To be blown off course in the sailing ship era meant be to diverted by unexpected winds, getting lost possibly to shipwreck or to a new destination. In the ancient world, this was especially a great danger before the maturation of the Maritime Silk Road in the Early Middle Ages, finding expression in the writing of Cosmas Indicopleustes. Even in later eras, the ship could attempt to limit its divergence by tacking or heaving to, but it was often difficult to keep track by mere celestial navigation before the invention of the marine chronometer in the late 18th century.
A number of "discoveries" during the Age of Discovery were accidentally found in this way, and the serendipity of being blown off course is also a trope in fiction. Accidental discovery may have played a larger role than previously acknowledged in early European colonialism in contrast to the idea of a centrally-planned program as by Prince Henry the Navigator, but it is also thought that the Austronesian expansion was more directed and purposeful than once thought, rather than being the result of accidental drift.
Historical voyages 640 BC: Colaeus 116 BC: Eudoxus of Cyzicus 62 BC: "Indos quosdem", survivors of an Indian shipwreck in Suebi presented to Quintus Caecilius Metellus Celer, as recorded by Cornelius Nepos and Pomponius Mela 50: Rhapta 412: Faxian 986: Bjarni Herjólfsson 999: Leif Erikson 1312: Lancelotto Malocello 1349: Giovanni de' Marignolli 1406: Thorstein Olafsson 1418: João Gonçalves Zarco and Tristão Vaz Teixeira 1488: Bartolomeu Dias 1500: 2nd Portuguese India Armada 1505: Lourenço de Almeida 1525: Gomes de Sequeira 1527: Narváez expedition 1535: Fray Tomás de Berlanga 1543: António Mota 1578: Golden Hind 1599: Dirck Gerritsz Pomp 1609: Sea Venture 1615: Eggert Ólafsson 1616: Eendracht 1620: Mayflower 1638: Nuestra Señora de la Concepción 1654: Jewish arrival in New Amsterdam 1675: Anthony de la Roché 1707: Scilly naval disaster 1770: First voyage of James Cook 1815: Arniston
Historical states and lost sailors Lê dynasty in Vietnam Sakoku in Japan
In popular culture Accidental travel as plot device Odyssey Aeneid A True Story Sinbad the Sailor The Tempest Gulliver's Travels Wasobyoe "MS. Found in a Bottle"
See also Drift migration North Korean ghost ships
References