In the history of humanity, a single invention never happened,which drastically altered the course of history

Also, even the depictions of Eric show him on a sailboat, not on a rowboat.

Let me change things up a bit.

>In the history of humanity, we never dared to tread on the oceans. Beneath the surface, where the sun can't see anymore, evil beings lurk.
>Thus, the age of sailing never occured. The oceans remained mysterious.
>With the invention of the engines, we finally braved the rivers and lakes. Aboard ironclad giants we mocked the beasts beneath us. They could not touch us.
>With planes and air balloons, we finally looked to the horizon. "What has been denied to us for so long, shall become ours." And we hailed over the oceans, laughing out of reach of whatever monsters lurked beneath.

>it is now the year 186X, and the great Exodus is now happening from the Europe, as the Age of Discovery begins proper and a new frontier opened for people wishing to risk it all, whether for wealth, fame or just a chance to start a new life
>shall you succeed in these hopeful times of change, or shall you die poor and forgotten in a place far away from home?

This, it makes way more sense. Open ocean is super scary, and you need an armored battleship to traverse it.

Nah, that's pretty much Sunless Sea, it's not as fun as the great Exodus.

> The invention of sailing never happened
>So basically trading never happened over any kind of reasonable distance
>Which means most bronze age cultures were never able to access tin thus staying in the perpetual early bronze age
>Without trade ideas in general never spread so there is virtually no technological development, paper never happens, most societies have to rely on orally passing down knowledge which further retards scientific development
>There's also no way to move heavy goods reliably.
>The Iron Age never happens because there's no way to move large quantities of materials needed for iron smelting to places where the ore is or vice versa.
>Iron goods are magical tools that come from a few luckily places settlements owned almost exclusively by heads of state
>Society never passes feudalism because the luckiest societies have maybe bronze tools with which to work the fields
>Armor never progresses past animal hides
>As a result there's no need for swords(which are impossibly expensive anyway) the spear remains the most advanced weapon indefinitely due to it's low cost and effectiveness.

Everywhere is pre-bronze age civilization: the RPG

>what is Silk Road
>what are carts/horses/mules etc.
>what is Egyptian civilization, which never bothered to sail anywhere
>what are rivers and boating downstream (from Vikings to Crimea)
?

I think the most startling change would come about due to the Columbian Exchange never happening.
>no curry in India
>no potatoes in Ireland
>no tomatoes in Italy
>no mufucking corn
>buuuut also no syphilis, so not all bad.

>>no curry in India
>>no potatoes in Ireland
>>no tomatoes in Italy
Don't know my history it turns out

>Egyptian Civilisation

> Who regularly traded with other cultures including Crete and Persia, mostly by ship and did their damned best to control local sea trade

>What are rivers and boating downstream (from Vikings to Crimea)

Go on mate carry your vast amount of trade goods and ships from river to river across continental Europe, see how far it gets you.

>what are carts/horses/mules etc.
Incredibly slow and limited in range compared to sailing, reliant on a developed trade network and highly vulnerable to banditry

>Silk road
The silk road was preceded by the Persian Royal Road which came about shockingly by Persias dominance of the region. Which relies on Persia being able to secure large amount of strategic resources and wealth which shockingly it did through trade with other cultures. Without sailing, Persians would never have discovered the trade markets they built the road to trade with. In fact no one would of. Sea trade, was in fact so important to them that King Darius built a canal from the Nile river to the Red sea purely to extend the influence of their trade routes.

It's like the most shocking historical fact that no one really knows: all those cultural traditions regarding food? They're only about 400 years old.

I have to agree with what other posters have said in that the sail is too basic an invention for someone to have NEVER thought of it. Go with instead, in that the deep seas are home to leviathans and eldritch beasts that have made crossing in anything less than an ironclad impossible.

Thinking on it some more:

Lake and river trade and fishing still exist, though the deeper water bodies still possess freshwater horrors that need to be dealt with on occasion. Likewise, coastal trade and fishing are also possible but at a greater risk of running afoul of the smaller monstrosities that are capable of inhabiting the shallows.

The Mediterranean sea once possessed a truly gargantuan beast that prevented sailing that sea for a long, long time. It was the dream of many ancient Egyptian, Greek and Roman rulers to conquer this beast, and many heated naval battles were waged against it in antiquity. Perhaps one of these succeeded, perhaps that beast still lurks beneath the waves.

Not to complain, but this seems like a very unlikely development.

Sails have been independently discovered by pretty much every nation, although their effectiveness has varied.

Better, but you have to take into account the immense differences a world like this would have compared to ours.

If there was no sailship trade, so such mundane things as spices would have been inaccessible. Or potatoes.

>what is Egyptian civilization, which never bothered to sail anywhere
>implying

>Hannu was an ancient Egyptian explorer (around 2750 BC) and the first explorer of whom there is any knowledge. He made the first recorded exploring expedition and wrote his account of the exploration in stone. He traveled along the Red Sea to Punt and sailed to what is now part of eastern Ethiopia and Somalia. He returned to Egypt with great treasures, including precious myrrh, metal and wood.

>Go on mate carry your vast amount of trade goods and ships from river to river across continental Europe, see how far it gets you.

Without sails Europe would be radically different, mostly poorer. Engines would probably come from China or the Middle East.

That leads me to a question - which technologies were "inevitable" in the same way a sail was? Where does it end?

Would someone have eventually invented eyeglasses, or is that too specific or advanced an idea to be "inevitable?"

Potatoes were already inaccessible to the Old World.

Spices were still acessible- the silk road was a thing, you know. They didn't just trade silk, they traded spices and a bunch of other things in a long disjointed network from China to Europe.

There's a couple of things that come together that make lenses a thing. It's possible to imagine a world where nobody made the jump in logic to make them, even if it's very improbable.

Sails are more basic then the wheel. It'd be like imagining a place that never learned how to make roads or houses.

A counter arguement to "necessary inventions" is for example precolumbians, they invented the wheel, but never employed it.( i was told they used it as a kid's toy)

I feel bad for OP, he knows what alternate history he wants, but he's stuck on a really stupid way to get it.

There are a bunch of different technologies that made New World travel possible. He could just say that they never figured out how to make ships that could withstand the seas, which were a fusion of Northern and Mediterranean styles of construction.

The terrain of central and southern America made wheeled carts impossible. We're talking about thick jungle and mountains. Besides, it's not like the idea just never occurred to them (clearly, as they were using it in toys as you said).