:11:23.840 --> 0:11:26.680 a little simplistic for us, but we do the same 0:11:26.679 --> 0:11:28.960 thing and lots of other ways. We just keep our 0:11:29.000 --> 0:11:31.079 stuff organized, and they had to do the same thing, 0:11:31.120 --> 0:11:33.640 and so rope was just a great tool for that, 0:11:33.760 --> 0:11:36.959 in addition to using it for domesticated animals and being 0:11:36.960 --> 0:11:39.240 able to keep them in place they don't run off, 0:11:39.840 --> 0:11:42.120 and lots of other things. 0:11:57.200 --> 0:12:00.520 If I could fast forward about fifty thousand years or so, 0:12:01.160 --> 0:12:04.280 Joe started this conversation talking about the importance of rope 0:12:04.320 --> 0:12:07.480 when it comes to whaling, and if you think about 0:12:07.480 --> 0:12:10.679 a time period like the eighteen hundreds sort of marked 0:12:10.720 --> 0:12:14.959 by the expansion of the British Empire. Lots of ships 0:12:15.040 --> 0:12:19.400 sailing around, all covered in rope in one way or another. 0:12:19.840 --> 0:12:22.040 Lots of ships sailing around. It's like a good description 0:12:22.080 --> 0:12:23.400 of much of all history. 0:12:23.480 --> 0:12:26.040 Tess, that's sure, all right, but yeah, you know the 0:12:26.120 --> 0:12:29.200 kind of ships. I mean, how important was being able 0:12:29.240 --> 0:12:33.720 to manufacture rope at a sort of industrial scale in 0:12:33.760 --> 0:12:36.320 the eighteen hundreds, because I mean we're talking about a 0:12:36.320 --> 0:12:38.040 lot of rope. I think you have a stat in 0:12:38.080 --> 0:12:40.200 your book about how much rope it took just to 0:12:40.840 --> 0:12:42.560 get a whale, and it was a lot. 0:12:43.040 --> 0:12:46.640 Yeah, the whaling ships would carry more than ten thousand 0:12:46.679 --> 0:12:49.720 feet of rope just for use on board the whaleboats 0:12:49.720 --> 0:12:51.840 that went out to actually hunt the whales, not even 0:12:52.000 --> 0:12:54.520 discussing all the other uses that rope is put to 0:12:54.920 --> 0:12:57.520 on a sailing ship. And as you point out, a 0:12:57.600 --> 0:13:01.240 sailing ship, which was the premier technology for hundreds of 0:13:01.320 --> 0:13:06.880 years for crossing oceans, is absolutely dependent upon rope, both 0:13:06.960 --> 0:13:10.520 for the standing rigging which holds the masts up and 0:13:10.679 --> 0:13:14.040 the running rigging which controls the sails. Going all the 0:13:14.080 --> 0:13:16.920 way back to the Egyptians, they had the exact same issue. 0:13:16.920 --> 0:13:18.760 They had to have rope to keep their boats under 0:13:18.800 --> 0:13:21.400 control and for them to keep the masts from falling down. 0:13:22.280 --> 0:13:24.000 And if I could just go back for a second 0:13:24.080 --> 0:13:28.960 to the Egyptians very interestingly different way of building ships 0:13:29.000 --> 0:13:31.679 than the way a ship was built, for example, for 0:13:31.760 --> 0:13:34.960 a whaling ship in the nineteenth century. The way of 0:13:35.040 --> 0:13:38.160 building ships in the Western world is to be put 0:13:38.160 --> 0:13:40.960 down a keel, then you have ribs that are ninety 0:13:41.000 --> 0:13:43.959 degrees to that keel, and then you have planks which 0:13:44.200 --> 0:13:46.680 cover the ribs, and now you have your hull. But 0:13:47.000 --> 0:13:49.480 the Egyptians actually did it in a completely different way, 0:13:49.679 --> 0:13:51.920 and other cultures as well. It wasn't just the Egyptians. 