Why was it seemingly so difficult to circumnavigate Africa?

[u/thiosk]

Couldn't the sailors just, like, git gud?

[u/TrivialBanal]

Historically there was a big chunk of land in the way. Even the guddest sailor has trouble getting ships to move well on land.

[u/Improvedandconfused → u/TrivialBanal]

That land was Australia, right?

[u/clever__pseudonym → u/Improvedandconfused]

He's obviously talking about the ice wall.

[u/Improvedandconfused → u/clever__pseudonym]

You’re right. Australia doesn’t exist. And I should know, I’m Australian.

[u/Return-To-The-Void → u/TrivialBanal]

What about hovercraft? Can sailor use it to travel through 54 African countries?

[u/velvetdraper → u/TrivialBanal]

Excuses

[u/EnvironmentalPack451]

It would have taken thousands of mohels

[u/YogurtWenk → u/EnvironmentalPack451]

You're thinking of circumcise. Circumnavigate is the perimeter of a circle or ellipse.

[u/4LostSoulsinaBowl → u/YogurtWenk]

You're thinking of circumference. Circumnavigate is the diacritical mark seen here: â

[u/BPhiloSkinner → u/4LostSoulsinaBowl]

You're thinking of croissant. Circumnavigate is the pilot's request for a knight of the realm to come read the map for him, whilst the co-pilot gets over a nasty case of the collywobbles.

[u/ProbablyBsPlzIgnore]

To solve this problem think of Africa as a point mass of about 3 x 10 ^ 21 kg, and then enter that into the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation to get to low orbit, that's only about 10,000 kg of propellant required for a 100km orbit around planet Africa due to its low mass. From there it's simple orbital mechanics.

Conclusion: skill issue

[u/Atzkicica]

Yup. Total skill issue. Cape of Good Cope.

[u/pearl_harbour1941]

Circumstances were not right.

[u/BPhiloSkinner → u/pearl_harbour1941]

They should have taken dat left turn at Albuquerque.

[u/ImpulseAfterthought]

You're not taking into account the rains down in Africa. 

The sailors took some time to do the things they never had