THE FORE-AND-AFT RIG AND ITS DEVELOPMENTS; COASTERS, FISHING BOATS,
YACHTS, ETC.[116]
So far we have, with the exception of the primitive lateen, dealt
exclusively with the square-rigged sailing ship. We have seen that
this was the earliest and has continued to be the most universal
sail of the ship. The Egyptian and other early races possessed it,
and likewise the Greeks, Romans and Vikings. In the most modern
full-rigged ship it is to-day seen as conspicuous as ever. For
ocean, deep-sea sailing it has no peer, but in course of time with
the growth of the coasting and fishing shipping, of pilotage and
yachting, a rig that was suitable for deep-sea sailing was found
to be not altogether ideal for the new demands. And so, gradually,
side by side with the squaresail, has grown up another development
which we may divide into two sections: first, the fore-and-aft
rig, and secondly, the compromises that have been made between the
fore-and-aft and the squaresail.
It would be quite impossible here to trace in such complete detail
the history and development of the fore-and-afters as we have done
of the larger sailing ships; that, indeed, demands a separate
volume to itself. But we can show here, what, as far as I am able
to ascertain, has never been attempted by any previous writer, in
outline, at least, the story of the rise of the fore-and-after,
and link it up to that larger ship that sets her sails at an angle
athwart the keel instead of parallel with it. We shall thus complete
our study in connecting the present with the past, and in showing
how the latest _Shamrock_ is related to the early Egyptian ship, and
how on the one hand she has inherited certain family characteristics
of her fore-parent, yet on the other hand, through coming under new
influences and acquiring new habits, she has altered some of the
features by which her ancestors were especially distinguished.
In an earlier chapter we mentioned that it was in Holland during the
sixteenth century that the fore-and-aft rig originated. At first it
was only used for quite small sailing boats, but it was not long
before craft of fifty tons and more adopted it. We must remember that
about this time the Dutch were more advanced in maritime matters
than any other nation. With them shipbuilding and naval architecture
were much nearer to being an art and a science than elsewhere. The
vast number of miles open to inland navigation, the shallowness of
their channels and coasts naturally encouraged and stimulated them
to study the problem of smaller ships. What the Tigris and Euphrates
and Nile had been to the ancients the inland waterways were to the
Dutch. The squaresail rig was out of the question. It was far too
clumsy for tacking in and out of the small harbours of the Zuyder
Zee and German Ocean. It would not sail close enough to the wind to
allow the little craft just to lay her course in a straight narrow
channel, while at the same time the Mediterranean lateen rig with its
enormous yard was not suitable for the boisterous, squally North
Sea. So the Dutchman, appreciating the virtues which the lateen shape
possessed, just preserved this same triangular form, but cut it in
two for convenience and handiness, though at the sacrifice of speed.
Let the reader take his pencil and draw a vertical line to represent
a mast. Across this let him draw a triangle with the apex well over
to one side of the mast and the rest of the triangle and base to the
other. This is roughly the shape of the Mediterranean and Eastern
lateen as one can see by comparing Figs. 102 and 103. Now rub out
from the drawing that part which is forward of the mast, and there
remains a rectangular figure which is the germ of the first mainsail
the cutter, or, more properly, the sloop-rigged boat had. In actual
practice the sail was made much squarer at the top. A sprit was then
stretched diagonally across the sail, with the peak on nearly the
same level as where the throat now is. This sprit was supported just
as in the Thames barge to-day, by a yard-tackle coming down from the
throat to the sprit. It was thus, as we see from the engravings of
the contemporary record of the first Dutch voyage to the North Pole
in 1599, that the little craft that brought the ill-fated members
home was rigged. Similarly the staysail, working on the forestay,
as to-day, was in shape and size roughly equivalent to that part
which in the triangular sketch just now would project forward of the
mast. Vangs came down from the peak, and a bonnet being in use on
the contemporary full-rigged ships, was naturally enough used for
the smaller ships, too. Thus the sprit is really the old lateen yard
modified, and the fore-and-aft rig is in its earliest days but the
dhow rig cut in two. I have made a close study of the earliest Dutch
engravings and paintings, and have little doubt in my mind as to the
stages of development here indicated.
[Illustration: FIG. 82. FROM “RIVER SCENE WITH SAILING BOATS,” BY JAN
VAN DER CAPPELLE.]
The next change came when the last relic of the lateen yard
disappeared, for in place of the sprit a tiny gaff was added at the
top and a boom at the bottom of the sail. The sail was, of course,
loose-footed and very baggy, and was kept to the mast by lacing,
wooden hoops being still unknown. Then a long clumsy bowsprit was
given, so that forward of the staysail a jib might be introduced.
Thus it is not the foresail that was added to the jib, but _vice
versâ_. Originally the foresail was the _fore_ sail in fact as well
as in name, until the jib was introduced. Then topsails were added.
These were copied from those on the contemporary full-rigged ships,
were square in shape, were set athwart the ship and not parallel
like the modern topsails. Before long, we find that not content with
one square topsail, some of the bigger craft set a square topgallant
sail also. The topsail was goared out considerably and the foot was
cut in a deep curve upwards, but a “barren” yard like that of the
old cro’jack was retained. In light winds, the triangular spinnaker
not being yet invented, the Dutchman set a large squaresail for
running. This was similar to the lower course of the full-rigged
ship and was set below the topsail when the ship was large enough to
carry the former. This lower course extended from the hounds, was
hoisted _outside_ the forestay and, if she was a large sized ship and
possessed a bowsprit, the sail extended right down to the furthest
end of the latter. If she had no bowsprit then it came down to the
stem. This latter instance will be seen in Fig. 82, which has been
sketched from the picture by Van der Cappelle in the National Gallery
(No. 964; Van der Cappelle painted from 1650 to 1680). We find in the
paintings and engravings of this time that the Dutch were immensely
fond of booming out these sails with a light spar. One is seen in
this illustration, but sometimes, besides such a one as this, they
would set another boom one-third of the way up the sail, so that it
might catch every breath of wind. In the present illustration the
staysail is seen set, but one often finds it rolled round and round
the forestay. So, too, with the mainsail, if it should happen to
be a spritsail, then the foot was boomed out, in running, with a
light spar also. It was thus, I believe, that the introduction of a
boom and gaff mainsail came—the boom first and the necessary spar
at the top to correspond thereto. Then, not infrequently, one finds
in the Dutchmen of about 1700 that they dispense with the boom but
retain the gaff. The brails, in the case of the spritsails, were
plentifully used, sometimes with the addition also of reef-points.
As to the hulls, they were tubby, bluff-bowed, but excellent
sea-boats, if slow. Being of light draught, they had leeboards.
Until about 1840-1850, we in this country continued to model our
fishing and small sailing craft generally upon the lines of these
Dutchmen (notice the cutter shown in Turner’s painting reproduced
in Fig. 71). But whilst we have gone ahead from improvement to
approximate perfection, from ignorance to knowledge, the ships of
the Low Countries remain but little altered since the days of Tromp,
when the Dutch were at the height of their maritime progress. The
Dutch schuyt, such as may be seen any day lying at her buoy off
Billingsgate, is shown in Fig. 83. The Viking influence is written
largely over the ships of Holland, but breadth has taken the place of
the length beloved of the Northerner.
[Illustration: FIG. 83. A MODERN DUTCH SCHUYT.]