0:13:52.400 --> 0:13:56.120 They actually stitched their boats together. They took the planks 0:13:56.280 --> 0:13:58.920 and they cut these V shaped grooves in the planks, 0:13:59.280 --> 0:14:02.600 and they actually threaded rope through these V shaped grooves 0:14:03.160 --> 0:14:06.000 to either end of the collection of planks and then 0:14:06.040 --> 0:14:08.280 tighten them up. And then they had a hull, and 0:14:08.320 --> 0:14:12.520 they would put ribs in after they'd stitch these boats together. 0:14:12.760 --> 0:14:15.120 But the ribs were there just in addition to the 0:14:15.200 --> 0:14:18.760 rope to hold the planks together. So rope is absolutely 0:14:18.840 --> 0:14:22.240 essential for a boat even even to float in that era. 0:14:22.960 --> 0:14:24.880 So that's pretty amazing. And as I said, it wasn't 0:14:24.960 --> 0:14:27.760 just the Egyptians, but also a lot of Arab boat 0:14:27.800 --> 0:14:30.840 building was done in a similar fashion with stitched boats. 0:14:31.200 --> 0:14:34.600 But going back to the age of sail, they needed 0:14:34.880 --> 0:14:37.880 just tens of thousands of feet of rope to equip 0:14:37.920 --> 0:14:40.280 these vessels. And as you point out, when you have 0:14:40.360 --> 0:14:43.480 that much rope required, it ceases to be a cottage 0:14:43.520 --> 0:14:48.440 industry and the whole process becomes industrialized. And the people 0:14:48.520 --> 0:14:51.200 who really kicked this off were the British with their 0:14:51.480 --> 0:14:55.840 need to keep their large Royal Navy establishment going at 0:14:55.840 --> 0:14:58.920 all times and keep all these ships, that hundreds of 0:14:58.960 --> 0:15:02.000 ships available to go to sea. So they had a 0:15:02.040 --> 0:15:06.000 series of dockyards where they manufactured rope along with other things. 0:15:06.480 --> 0:15:09.520 And some maritime historians say that it really was the 0:15:09.960 --> 0:15:12.920 Royal Navy that kicked off the industrial revolution because the 0:15:12.960 --> 0:15:16.080 whole process really needed to be industrialized to make all 0:15:16.120 --> 0:15:17.200 this rope tracy. 0:15:17.240 --> 0:15:20.040 I jokingly said, oh, ships floating around, but no, this 0:15:20.160 --> 0:15:22.800 is really a key point here, which is that it 0:15:22.840 --> 0:15:26.040 is how rope became the backbone of civilization. It is 0:15:26.120 --> 0:15:29.720 hard to imagine civilization without a lot of boats, and 0:15:29.800 --> 0:15:33.680 it is literally impossible to imagine sailboats of various sizes 0:15:34.160 --> 0:15:37.400 without ropes of various things. You know, and steel they 0:15:37.400 --> 0:15:40.200 talk about like the Bessemer process. Suddenly like some sort 0:15:40.240 --> 0:15:43.840 of unlocked steel existed before the Bestimber process, but then 0:15:43.920 --> 0:15:46.200 that unlocked a significant expansion. 0:15:46.800 --> 0:15:47.800 Was there some. 0:15:47.640 --> 0:15:51.000 Breakthrough that allowed for rope to go from one of 0:15:51.080 --> 0:15:54.400 these things that lets twist some plant fibers with our hands, 0:15:54.480 --> 0:15:57.560 maybe wrap them around something, to something that could be 0:15:57.640 --> 0:15:59.680 truly produced at industrial scale. 