On 2025-01-24 11:04 p.m., Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote:
  And, it would was close enough to make it obvious that
if you want to
 sail west from europe to the indies, you are going to run out of
 supplies long before you get there!  Unless you are dumb lucky, and
 happen to bump into some land on the way. 
The Chinese  did the 1st east to west route.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/zheng-he-china-explorer-ships/
  Columbus had a bad idea that the earth was MUCH
smaller, so he thought
 that he could make it.
 Well the fact that HE had a map of the (round) Earth helped a great deal. 
See the
book "1421: The year that China discovered the world", (ebook),
and other writings.