Prince Henry
V.K. SUBRAMANIAN
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Prince Henry (1394 A.D. – 1460 A.D.) was known as ‘Henry the Navigator’ for his founding of systematic sea exploration.
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Illustration: V.K. SUBRAMANIAN
To Prince Henry, the Portuguese prince, goes the credit for founding systematic sea exploration and paving the way for Europe’s great age of discovery.
He was called Henry, the Navigator (though he himself hardly undertook any sea voyage), because he made exploration of Africa’s west coast his life mission and established an observatory and school for navigation at Sagres, Portugal, where he ga
thered together cartographers, instrument makers, astronomers and pilots to train explorers and coordinate the results of their voyages.
Compasses and ship building were greatly improved under Prince Henry’s personal supervision.
From 1420 onwards, Prince Henry sponsored several voyages south along Africa’s western coast.
Henry’s dream was that if Portugal’s small ships could go far enough south, they would be able to sail around the bottom of Africa and find a sea route to the east.
Unfortunately, Henry died in 1460, before his dream of a sea route to Asia became true.
However, Prince Henry’s dream did come true, when the Portuguese navigator Bartholomeu Dias sailed around Africa’s Cape of Good Hope in 1488 and 11 years later, in 1499, Vasco da Gama went further and crossed the Indian Ocean to trade with India.
Prince Henry’s life and work show how important dreams and visions are in human achievement and progress, as also multi-pronged planning and co-ordination in achieving goals.
This is an extract from the book The Great Ones by V.K.Subramanian, Abhinav Publications, New Delhi
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