[Illustration: FIG. 84. “A FRESH GALE AT SEA.”
_After the painting by W. Van der Velde, No. 150 in the National
Gallery._]
If we compare the last-mentioned sketch of a modern Dutchman with
that in Fig. 84, which has been copied from the exquisite little
Van der Velde in the National Gallery, we shall see how little
the hulls of their ships have altered. Van der Velde (the younger)
lived from 1633 to 1707, so that he saw the Dutch ships at their very
best. As Macaulay says, the Van der Veldes, father and son, produced,
when they came over to Greenwich as painters to Charles II., some
of the finest sea-pieces in the world. The title given to the
present picture is _A Fresh Gale at Sea_ (No. 150). It is extremely
interesting to us for its indication of the rig. The ship in the
foreground on the port tack will collide with the other if both stand
on. But to avoid this she has resolved to bear up. The reader will
notice the helm has been put hard over as the other ship is seen
staggering out of the squall and mist. Easing off her sheet she has
also lowered her peak by slacking off the tackle at the foot of the
sprit. In another of Van der Velde’s paintings in the same gallery
(No. 149, _A Calm at Sea_) the same peculiar method of lowering sail
is seen. We see a ship at anchor in a calm. She has slacked off the
tack in the same way, so that the spar comes right across the mast.
English ships of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries possessing
this characteristic will be found in the paintings of Turner and
other contemporary artists.
[Illustration: FIG. 85. “RIVER SCENE.”
_After the painting by W. Van der Velde. No. 978 in the National
Gallery._]
For many years, though the Dutch had changed their rig for small
craft, yet they still felt the influence of the bigger squaresail
ships, notably in the design of the sterns. Thus the familiar
decoration and the sheer to a high poop will be noticed in the
vessel that occupies the centre of Fig. 85, which is rigged with a
spritsail. This has been copied from another Van der Velde in the
same gallery (No. 978). I have selected this picture expressly for
the purpose of indicating, as Van der Velde has done, as many of the
prevailing types of Dutch seventeenth-century craft as possible in
a small space. The short gaff, the spritsail furled by means of its
brails, the large squaresail for spinnaker work seen on the ship to
the left of the picture, the high stempost (relic of the Vikings) on
the ship to the right—these will all be found deserving of notice.
It was no doubt a ship very similar to the high-pooped yacht in the
centre of this picture that was sent to Charles II. in 1660 by the
Dutch. The vessel was called the _Mary_, and was the first yacht ever
owned in this country.
In England the revenue and other sailing cutters of the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries were rigged with the square topgallant
sail and “goared” topsail below, with a hollow foot. Old prints
of the beginning of the eighteenth century (1717) show British
cutters sailing with the jack flying from the staff at the end
of the bowsprit just clear of the jib. The bowsprit is steeved
remarkably high and is very long. In a like manner were rigged
also the yachts of this period. So the cutters continued until the
’forties and ’fifties, when the bluff bows and rough rig gave way
to a larger, cleaner lined, and more scientific production than the
slavish copying of a seventeenth century Dutch type could produce.
Now the old-fashioned square topsail has utterly disappeared in
fore-and-afters, and one of more or less triangular shape has taken
its place. But since it is in the building and rigging of yachts that
the most complete changes have occurred during the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries we shall postpone the further progress of the
cutter until later in the chapter.
[Illustration: FIG. 86. THE BAWLEY.]
No modification of the cutter rig in England is so thoroughly Dutch
as the bawley (Fig. 86). Not even the least observant of passengers
on the Margate steamer can have failed to notice these little ships
off the Nore or cruising somewhere up and down the Thames estuary.
Off Southend and Whitstable they are as common as flies in summer,
and bigger children of the same family are to be seen brought up in
the Stour abreast of Harwich. The bawley inherits the Dutch ancient
mainsail, with brails that can speedily shorten canvas, and without
a boom to be kicking about from side to side as the ship rolls in
the trough of the nasty seas that can get up off the entrance to
our great waterway. With their transom stern and easily brailed and
triced mainsail these bawleys are excellent bad-weather boats.
Some of the finest cutters in the country are the Brixham Mumble
Bees, trawlers of about 27 tons. They have their mast stepped
well aft, so that they are able to set an enormous foresail. Here
especially the long bowsprit has survived, and without a bobstay
to support it. The Plymouth hooker, with her mast stepped well
amidships, with her square stern, no boom to her mainsail, and
pole-mast, cannot be said altogether to have escaped Dutch influence,
although it is said that the Devonshire men in Elizabeth’s time
possessed cutters of their own.
The illustration in Plan 1 shows the sail and rigging plan of the
_Gjöa_. The vessel is shown here because in combining much that is
old and new she is one of the most interesting cutters afloat. Her
tonnage is 70, length over all 69 feet, beam 20·66 feet, depth 8·75
feet, draught 7·5 feet. In June 1903 she set out from Christiania,
and three and a half years later she had navigated the North-West
Passage and reached San Francisco. Obviously built for the hard
service of the Arctic regions, her hull is bluff and strong. The
bowsprit is more that of an old-fashioned full-rigged ship than of
a modern cutter, and the squaresail, whose yard and braces will be
noticed, has come back from the times of the old Dutchmen, being,
as already mentioned, of inestimable value for running across vast
expanses of ocean. But in spite of her old-fashioned bow and stern
and rigging she is fitted with a heavy-oil motor, as will be seen
from Plan 2. This was found very useful, giving the ship a speed of 4
knots per hour; and it was the first time a motor-propelled ship had
been so far north. Plan 3 gives an adequate idea of _Gjöa’s_ deck
arrangement.
Pass we now to trace the progress of the schooner. It is a common
error to suppose that this rig was derived direct from the cutter
by merely adding another mast and sail of the same shape as the
mainsail. Such a statement is pure guess-work, and entirely contrary
to fact. The schooner originated quite independently of the cutter
and much later, though the shape of her mainsail and foresail was
obtained from the former. About the beginning of the seventeenth
century a craft far from uncommon among the Dutch was the sloop. Now
in order to clear the ground, let us carefully separate the three
distinct kinds of craft to which this name belonged at that time. The
word sloop, or more properly _sloepe_, was applied less to the rig
than to the size of the craft, denoting a somewhat small tonnage.
Thus it was primarily applied to a ship’s big boat, such as was used
to run out the kedge anchor and for fetching provisions and water
from the shore. The same name was also given to the Dutch vessels
of about 55 feet long and 12½ feet beam which sailed to the Cape
Verde Islands. More familiar to us was the custom of applying it
to the early cutter-like craft which carried a triangular foresail
yet no jib. But not one of these is the sloop we are looking for.
This is found in that kind of sailing craft which was about 42 feet
overall and with 9 feet beam. She was rigged with two pole masts,
the mainmast being 24 feet long. On each she had just such a sail
as we see in Fig. 83 of a modern schuyt, with loose foot and with
both gaff and boom, but the most important fact is that she had
neither bowsprit nor headsails of any kind, while her foremast was
stepped right as far forward as it could get. There are plenty of
contemporary prints and paintings in existence to show such a vessel,
which usually had an enormous sheer coming up from bow to stern.
