“(T)he distance between Panama and Yokohama, for example, via Honolulu, is greater than via San Francisco.” So why would ships stop in Hawai‘i?
“(S)hipping routes as well as lovers’ walks by moonlight, ‘the longest way round is frequently the shortest way home.’ The ‘short line’ argument ignores the fact that many things affect and decide routes of travel besides distance.”
“There are three distinct lines of steamer travel across the Pacific, north of the equator, between the American and the Asiatic continents. viz.:”
“(1) The southern route, via Hawai‘i, is in the northeast trade-wind belt, advertised by the Pacific Mail Steamship Company as the ‘Sunshine Belt,’ from the fact that the sun shines along this route during the great majority of the days of the year, and that the normal wind is a gentle breeze varying from ten to twenty knots an hour.”
“Since white men have visited them there has been nothing in the nature of a typhoon or hurricane in the Hawaiian Islands. Even heavy gales are few and far between. and fog is not known there.”
“The Hawaiian Islands and the surrounding ocean are the most favored spot, climatically, on earth.”
“(2) The northern route, from San Francisco, is along the Great Circle line. This is known as the ‘fog belt,’ for the reason that fog is prevalent there during the greater part of the year.”
“The prevailing wind along this line is from the west, and, as a rule. considerably stronger than the trade winds of the southern route. Violent storms are also prevalent along this line.”
“(3) The central route begins at San Francisco, but abandons the Great Circle route and its short distance of 4.536 miles, for a course considerably to the south thereof and making a distance to Yokohama of 4.791 miles, an increase in distance of 255 miles over the northern short line route. “
“This line is recommended by the hydrographic bureau at Washington to steamers crossing the Pacific from San Francisco. The object in taking this longer route is to escape the fog, violent winds and currents and storms of the northern route.”
“It is another demonstration that ‘The longest way round is the shortest way home.’”
“The foregoing demonstrates that although, theoretically, the northern route is 266 miles shorter than the southern, the route actually to be sailed is within eleven miles as long as the southern route.”
“Without looking for any further reasons, the supposed advantages of the northern ‘short line’ route disappear right here. All that remains to be done is to catalogue the many advantages which the southern route, via Hawaii, has over the northern route, via San Francisco.”
“The bulk of transpacific traffic will be carried on in comparatively low-powered freight steamers, making ten to twelve knots an hour, to whom boisterous weather conditions are a serious hindrance.”
“A few days of heavy weather, bucking head seas and winds, and the racing of the propeller as it is pitched up out of water, will use up far more fuel and time on the shorter rough route than will be expended on the longer but smoother route.”
“Stormy, rough weather is in every way detrimental to economical steaming; tends to rack, strain and otherwise injure the ship, with the possibility of wetting and otherwise injuring the cargo, regardless of what direction the wind is from.”
“Under these conditions, other things being equal, or even against a considerable handicap, the smooth water and gentle wind route will be chosen.”
“Practically all of the Pacific Mail and Japanese Mail line steamers plying between San Francisco and Yokohama now travel the ‘sunshine belt,’ via Honolulu, although it is 5,474 miles that way, instead of the direct, ‘fog belt’ route, although it is only 4,536 miles by that course. In other words they prefer a course which is 938 miles the longer.”
“To Hawaii oversea commerce, the arrival and departure of deep sea ships, is the alpha and omega of its commercial existence.”
“Everything that it imports and everything that it exports passes by sea. Every one who goes anywhere and every one who comes from anywhere travels by sea.”
“These conditions have created a habit of mind, a spirit and method of treatment of shipping that markedly characterizes Hawaiian ports.” (Thurston, History of the Panama Canal, 1915)
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