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Notes -
Well, they didn't exclusively coast-hug. They routinely attempted real crossings of the Med - going to Alexandria, Carthage/Tunis and Tripoli by coast hugging just would take much to long. Sure, those crossings aren't huge, and the Med in summer is one of the most benign waters to cross (and they pretty much stopped shipping completely in fall, the Med gets angry in winter). But still, it's sailing without sight of land for at least a day or three.
Generally whenever possible you would try to make the larger jumps within daylight so that you could see any potential bad weather coming. Obviously the Romans didn't stay off the nearest coast the whole way to Alexandria but the actual sailing routes tried to practically limit the time spent in open ocean.
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