This, then, was not a schooner but a sloop, and you may search
high and low in all the seventeenth century dictionaries, marine
and otherwise, but you will not find such a word as “schooner”
in existence. We come, then, to the early part of the eighteenth
century, and we cross to North America. When in 1664 the British,
during the war with Holland, seized the Dutch colony of the New
Netherlands and changed the name of New Amsterdam to New York in
honour of Charles II.’s brother, most of the Dutch settlers who
had come out from Europe remained. So, like those early people who
trekked westwards across the Syrian desert to Egypt, the Dutch
had also brought with them their ideas and practical knowledge of
shipbuilding, included in which was that of making sloops. It was
at Gloucester, Massachusetts, still to-day famous for the finest
schooners and the very finest schooner-sailors that ever tasted
brine on their lips, that in 1713 the first genuine schooner with a
triangular headsail was built. To add the latter to the two-masted
sloop was but the easiest transition. Not till the first vessel of
this now enormous class was actually making its first contact with
water was the name schooner bestowed on it. As she was leaving the
stocks some one remarked “Oh, how she scoons.” “Very well, then,”
answered her proud builder, “a scooner let her be.” And so she has
remained ever since.
For the next century and a half Gloucester went ahead building these
beautiful creatures, more stately than a cutter, less ponderous than
a full-rigged ship, until 1852, when the famous _America_ still
perpetuated in the America Cup came across to the English waters and
so wiped the slate that every rich owner of yachts desired to turn
them into the same rig as this Yankee. We will say no more about her
at present as we shall presently make her acquaintance anew when we
come to deal entirely with yachts.
[Illustration: FIG. 87. THE SCHOONER “PINKIE” (1800-50).]
[Illustration: FIG. 88. THE “FREDONIA.” BUILT IN 1891.]
But to return to the more commercial schooner; for whatever else
Gloucester, Massachusetts, may yet become famous, it will always
be associated with that wonderful fleet of fishing schooners which
those who have read Kipling’s “Captains Courageous,” and Mr. J. B.
Connolly’s “The Seiners,” already know. The origin of this wonderful
Gloucester breed may be traced to the Dutch fly-boat, or _flibot_,
of the eighteenth century. The next step in the evolution of the
Gloucester schooner is seen in Fig. 87, the _Pinkie_, engaged in
the fishery industry between 1800 and 1850. Although the sail plan
belongs to a smaller boat than the one just indicated, yet we see
the first step in the introduction of the single headsail to the old
two-masted “sloepe,” with the foremast even now stepped very far
forward. Impelled by the demands for a ship that would be able to
carry its fish to market with the utmost despatch, but which would be
able to endure being caught in the terrible seas off the Newfoundland
Banks; and subsequently encouraged to progress through the popularity
which such craft were obtaining among the American pilots who used to
come out enormous distances into the Atlantic in those days to meet
the incoming liners, the builders and designers went on improving
the design and rig, giving them fine hollow lines, adding jibs and
standing bowsprits, greater draught and speed, larger spars with a
vast square measurement of canvas. The _Fredonia_, seen in Fig. 88,
was one of the famous schooners of the ’nineties and is so still. She
was designed by W. Burgess in 1891, and with her cut-away fore-foot
and finer lines is a great improvement on the old Dutch models. This
vessel measures 114 feet 2 inches long, with 25 feet beam, drawing
12 feet 8 inches. Her displacement is 188 tons, and her sail area is
the enormous extent of 7542 square feet. Fig. 89 represents one of
the earliest of the twentieth-century productions, and is designed
by the famous Crowinshield. Her fore-foot is cut away more like that
of a Solent racing schooner-yacht. Indeed, many of these Gloucester
schooners are far more entitled to be called yachts than any other
name. I have watched them turning up the Hudson in the winter,
threading their way through the ice-blocks and the crowd of fussy
tugs and mammoth liners in New York harbour with the handiness of
a small rater. The most modern example of this ideal ship is that
seen in Fig. 90. She is only a 53-tonner with an overall length of
under 70 feet, and is fitted with a 25-horse-power motor. But in many
cases the internal combustion engine has been adopted by the American
sailing ships only to be rejected as not worth while.
[Illustration: FIG. 89. GLOUCESTER SCHOONER, A.D. 1901.]
[Illustration: FIG. 90. GLOUCESTER SCHOONER, A.D. 1906.]
The coasting trade of the United States of America is not done in
the ketches and topsail schooners and barquentines that we use. It
is done exclusively, where sailing ships are used, in fore-and-aft
schooners which have arisen directly or indirectly from Gloucester.
Two masts have become three, three have become five, and even as
many as seven have been used. Perhaps the most notable of these
was the seven-masted _Thomas W. Lawson_, which foundered off the
Scillies on December 14, 1907. Remarkable for the ease with which it
can be handled, a three-masted schooner of about 400 tons requires
only a dozen hands aboard. In tacking, a couple of hands work the
head-sheets, and these with a man at the wheel can work her in and
out of narrow channels, for which the rig is more suited than any
modification of the squaresail. For labour-saving “gadgets” the
American schooner has reached the furthest limit. Thus the anchor and
sails are raised by steam force; there is steam steering gear as well
as steam capstan, and the biggest ships of all have been fitted even
with electric light. The illustration in Fig. 91 of a four-master
will give one some idea of the extent to which the American schooner
has developed.
[Illustration: FIG. 91. AN AMERICAN FOUR-MASTED SCHOONER.]
Coming back to European waters, besides the pure fore-and-aft
schooner we have also the topsail schooner and the two-topsail
schooner. No better instance of the former could be found than in the
illustration in Fig. 116 of Lord Brassey’s famous auxiliary yacht
the _Sunbeam_, of which we shall give further details on a later
page, among the yachts. But we may now call attention to the square
fore-topsail and smaller t’gallant sail on this ship. Sometimes,
too, one finds a royal added also to the foremast. The braces,
clew-garnet, lifts, and other rigging are so well shown in this
photograph as to require no further comment. A two-topsail schooner
carries a square topsail and t’gallant sail at the main _as well
as_ the fore. The topsail schooner is perhaps the best known of our
coasting types. Most of our trading schooners are “butter-rigged,”
that is to say, that whereas the topsail schooner has a standing
t’gallant yard set up with lifts, the butter-rigged sets her
t’gallants’l flying by hoisting the yard every time.
[Illustration: FIG. 92. A BARQUENTINE OFF THE SOUTH FORELAND.]
[Illustration: FIG. 93. BARQUENTINE WITH STUNS’LS.]
The illustrations in Figs. 92 and 93 represent barquentines, although
one of them is seen with the now obsolete stun’s’ls. A barquentine
is square-rigged on the foremasts, but fore-and-aft rigged on the
main and mizzen. The difference between the barquentine and the
three-masted schooner is that the former has a regular brigantine’s
foremast. The three-masted schooner does not carry a fore-course, but
in place of it a large squaresail, only used when running free in
moderate weather, only differing from the fore-course in that it is
not bent to the yard.
[Illustration: FIG. 94. THE “FANTÔME,” 18-TON BRIG. LAUNCHED 1838.]