0:16:00.080 --> 0:16:03.040 I don't think that there's any one event like that. 0:16:03.240 --> 0:16:06.840 It was kind of a continuous process, much like rope itself, 0:16:07.120 --> 0:16:10.840 that went from rope being made outdoors in these rope 0:16:10.880 --> 0:16:12.840 yards where they would twist the rope because you need 0:16:12.880 --> 0:16:15.160 a lot of space to do all this twisting, to 0:16:15.600 --> 0:16:18.720 an indoor activity because they no longer could take the 0:16:18.800 --> 0:16:21.840 time off for when it snowed and rained. You needed 0:16:21.840 --> 0:16:24.560 to make rope every day to meet the needs. As 0:16:24.560 --> 0:16:27.160 I said of something like the Royal Navy, you needed 0:16:27.400 --> 0:16:30.320 to really produce rope on a massive scale, and the 0:16:30.360 --> 0:16:33.120 needs of something like a large sailing ship where you 0:16:33.280 --> 0:16:36.680 need to have some very long ropes, specifically the longest 0:16:36.760 --> 0:16:39.560 rope being the anchor road, or the rope that you 0:16:39.640 --> 0:16:41.960 tie your anchor to so you can anchor in deep water. 0:16:42.640 --> 0:16:45.560 That had to be a seven hundred and forty two 0:16:45.720 --> 0:16:49.760 feet long. And so in order to make a seven 0:16:49.800 --> 0:16:51.960 hundred and forty two foot long in the last part 0:16:52.000 --> 0:16:54.800 of the process of making rope, when you're putting the 0:16:54.840 --> 0:16:59.520 strands together, the rope actually gets shorter because you're twisting it. 0:16:59.680 --> 0:17:02.240 But we have to start out with thousand foot long 0:17:02.280 --> 0:17:06.040 strands that you're twisting together to make the final rope 0:17:06.320 --> 0:17:08.520 that ends up being the seven hundred and forty feet long. 0:17:08.600 --> 0:17:11.760 So you need a huge building to do this. And 0:17:11.840 --> 0:17:15.720 so these rope walks that were built into various dockyards 0:17:16.000 --> 0:17:17.919 around the world. It wasn't just a British who were 0:17:17.960 --> 0:17:20.200 doing this. They were built in the US and all 0:17:20.280 --> 0:17:23.560 maritime nations were doing this, and even non maritime nations 0:17:23.560 --> 0:17:25.960 because you need a rope for other things. But these 0:17:26.040 --> 0:17:29.560 rope walks really were the thing that industrialized the process 0:17:29.600 --> 0:17:32.159 and allowed you to make very long, very big ropes. 0:17:32.520 --> 0:17:35.199 Can you talk to us about the supply chain that 0:17:35.680 --> 0:17:39.040 created ropes? So, I guess wrote in the eighteen hundreds 0:17:39.160 --> 0:17:42.400 was made out of jute or hemp or something like that. 0:17:42.880 --> 0:17:45.400 Where did that material come from and how did it 0:17:45.440 --> 0:17:49.080 get to the dockyards in a place like London. 0:17:49.560 --> 0:17:52.720 Yeah, that's a great question, because it actually was a 0:17:52.760 --> 0:17:56.880 strategic material. There was something called naval stores the British 0:17:56.880 --> 0:18:00.480 called the Naval Stores, which was pitch from pine to 0:18:00.640 --> 0:18:04.520 use for waterproofing, and then the actual pine trees themselves 0:18:04.640 --> 0:18:08.200 the trunks to use for masts, and then finally the 0:18:08.560 --> 0:18:11.720 hemp that was used to make rope, because most of 0:18:11.760 --> 0:18:14.199 the rope made in during the Age of Sale was 0:18:14.200 --> 0:18:18.800 made from hemp fibers, because it actually makes spectacularly good 0:18:19.440 --> 0:18:23.280 rope because you can grow these hemp plants very very tall, 0:18:23.840 --> 0:18:26.080 and the fibers that you can strip out of them 0:18:26.080 --> 0:18:28.720 are very long, and the longer the fiber, the stronger 0:18:28.760 --> 0:18:32.879 the rope is. These