The first man to scientifically establish a basis for sea exploration was US navy commander Matthey Maury (1806-1872). He collected and analyzed 500,000 data points on wind and sea currents.
Born in Virginia, US, Maury dreamed of becoming a navy admiral. However, after falling off a carriage and breaking a leg in 1839, he was incapable of serving on a ship. He then began to research sea currents. In 1847, he developed an ocean current chart that shows the direction and speed of wind in the Atlantic Ocean as well as the flow of current. Maury's work was so influential that insurance companies, who had to pay a large amount of money to cover for an exponential increase in sea accidents of steamers, credited Maury's current chart for taking some of the burden off their shoulders.
In 1853, Maury participated in the Pioneer Scientific Conference as a US representative in Brussels and proposed a sea route for steamers and sailboats thereby contributing greatly to decreasing the number of crashes. Furthermore, he published "The Physical Geography of the Sea," the first modern oceanography textbook, and proposed the hypothesis of a transatlantic cable.
Recently, there has been a growing interest in the North Pole route, which was once inaccessible due to thick ice. However, with rising underwater temperature from global warming melting icebergs in the North Pole, icebreakers are now able to lead merchant ships across the North Pole route.
Today, there is a heated competition over pioneering the sea route through the North Pole. In fact, Germany, Norway, and Russia have already succeeded in operating a commercial route. In the past when ships were unable to sail through the North Pole, they had resorted to a southern route, which takes 40 days on a 22,000km path from Busan to Rotterdam, Netherlands.
However, the North Pole route shortens the distance to just 15,000km and the length of journey to 30 days, significantly reducing the distance and time. Korea is also placing a large focus on developing the North Pole route. Most recently, Araon the research ice breaker has been dispatched to sail around the North Pole.
※ The texts were written based on the outcome of "Development of Ocean Education Textbook" and "Development of Contents for Ocean Education Textbook" projects conducted by the Korea Maritime Foundation in 2010 and 2011.
