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Do you know any unsung heroes?

I would like to talk about a man to whom sailing and seamanship in general owe a great deal. This man is never thought of or talked about much in modern times.

If you think Henry Ford is important to the automobile, then this man's contributions could be compared to the invention of the wheel. His discoveries and inventions helped pave the way to every vessel afloat today. I am not talking about Columbus, Magellan, the Vikings, or Leonardo. I am speaking of Archimedes of ancient Greece.

Born in 287 BC in Syracuse, Archimedes, known as "The Wise One" in his day, is considered to be one of the three greatest mathematicians of all time. It is said that when entering a bathtub one day, it dawned on him that the amount of water that rose and spilled over the sides was proportional to the amount of his body that was submerged.

With this, he ran naked through the streets shouting "Eureka!" And thus was born the entire field of hydrostatics. From this, he would develop the Archimedes Principle, which states that a body immersed in a fluid is buoyed up by a force equal to the weight of the displaced fluid.

In layman's terms, this is why things float or are buoyant.

Buoyancy gets into relative density, tilt angles and all types of other complicated processes. But to we sea-goers, it set forth grounds that shipwrights to this day use in designing hulls, keels and boats in general. This is why steel, concrete and other heavy ships float.

Another one of his accomplishments — which really affects us as sailors — was his work with levers, pulleys and lines. He was the one who realized that running a single line through a sequence of pulleys would make less energy required to move a load.

We commonly call it "purchase" in sailing today. Just about every main sheet on a sailing vessel today uses purchase to allow a sailor to move the main with a heavy load on it in or out. The Melges 24s have replaced winches by using purchase alone for controlling their sails.

With his knowledge of booms and tackle, Archimedes built efficient catapults and huge claws that could flip enemy ships that approached while fighting off the Romans at Syracuse. He created levers and cranes that could launch a boat that all of the men of Syracuse could not move. His work of levers was so developed that he told King Hieron II, "Give me a big enough lever and a place to stand and I will move the Earth."

I think that much of our modern rigging can be traced back to these ideas.

Another one of his inventions is used all over the world and especially on or near the water. The Archimedes Screw is a long screw inside a tube that, when cranked, can move volumes of water the length of the tube. When designing what some may call the first super freighter the Syracusia, he used the screws to pump out her enormous bilges.

Before this, they used buckets and a lot of elbow grease.

Though you may not see many of his screws in use today, you will see many of its descendants. The impeller inside the electric bilge pump at the back of your runabout has its origins here. The modern turbine in a dam or the one flying over your head in a 747 have their beginnings here. And let's not forget why that little thing spinning in the water moving your boat along is called a "Screw" propeller. You guessed it, it was based and named after the Archimedes Screw.

Today, shipwrights use wind tunnels, water tanks and computers to expand our knowledge and make better vessels, Archimedes used his tub and his brain. He was truly a problem solver above all others of his time and his works are all around us on sea and on land.

With all of his contributions to society, I can only wonder what else he may have come up with in his later years if a Roman soldier had not run him through in 212 BC, when the Romans finally sacked Syracuse.

Have a great week.

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Billy Harris welcomes ideas, comments and information about sailing. If you would like to inquire about sailing on Marco Island, e-mail him at defcon1bh@earthlink.net.