were strategic materials at the Royal Navy, 0:18:32.920 --> 0:18:36.040 for example, it was always looking towards its supply of 0:18:36.080 --> 0:18:40.480 these materials. When the US was a colony of Great Britain, 0:18:41.000 --> 0:18:45.400 the Parliament actually passed a law that required or asked 0:18:45.640 --> 0:18:50.119 or prompted American farmers to grow hemp plants so they 0:18:50.160 --> 0:18:52.800 could the hemp fiber could be sent back to Britain 0:18:52.920 --> 0:18:56.600 for use in making rope. The other Really, the largest 0:18:56.800 --> 0:19:01.359 supplier of hemp was actually from the air of the Ukraine, 0:19:01.480 --> 0:19:05.440 and that's where Britain got most of its hemp from. 0:19:05.680 --> 0:19:09.560 And amazingly, one of the reasons why Napoleon, for example, 0:19:09.600 --> 0:19:14.040 invaded Russia in eighteen twelve was to There were a 0:19:14.160 --> 0:19:16.600 number of reasons, but one reason was to cut off 0:19:16.600 --> 0:19:19.760 the hemp supply HUMH to the British Royal Navy so 0:19:20.200 --> 0:19:22.800 then he could finally get around to it invading Britain, 0:19:23.000 --> 0:19:24.240 which he failed to do. 0:19:24.400 --> 0:19:29.160 It's interesting they made the colonists send the hemp fiber 0:19:29.760 --> 0:19:33.159 back to Britain, preserving the value at you know, the 0:19:33.680 --> 0:19:37.359 poor colonists just had to ship rock commodities while the 0:19:37.760 --> 0:19:41.280 rope yards in Britain got to actually do the premium 0:19:41.440 --> 0:19:46.680 higher end value add very common pattern in history to obviously, 0:19:47.000 --> 0:19:50.720 when in a whaling expedition, there's the sale right, and 0:19:50.760 --> 0:19:53.280 then there's a you know, in Mobe Dick they talk about, 0:19:53.480 --> 0:19:55.720 although apparently he doesn't use the term like they called 0:19:55.760 --> 0:19:57.200 it the Nantucket sleigh ride. 0:19:57.560 --> 0:19:59.080 After you get the hook. 0:19:58.880 --> 0:20:01.119 In the whale and then the whalers drag your boats, 0:20:01.240 --> 0:20:04.240 and then there's the you're like wetting. Someone has to 0:20:04.280 --> 0:20:07.080 pour water on the rope so that it's not burning 0:20:07.240 --> 0:20:09.560 their hands. Talk to us about how big of a 0:20:09.560 --> 0:20:14.000 breakthrough that was in terms of declaring this very important fuel. 0:20:14.600 --> 0:20:18.640 Yeah, whalings started out with just attacking whales from the shore, 0:20:19.080 --> 0:20:22.399 but as those whales were used up, these whaling ships 0:20:22.400 --> 0:20:25.320 had to go farther and farther afield to find whales 0:20:25.320 --> 0:20:29.200 to harvest, and the rope was absolutely essential. Rope had 0:20:29.200 --> 0:20:32.880 to hold when after they sunk in that harpoon and 0:20:33.160 --> 0:20:36.240 the famous Nantucket's sleigh ride, when the whales going along 0:20:36.240 --> 0:20:39.200 the surface and dragging the boat behind it. The one 0:20:39.240 --> 0:20:42.000 that's really dangerous though, is if the whale decides to 0:20:42.080 --> 0:20:45.800 sound or dive, because then the boat has to make 0:20:45.840 --> 0:20:48.360 sure that they have enough rope on board to let 0:20:48.400 --> 0:20:51.880 out enough ropes that they're not dragged underwater. And sometimes 0:20:51.960 --> 0:20:55.440 whaleboats that were following a big whale, the other whaleboats 0:20:55.480 --> 0:20:58.920 would get near them and they would actually combine two 0:20:59.280 --> 0:21:01.480