The illustration shown in Fig. 94 represents the 18-ton brig
_Fantôme_. She was designed by Sir W. Symonds and launched about
1838. Her armament consisted of eighteen 32-pounders, and her
complement was 148 officers and men. Her tonnage was 726, her breadth
37·7 feet, length 120 feet, and depth of hold 18 feet. This is from a
photograph of the model in the South Kensington Museum. Fig. 95 is a
photograph of the training brig _Martin_, actually afloat. The brig
was the last sailing ship to disappear from the British Navy, and her
final abolition is so recent that her picturesqueness still lingers
in the imagination of Solent yachtsmen and others. The _Martin_ was
launched in 1836. As will be seen from the photograph, which obtains
even greater interest when compared with the model just mentioned,
she carried single topsails, t’gallants and royals. Stun’sails
will be noticed on the foresail, fore-topsail, fore-topgallant
sail as well as on her main topgallant sail. As we shall never see
these sailing brigs again, the photograph is of more than ordinary
interest.
[Illustration: FIG. 95. H.M.S. “MARTIN,” TRAINING BRIG. LAUNCHED
1836.]
In olden days the brig was a favourite rig for small coasters. In
the marine paintings of Turner and the early part of the nineteenth
century one sees them frequently. In the eighteenth century, and even
as late as the nineteenth, the brig was used for the coal-carrying
trade. The nineteenth-century brigs often carried, besides the sails
seen in the two illustrations, an enormous fore-topgallant staysail.
But both the handiness of schooners and ketches began to oust her,
and the coming of the steam collier finally did for her in the
mercantile marine as, at a later date, she was abolished from the
Royal Navy.
[Illustration: FIG. 96. A HERMAPHRODITE BRIG, COMMONLY BUT
ERRONEOUSLY CALLED A BRIGANTINE.]
I have intentionally introduced the brig at this point,
notwithstanding that she is essentially a square-rigged ship, in
order that we may compare her the more easily with that compromise
between the square rig and fore-and-aft vessel, the brigantine.
Strictly speaking, the brigantine is square-rigged at her foremast,
but differs from the Hermaphrodite brig in carrying small squaresails
aloft at the main. She differs also from the full-rigged brig in
having no top at the mainmast and in carrying a fore-and-aft mainsail
and sometimes a main-staysail instead of a square mainsail and
try-sail. (The fore-and-aft sail at a brig’s mainmast is called a
try-sail.) The illustration in Fig. 96 represents a Hermaphrodite
brig, commonly and erroneously called a brigantine. The Hermaphrodite
brig, or brig-schooner, is square-rigged at her foremast like a brig,
but without a top forward, and carrying only a fore-and-aft mainsail
and gaff topsail on the mainmast. And here it may not be out of place
to mention another subtlety: while a barque has three masts, being
square-rigged at her fore and main like a ship, and differing from
a ship-rigged vessel in having no top at her mizzen, but carrying
a fore-and-aft spanker and gaff topsail, yet what is known among
sailormen as the “Jackass” barque resembles a barque proper, but has
no crosstrees, does not spread lower courses and has no tops. (Tops
are the platforms placed over the heads of the lower masts, while the
crosstrees are at the topmast heads, being used for giving a wider
spread to the standing rigging).
[Illustration: FIG. 97. THE “TILLIKUM,” SCHOONER-RIGGED “DUG-OUT,”
WHICH SAILED ROUND THE WORLD.]
The illustration seen in Fig. 97 shows one of the smallest
schooner-rigged craft that ever sailed the ocean. This is the famous
_Tillikum_, adapted from a “dug-out,” in which Captain J. C. Voss,
F.R.G.S., sailed round the world to England. The sketch which we give
here of this odd ship was made in November 1906, while she lay off
the Houses of Parliament. She has since changed ownership and been
fitted with a motor, and in her green paint is a familiar sight to
those who bring up in the Orwell off Pin Mill.
The origin of the ketch is also Dutch, although the word is in old
French _quaiche_ and in Spanish _queche_. We frequently find the
influence of the bomb-ketch in old pictures and engravings, in
which the mizzen is close up against the mainmast, and the latter
is stepped well abaft of amidships, so as to allow the shot fired
to clear the rigging, leaving a large fore-triangle. (See Fig. 62,
the _galiote à bombe_.) This influence is felt even as late as the
second half of the eighteenth century. The ketch is descended from
the Dutch galliot, which, besides having a gaff mizzen, had a sprit
mainsail like the barge, and with no boom, but three brails and one
row of reef-points. The usual vangs led down aft from the peak, and
she also had lee-runners. But, besides her triangular headsails,
consisting of a fore(stay)sail and a couple of jibs, she carried
also a small t’gallant sail, with big topsail below, and often a
large lower course below that—all these last three being square, as
on a full-rigged ship, and to this day many Baltic ketches continue
to be rigged in like manner. At the close of Charles II.’s reign we
find that among the 173 ships in the British Royal Navy there were
three ketches, but before this date, in his “Seamen’s Dictionary”
of 1644, Sir Henry Manwayring defines them simply as “a small boate
such as uses to come to Belinsgate with mackrell, oisters, &c.” From
the time of Charles I. the Dutch have had the privilege of mooring
three of their fish-carrying craft off Billingsgate in recognition
of “their straightforward dealings with us,” and any day the reader
likes to go down in the vicinity of London Bridge he will see two
or three Dutch schuyts swinging to their moorings. In an eighteenth
century work on naval architecture it is curious to see the galliot
also called a galleasse. In this case the mainsail has discarded
the sprit and taken on a small gaff with boom and loose foot. Two
rows of reef-points are also added, and the squaresails are still
there. An old English engraving also shows a close similarity to the
former bomb-ketch. But in the course of time all the squaresails were
abolished, the mainmast brought further forward, and the mizzen sail
enlarged so as to be not much smaller than the mainsail. Nowadays
nowhere is the modern ketch rig so prominent as on the east coast of
England, from as far north as Whitby to as far south as Ramsgate, and
even Brixham. The billy-boy, with her long raking bowsprit, setting
almost as many jibs as a full-rigged ship, and whose general design
bears the most remarkable likeness to the ship in the seal of Dam in
Fig. 40, is the Yorkshire adaptation of the old Dutch galliot, and,
with her leeboards and ketch rig, is well known in the North Sea. In
the ’seventies our East Coast fishermen were almost all rigged with
the lug-sail, but now some of the finest ketches will be found in the
fishing fleets of Yarmouth, Lowestoft, and Ramsgate. For powerful,
seaworthy craft, able to heave-to comfortably, and with the capacity
of riding out gales that few modern yachts with their cut-away bows
could survive, there is nothing on the sea, size for size, to beat
these ketches. In Fig. 98 we give an illustration of a Lowestoft
“drifter.” With her boomless mainsail and raking mizzen, setting a
jackyard topsail over both main and mizzen, she sets also in light
winds a large reaching jib.
[Illustration: FIG. 98. LOWESTOFT DRIFTER.]
[Illustration: FIG. 99. THAMES BARGE.]
We come next to the yawl. Correctly speaking this word has reference
not to rig but to shape. The Scandinavian _yol_ was a light vessel,
clinker-built and double-ended, like the Viking shape. The Yarmouth
yawls that we shall consider presently, were correctly called yawls
with their bow and stern alike. But the word has now come to refer
to a later adaptation of the ketch, in which the mainsail has grown
bigger and the mizzen smaller. In a ketch the mizzen mast is stepped
forward of the rudder-head; in the yawl the mizzen mast is abaft the
rudder-head. The _Jullanar_, for instance, in Fig. 117, is a yawl.
