What I found the most interesting:

• How ships didn’t always have sails but then became extremely crucial to longer and difficult journeys! I have never thought of a ship without a sail before, and I wouldn’t have guessed that they were made of wool!
• I was fascinated that the process of making and maintaining sails with wool was a communal family process that required so much effort, care and time. ‘Sails made at home would likely be used by brothers, sons, husbands, fathers.’
• The amount of effort that went into making sails is stunning! – ‘estimated that it 2 skilled shipwrights a fortnight to make a ship, but it took 2 equally skilled women 1 whole year to create a sail.’ !!

Questions:

• How were women compensated for their work? Were they paid?
• Did they include patterns or colors in the sails to show a symbol a letter or words to signify a name for the ship or the people?

What confused me:

• Since a lot of it is speculation, it’s hard to keep track of all the estimates of time and labor and actually be able to form a close enough mind map of it all.