Ancient sailors noticed that there were rivers of moving water within the oceans. These rivers in the oceans, called ocean currents, effect our weather, our food, and the time it takes for ships to sail from one place to another.
In the 1700's, sailors on the east coast of North America found that in some parts of the ocean their ships would move at a different speed, even if the wind hadn't changed.
They asked: what is causing the change in the speed of the ship?
To find out what was causing the speed of the ship to change, they took measurements of the speed of their ship in different parts of the ocean.
When the sailors analyzed their measurements, they found an ocean current about 10 miles wide that was moving northeast at about 4 miles per hour. We now call the ocean current that they found the Gulf Stream.
The sailors shared what they found, and other sailors were able to use their knowledge of the Gulf Stream to decrease their travel time when sailing across the Atlantic Ocean.