But to the Londoner no more familiar example could be found of a
yawl than the Thames barge, of which the illustration in Fig. 99
is a fair specimen. Still inheriting her Dutch-like spritsail and
brailing arrangement, she has also the vangs that were first attached
to the peak in the sixteenth century. The old-fashioned topsail is a
cross between a modern jackyarder and the old Dutch square topsail.
Aft she carries another small spritsail on the diminutive mizzen.
Smaller types of barge, called “stumpies,” have only pole-masts and
neither bowsprit nor jib nor topsail. But the larger type of barge,
carrying topmast and setting a big jib-headed topsail, known as
topsail barges, with their red-ochred canvas and the untanned jib,
always known by bargemen as the “spinnaker,” have grown to such sizes
that they go right down to the west end of the English Channel. Yet
these are rather ketches than yawls. But even in the Thames barges
developments have not ceased. Obviously Dutch, as they strike one in
a moment, the old Dutch bluff bows have been replaced by the straight
bow as seen in the sketch. A whole book could be written about the
barge and her ways, her history, her leeboards, her lengthy
topmast, and the wooden horse on which the staysail works; but we
must pass on.
[Illustration: FIG. 100. NORFOLK WHERRY.]
Curiously Dutch-like, too, is the Norfolk wherry seen in Fig. 100,
with her one enormous sail, her mast fitted in a tabernacle for ease
in lowering, unsupported by shrouds or rigging of any sort other
than the forestay by which the mast is eased down. Only one halyard
is required for both peak and throat, which are raised by means of
a winch forward of the mast. She has no leeboards, nevertheless she
draws under three feet of water: although I have heard her sweepingly
condemned as defying all existing rules, yet the way she can sail
right close into the wind is incredible to those who have not seen
her. In running with her bonnet off and her sail close reefed she
gripes badly and is a veritable handful as she comes sailing into
Great Yarmouth from across Breydon Water or tearing through the
rushes of Barton Broad and down the tortuous and narrow Ant. Within
recent years, now that the Norfolk and Suffolk waterways have become
a tourist resort, the wherry has changed her face a little and become
smarter, and the tanned sail is often allowed to remain white, while
the hatches have been taken away and a cabin roof, allowing plenty of
head-room with ladies’ saloons, pianos and other luxuries, have come
in. But all the time the wherry remains as a useful cargo boat for
bringing coals and timber from the ports of Lowestoft and Yarmouth
inland to Norwich and the East Anglian villages, returning with eels,
or marsh hay for thatching. Sometimes one notices them, in settled
weather, with a fair wind steal quietly out from Lowestoft harbour
and make a sea passage round to Yarmouth, but as Mr. Warington Smyth
well says in his “Mast and Sail,” “in the smallest wind and sea the
wherry loses her head entirely and develops a suicidal tendency to
bury herself and crew.”
[Illustration: FIG. 101. DHOW-RIGGED YACHT.]
[Illustration: FIG. 102. SUEZ DHOWS, WITH A SIBBICK RATER.]
[Illustration: FIG. 103. MEDITERRANEAN FELUCCA.
_From the model in the South Kensington Museum._]
After the squaresail had for so many centuries held sway among the
earliest dwellers of the earth, the lateen began stealthily to
assert itself as we saw in the first chapters. Although Holland set
the example in the sixteenth century of cutting up the lateen shape
into the cutter rig, yet in the Mediterranean, along the East Coast
of Africa and in the Indian Ocean generally, the lateen has refused
to be made obsolete. The illustration in Fig. 101 represents a Bombay
yacht of the second half of the nineteenth century rigged with a
couple of lateens, and masts that rake forward at a considerable
angle. Every tourist to Egypt is familiar with the picturesque
lateens and lofty yards of which Fig. 102, showing a fleet of these
with a small Sibbick rater in between, affords a study in contrast
between the conservative East and the progressive West. The sketch
was made at Suez. The felucca in Fig. 103 is a well-known lateen type
in the Mediterranean, with her white and green, her square stern and
single deck. The sketch here shown has been made from a charming
little model in the South Kensington Museum, and represents one of
the familiar two-masters seen off the Spanish coast. The tack and
sheets and rigging are shown so clearly that we need not stop to
indicate them. In old paintings and prints we see that the felucca
type in the Mediterranean developed into vessels of considerable
tonnage with three masts. The Venetians and Greeks and Genoese, as
well as the piratical Moors and the other Mediterranean inhabitants,
used them both as cargo carriers and ships of war. They are in fact
the lineal descendants of the ancient galleys. Further modifications
include the addition of a jib, though the Southerner has not followed
the universal Northern practice of transforming his lateen into a
mainsail. Sometimes we find old prints showing a felucca with the
addition also of a mizzen spritsail similar to that on the modern
barge. The French signified by the word _brigantin_ a two-masted
lateen-rigged galley with oars as auxiliary. But there came into
use that compromise between lateen and squaresail that in Northern
Europe we have seen to exist between the pure fore-and-after and the
square-rigger. Thus, for instance, one finds ships rigged with a
large lateen on the foremast, the mainmast being square-rigged with
mainsail, topsail and t’gallant, while the mizzen has a lateen with
square topsail. The reader who wishes to see the different varieties
of lateen and lateen-plus-square rig is referred to Mr. Warington
Smyth’s interesting volume “Mast and Sail,” while for details as to
design and rigging he will find some valuable information in Admiral
Paris’ “Souvenirs de Marine.”
[Illustration: FIG. 104. HAILAM JUNK.]
[Illustration: FIG. 105. CHINESE JUNK.
_From the model in the South Kensington Museum._]
The Chinese in their own independent way went on developing from the
early Egyptian models and have been not inaptly called the Dutchmen
of the East in their nautical tendencies. They developed quickly
but then remained at a standstill, whilst the European has gone
on by slow steps of progression. Adopting rather the sail of the
lugger than the old Egyptian squaresail, the Chinese made it into a
balance-lug and stiffened it with bamboo-battens. The illustration
in Fig. 104 was sketched by Mr. Warington Smyth (through whose
courtesy it is here reproduced) near Kaw Sichang, and represents a
Hailam junk. The sail of the Chinaman is hoisted up a pole-mast, the
halyard passing through a large double block attached to the yard
and a treble block at the masthead, a hauling parrel keeping yard
to mast and helping to peak the sail when reefed. Reefing with the
Chinese consists simply in letting go the halyard, when the weight
of sail and battens brings the sail into the topping lifts: two or
more battens are bunched together along the boom. The illustration
in Fig. 105 will show in further detail the rigging of a Chinese
junk. This has been specially sketched from a fine model in the South
Kensington Museum. Built of soft wood, she has a full bottom and
water-tight compartments. The mizzen mast will be noticed to be in
duplicate, one on each quarter, only the leeward one being used under
way, the sails being of matting. The rudder is remarkable, unwieldy,
and projecting deep into the water, but capable of being raised by
means of a windlass when in shallows. The windlass in the bows raises
the three anchors, which are made of hard wood, the flukes being
tipped with iron, whilst the stock is in the crown instead of in the
top of the shank as in European anchors. Very similar to this model
was the famous Chinese junk _Keying_, which caused some sensation
by sailing from Canton to the Thames in 1847-8. These craft, owing
to their light draught and bulky tophamper, are not much good
going to windward, so that one is not surprised that the _Keying_
took 477 days on the voyage to England. In crossing China seas they
usually take advantage of the favourable monsoons. Their enormous
crescent-shaped sheer makes them excellent bad weather ships. Their
tonnage varies between 300 and 800. The _Keying_ came round the Horn,
and her rudder, when let down, drew 22 feet of water. It hung loose,
as seen in the model, and was perforated, weighing nearly eight tons.
