I had the pleasure last week of seeing the WoodenBoat School fleet on a sunny day and getting these two views of Swifty with only one glance:
The dreamy sight of this Caledonia yawl in Great Cove was duplicated by her neighbor that day, the catboat Shenaniganz:
Seeing them, I was jolted into realizing that I had no idea what causes such a reflection to occur in one place and not in others under similar circumstances. Here’s a more perfect image of Swifty’s
It turns out that it also puzzled the Greek mathematician Euclid around 300 B.C. After experimenting, he proposed a theory about what happens to straight light rays when they reach a smooth surface and bounce off into space. About 1500 years after Euclid, his theory was enhanced by Alhazen, an Arab mathematician, and has evolved into the so-called Law of Reflection.
Basically, it seems, I was lucky to see Swifty reflected so nicely. In the first place, she was in sea that was smooth enough to prevent the water from absorbing the radiated energy of incoming light rays. A smooth water surface can make light waves bounce and reflect back to the eye.
But the light can’t just bounce willy-nilly for a good reflection. It must bounce back at the identical angle that it hits the water. And, we have to be in the right place to see that angled light during the bouncing.
If the sea surface moves too much, the incoming light likely will be scattered by that movement and not be reflective. But, a slight sea swell might only distort the reflection a bit., as it did that day with this nearby Mackinaw gaff ketch:
Sometimes a little distortion can make an image more interesting. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on August 25, 2021.)