It's also just dealing with a relatively shallow sea with completely different dynamics to ocean travel, the ships that sailed accross the Med became costal huggers out in the Atlantic ocean. The realative ease in sailing in the Meds the reason that so many sailing nations grew up there, even transporting their experience of the Med to the narrow English Channel caused the Roman Navy a major headache. Plus most of the ships of that time relied heavily on oars rather than sails for their mo t ive power.