Under way it necessitated fifteen men, as well as a luff-tackle
purchase, to work the helm. She had no keelson, and the mast, instead
of being stepped, was supported by a toggle. The seams of the vessel
were paid with a kind of putty-cement made out of burnt pounded
oyster shells and oil from the chinam-tree. The mainsail weighed no
less than nearly nine tons, and took the crew two hours to hoist.
Towards the end of last year (1908) the Australian Customs officials
saw with amazement the arrival in their waters of another Chinese
junk, the _Whang-Ho_. This craft, which was over a hundred years old,
and was previously a pirate ship, set out from China for a voyage to
San Francisco. Afterwards she sailed for the eastern side of America,
but in making an attempt to round the Horn was less fortunate
than the _Keying_, a wave carrying away her huge rudder; but she
eventually reached Australia. She had previously touched at Tahiti,
and nothing was heard of her until she reached Thursday Island, 100
days out.
Returning now to Northern Europe, we find the lug-sail surviving
especially in fishing craft for which it possesses certain peculiar
advantages. In Fig. 106 we have the sail plan of a Blankenberg boat.
Those who are acquainted with the coast-line around Ostend cannot
have failed to notice these craft with their leeboards raised, hauled
up the sandy beach. Here the standing lug is set after the French
style, the old mediæval bowline being still preserved from the
squaresail to set the lug straight when on a wind. Notice that the
foresail is right in the eyes of the ship, so that the rig looks as
if it was no distant relative of the vessel with the artemon that
carried St. Paul on his voyage.
[Illustration: FIG. 106. BLANKENBERG BOAT.]
Every one who has cruised down Channel is familiar with the French
_Chasse-Marée_, a curious figure on the sea-line, with her lug-sails
and three crazy-looking masts. Over the mainmast she sets a square
topsail, while forward she carries a long bowsprit with a small jib,
the latter being in shape more of an equal-sided triangle than the
modern English jib, while the French lug-sail is sheeted very high,
as will be seen from the sketch (see Fig. 107).
[Illustration: FIG. 107. FRENCH “CHASSE-MARÉE.”]
At one time Norfolk was famous for its beach yawls. Those who have
visited Great Yarmouth will have noticed these very large open boats
painted white with (if I remember correctly) a riband of green
running along the gunwale. Double-ended, they are now usually rigged
cutter fashion and used as pleasure boats. Clinker-built, they have
a very fine entrance and a clean run, and sometimes measure 50 feet
in length and 10 feet beam. They used to carry three lug-sails and
jib owing to French influence. In the days when sailing ships were
more frequent than to-day, Yarmouth Roads were usually a crowded
anchorage, and these yawls would be launched almost every day during
the winter to assist a vessel that had been picked up by the shoals.
Nowadays one still sees them used for bringing pilots ashore, but it
is at the Yarmouth and Lowestoft regattas that one is able to realise
alike their enormous speed on a reach and the dexterity of each crew,
numbering about twenty. The three-masted lug rig of olden days has
now given way to a two-master with a dipping lug for the main and
standing mizzen, besides a small jib forward.
[Illustration: FIG. 108. SCOTCH “ZULU.”]
Until about 1860 the Scotch fishing boat was entirely influenced
by Norway, and even to-day no one could deny that this influence
is altogether wanting. But at last the fisherman began to seek the
herring further out to sea, and so a bolder, decked ship was evolved,
and clinker-build gave way to carvel, and the design was given finer
lines and greater draught. I have watched a fleet of such vessels
as in Fig. 108 running into Scarborough Bay with an onshore breeze
in the soft light of a September afternoon, with their yacht-like
lines and their fine massive hulls suggesting an ideal combination of
strength and beauty. Most of these large “Zulus,” as they are called,
carry steam capstans for getting in the heavy nets, hoisting sail
and warping into harbour. Within the last few years they have been
fitted with steering wheels instead of helms. They are good boats to
windward, and are able to carry their enormous lugs longer than most
vessels could keep aloft a similar area of sail.
[Illustration: FIG. 109. PENZANCE LUGGER.]
The Cornish lugger is able to carry a larger mizzen but a smaller lug
forward than his Scotch cousin. Fig. 109 is an example of a Penzance
lugger. She draws also more water aft than the “Zulu.” The Penzance
luggers are famous all over England for their seaworthiness and
easy lines. They are usually about fifteen or twenty tons, have in
proportion to their size very high bulwarks to encounter the Atlantic
seas, and an exaggerated outrigger over the stern unsupported by
stays and cocked up at an angle to clear the sea when the ship is
pitching. Her mizzen is longer than her mainmast, and rakes forward
at a great angle. Sometimes they set a topsail, as seen in the sketch
over the mizzen: and at times they also run out a bowsprit and jib.
[Illustration: FIG. 110. DEAL GALLEY PUNT.]
We could not close our list of characteristic luggers without
including that brave little ship the Deal galley-punt (see Fig.
110). Chapman in his “Architectura Navalis Mercatoria,” published
in 1768,[117] shows a Deal lugger (or as she is called then a Deal
cutter) with three spritsails, the mizzen having a bumpkin,
whilst a jib is set on a bowsprit forward: but this type has become
obsolete. In those days they were engaged in taking out from the
shore heavy anchors and cables to vessels in the Downs which stood
in need of them. With the advent of steam and improved holding gear
their days of usefulness departed. But a smaller type, the Deal
lugger, of which we now speak, is still a feature of the sailing
craft at the eastern end of the Channel as she goes about her
business “hovelling” or hovering on the look-out for such odd jobs as
taking pilots ashore or attending on shipping between Dungeness and
the North Foreland. Never a ship gets picked up by the treacherous
Goodwins but the Deal lugger comes running out in any weather,
ready for a salvage job and a third of its value as a reward. Even
whilst these lines are passing through the press, they have been
busy standing by the _Mahratta_ liner stranded on the Goodwins, and
hurrying ashore with the passengers and cargo of tea salved from the
hold of the big steamer. These little craft sail very close to the
wind and are out in the worst of weathers, and require considerable
skill in handling. The one lug-sail has to be lowered and hoisted at
each tack, but they are wonderfully quick both under sail and when
rowed. Any sailing man will tell you how excellent a sail for lifting
a boat the lug-sail is, and well the little Deal galley needs it. The
yard of the sail hooks on to a traveller and is hoisted by halyards
up the mast, a purchase being used to “sweat” it down taught. The
rudder is made easily detachable, supported on pintles with a
rope-strop attached. It is her length in proportion to her beam that
gives her such speed. Clinker-built, the Deal lugger is about thirty
feet long. Her mast is placed some distance from the bows, and is
very stumpy, but in spite of this the Deal galley punt is a wonderful
little ship on a reach.
Having shown the directions in which the development of smaller
ships has taken place, and especially in the trading and fishing
craft, let us now turn our attention to that very modern development,
the yacht. As we set out not to write a history of yachting but of
sailing ships, we shall consider not the marvellous growth of the
queen of sports, but the influence which that has had in developing a
particular species of ship used entirely for the purpose of pleasure
and racing. We alluded in an earlier chapter to King Edgar, whose
“sommer progresses and yerely chiefe pastimes were the sailing
round about this whole Isle of Albion.” He at least showed the real
spirit of a yachtsman, and had he lived in later times he might have
established the sport on a sound footing many years before it began
to prosper.
But let us make no mistake about this word yacht. Of Dutch
derivation, and related to the Norwegian _jaegt_, the word in the
seventeenth century signified a transport for royalty or some
individual of distinguished rank. In that way we could include those
esneccas mentioned earlier in this volume which were prepared for
carrying British royalty across from these shores to France. But it
was not until the early part of the seventeenth century that the
yacht as a special type of vessel, distinct from one temporarily
adjusted for a short voyage, was produced. As other fore-and-afters
first saw light in Holland at this time, so it was but natural that
the yacht should originate there. From old paintings and prints we
see them rigged after the manner of those Dutch fore-and-afters which
we mentioned as to be seen there in previous pages of this chapter.
Especially popular for yachts was the sloepe rig with the two masts
and sails but no headsails, although the boomless but gaff mainsail,
fitted with brails not unlike the rig of the bawley, was also found.
The high sterns, square and much decorated with carving and gilt, the
comparatively low bluff bows and the pair of leeboards were the most
conspicuous features. The rig was usually cutter or sloop (in the
sense of having one mast mainsail and foresail, but without jib).
Later on we find ketches being favoured.
In 1660 the Dutch presented Charles II. with a yacht called the
_Mary_, “from whence,” writes Sir Anthony Deane to Pepys, “came the
improvement of our present yachts; for until that time we had not
heard of such a name in England.” This _Mary_ was of a hundred tons
and was the first yacht to appear on our Navy list. She was lost in
1675 near Holyhead. From this model Christopher Pett in 1661 built
the _Anne_ at Woolwich, her tonnage, beam, and length of keel being
the same as those of the _Mary_, but she drew three feet less water.
In the same year Charles was presented with another but smaller
yacht of only 35 tons, called the _Bezan_, which also came from the
Dutch. From the arrival of the _Mary_ various sized yachts began to
be built in England, of which the tonnage gradually increased. The
_Katherine_, built in 1661, was captured by the Dutch in 1673. So
far had this new departure progressed in our country that in 1674 a
design was made for two yachts to be built at Portsmouth for the King
of France in imitation of Charles II.’s. But the largest built about
this time was the new _Mary_, to replace the first one lost. Of 166
tons, she was launched in 1677. The smallest yachts were the _Minion_
of 22 tons, and the _Jemmy_ of 25 tons, and the _Isle of Wight_ of a
like tonnage. Incidentally we find in the Naval MSS. of the time that
the dimensions of the biggest yacht’s mast of the year 1683 were:
length 20 yards, “bigness” (_i.e._, thickness) 20 inches.
It was during the reign of that apostle of hedonism, Charles II.,
that the yacht became not merely the vessel of state but of pleasure.
He introduced into England yacht racing, although the Dutch had
for a long time delighted in regattas and naval sham fights with
yachts. In 1661 Charles sailed in a match from Greenwich to Gravesend
and back. One impulse that had been given to the Dutch to build
so-called yachts with finer lines and high capabilities of speed
was the trade carried on to the East by their Dutch East India
Company, and it was this company that had made Charles the present
of the first yacht he ever possessed. During the eighteenth century
yachting began to be a new sport for noblemen and wealthy gentlemen,
especially in the neighbourhood of Cork. By the end of the century
the Solent was becoming the cruising ground for a large number of
English yachts, and in 1812 a yacht club was started at the Medina
Hotel, East Cowes. In 1817 this newly-formed yacht club was joined
by the Prince Regent, who used to cruise between the Wight and
Brighton in the _Royal George_.[118] George III. had also patronised
yachting, and the illustration in Plan 4 gives some idea of his yacht
the _Royal Sovereign_. Launched at Deptford in 1804 she drew 9 feet
forward and a foot more aft. She was copper-bottomed with a streak of
yellow painted above, with another streak of blue above that, while
her stern was ornamented with medallions of the cardinal virtues.
Neptune presided over the stern, while the figurehead represented
her Majesty. It will be seen at once how similar in colouring and
decoration she was to the type of ships prevalent in Charles II.’s
time. She was said to have been very fast and beautifully decorated,
as well inside as out. She was 96 feet 1 inch long on deck with a
breadth of 25 feet 7 inches. Her tonnage was 280-18/94. She was
ship-rigged and carried royals and stuns’ls, judging from a print
of 1821. In the external decoration of this yacht we can see the
influence which is still manifested in the royal steam yachts of this
country to-day. The lavish display of gold leaf, the heavy stern and
general clumsiness—all vile inheritances from the days of Charles II.
when naval architects knew no better—were all reproduced in the old
_Victoria and Albert_ and have been perpetuated even in the newest
royal yacht the _Alexandria_.
It is only with the nineteenth century that yachting really begins,
but it was not till after the Crimean War that the sport began in
earnest. At the beginning of the nineteenth century the cutters were
built on the lines of the revenue cutters, which as we saw just now,
owed much to Dutch influence. The reader who wishes to see what
clumsy creatures they were has only to look at Turner’s pictures
(see, for example, the cutter in Fig. 71). In such a painting as
Charles Brooking’s _The Calm_, numbered 1475 in the National Gallery,
we readily see the square topsails above the fore-and-aft mainsail
and headsails. Brooking lived from 1723 to 1759, but fifty years
later the cutter had remained much the same. The spars these yachts
carried were enormous, and they were built of such strength that
they were up to the Government standard. Although the cutters were
of large dimensions, sometimes having a tonnage of 150, yet they
were very tubby, round creatures, their proportions being three
beams in length and heavily ballasted after the mediæval manner with
gravel, yet sometimes also with iron ore. But as match sailing became
commoner, naturally a means was sought for making the cumbersome
craft less heavy. The heavy ballast remained, but both timbers and
planking were of less thickness. Hitherto of clinker build, this
gradually gave way to carvel-work. One of the most famous yachts
of the first quarter of the century was the _Arrow_, built clinker
fashion in 1822 and still in existence.
[Illustration: FIG. 111. THE YACHT “KESTREL,” 202 TONS. OWNED BY THE
EARL OF YARBOROUGH, COMMODORE OF THE R.Y.S.]
[Illustration: FIG. 112. THE YACHT “XARIFA.” OWNED BY THE EARL OF
WILTON.]
The illustration in Fig. 111 represents the _Kestrel_, 202 tons,
belonging to the Earl of Yarborough, Commodore of the Royal Yacht
Squadron. In the early ’forties she was a well-known ship. She is
rigged as a Hermaphrodite brig, that is to say she is brig-rigged on
her foremast but schooner-rigged on her main. She also carries a tier
of guns. The influence, indeed, of the Royal Navy on these early
yachts is notable. The cutters were influenced by the Government
revenue cutters and the bigger yachts by the Naval brigs. Fig.
112 also shows a yacht of this period. This is the _Xarifa_ which
belonged to the second Earl of Wilton. She is rigged as a topsail
schooner and also carries guns. The rigging of yachts at this time
was chiefly of hemp, but, as will be seen from the accompanying
illustrations, the sails were very baggy.
In the ’fifties racing between yachts went rapidly ahead. The crack
cutters of the south coast were the _Arrow_, 84 tons, the _Lulworth_,
82 tons, the _Louisa_, 180 tons, and the _Alarm_ 193 tons. A general
improvement was taking place. The old-fashioned gravel ballast was
thrown out and lead was slowly but surely introduced in spite of the
criticism that it would strain the ship and cause her to plunge badly
in a seaway. Next, instead of inside the lead was put outside below
the keel. Finally the tubby proportions vanished and yachts were
given greater length, greater depth but narrower beam. Early in the
’fifties Thomas Wanhill of Poole introduced the raking sternpost.
Instead of the Dutch-like bow the long clipper bow, now famous among
the mercantile ships, was coming into popularity.
But a new force was to come from across the Atlantic which had
far-reaching effects on the yachts of this country. Let us return
once more to Massachusetts. The theory of the advantage possessed
by a sharp entrance and hollow water-lines had been proved, in the
case of the Gloucester fishing and pilot schooners, to be sound
and correct. Then it was decided to build a yacht on similar but
improved lines: so in 1851 was launched the famous _America_,
costing £4000. She was sailed across to England and on August 22,
1851, was the winning yacht for the special cup offered by the
Royal Yacht Squadron. In the race round the Isle of Wight she beat
the pick of our cutters and schooners so handsomely as to make
yachtsmen and yacht-builders, designers and sail-makers open their
eyes in amazement. The cup was afterwards presented by the owners of
_America_ to the New York Yacht Club as a perpetual challenge trophy
to be raced for by yachts of all nations. The reader is well aware
that in spite of various plucky attempts we have not yet succeeded in
bringing it back to the country where it was manufactured.
[Illustration: FIG. 113. THE SCHOONER “ALARM” AS SHE APPEARED WHEN
REBUILT IN 1852.
From a contemporary print, by kind permission of the Royal Victoria
Yacht Club, Ryde.
_Photo. West & Son._]
After the success of _America_ a change was made in the old type of
yacht. The _Alarm_ which had been built in 1834 as a cutter of 193
tons, was in 1852, consequent on _America’s_ victory, lengthened
20 feet by the bow and converted into a schooner of 248 tons. The
illustration in Fig. 113, which is reproduced by kind permission of
the Royal Victoria Yacht Club, Ryde, shows the _Alarm_ after she
had been rigged after the manner of _America_ with one headsail,
having its foot laced to a boom, with a foresail having gaff but no
boom, and with a mainsail with both gaff and boom. As here seen she
justified the alterations made in her and remained for many years the
fastest schooner of the fleet. But not only in rig and design did
_America_ make a complete revolution. Hitherto our sails had been
mere wind-bags, but the _America_ had her sails made so as to lace to
the spars, while ours had been loose-footed on the boom. The American
yacht’s canvas thus set flatter and she could hold a better wind
than our craft. Henceforth English sail-makers adopted the new idea.
Schooners at least took to the new shape at once but the cutters
were a little time before they followed the lead thus given to
them. It was to America, therefore, that the last existing relic of
mediævalism in British ships was banished off the face of the waters
for ever.
[Illustration: FIG. 114. THE “OIMARA.” BUILT IN 1867.]
In 1852 the famous cutter _Arrow_, for the same reason as had
transformed the _Alarm_, was rebuilt. Her previous length when she
was first built as far back as 1823 was only 3·35 times her beam.
In 1852, also, Mr. William Fife of the famous “Fife of Fairlie” firm
came into prominence with the _Cymba_. Sail-making in the hands of
Lapthorn & Ratsey proceeded along scientific lines, and eventually
cotton was used instead of flax. In the ’sixties, following the
example set by the builders of the clipper-ships, iron framework was
used in combination with wooden skin, and from the early ’seventies
to the ’eighties the clipper-bow had attained such success on big
ships that it became of great popularity on yachts. But during the
’sixties the old straight-stem cutters were at the height of their
fame. The _Oimara_, seen in Fig. 114 with the long bowsprit of the
period, was a famous racing craft of the south coast. Built in 1867
by Mr. William Steele of Messrs. Robert Steele & Co., Greenock,
the well-known builder of clipper-ships, her tonnage was 163. She
sailed a memorable race round the Isle of Wight in August of the
following year against the American schooners _Sappho_, _Aline_ and
others. Going east about, _Oimara_ led the fleet until the Needles
were rounded, but running back to Cowes against the ebb tide, she
was beaten by the schooners. This fine ship is still afloat in Poole
harbour above the bridge, and is used as a houseboat.
The _Aline_ just mentioned was another beauty of her day. Built
by Messrs. Camper & Nicholson of Gosport in 1860, she was the
first yacht to get away from the raking mast so well seen in the
illustration of the _Alarm_. In the _Aline_ the mast was stepped
almost upright and she was also given a running bowsprit and jib.
Another fast ship was the famous _Egeria_, 153-ton schooner, built by
Wanhill at Poole. She was at her prime during the ’sixties, and beat
_Aline_ during the former’s maiden race in 1865.
[Illustration: FIG. 115. THE “BLOODHOUND.” BUILT IN 1874.]
During the ’seventies and till the ’eighties, the tendency was
to build yachts whose dimensions were still deeper, narrower and
longer. Beam was thought deserving of little consideration and
altogether undervalued until the year 1886, when an entire change
of feeling came. The illustration in Fig. 115 shows the wonderful
old _Bloodhound_. She was built by Mr. William Fife of Fairlie in
1874 for the Marquis of Ailsa and was one of the famous class of
40-tonners which flourished during the ’seventies and into the
’eighties. During the six years she belonged to her first owner she
won about £2500 worth of prizes, and afterwards changed hands. Last
year, however, Lord Ailsa re-purchased her, and with new sails the
old ship showed that her marvellous turn of speed had not deserted
her. She did remarkably well during Cowes week until she had the
misfortune to be sunk in collision with _L’Esperance_, and lay for
some time at the entrance to Cowes fairway, a sad sight, with her
masts showing above water and her crew at work salving what they
could. She has since been raised, and this year is again racing with
surprising success.
[Illustration: FIG. 116. THE AUXILIARY TOPSAIL SCHOONER-YACHT
“SUNBEAM.” REGISTERED TONNAGE, 227. OWNED BY LORD BRASSEY.
_Photo. West & Son._]
Few yachts, perhaps, are so well-known in name, at least, to the
general reader, as the _Sunbeam_, in Fig. 116. Built in 1874, and
owned by that enthusiastic yachtsman and experienced navigator Lord
Brassey, the _Sunbeam_ is an auxiliary topsail-yard schooner. She
was designed by Mr. St. Clare Byrne and is built of teak with iron
frames. Her length over all is 170 feet; beam 27½ feet; depth 13¾
feet. Her displacement is 576 tons; her registered tonnage 227; her
draught 13½ feet; while her sail area as now altered is 7950 square
feet. She has cruised round the world, and been into almost every
port where she could get. She raced across the Atlantic in 1905 to
the Lizard, with the _Valhalla_ among the competitors, although it
was not to be expected that she would come in first against such
an extreme type as the _Atlantic_. In her time she has covered as
her best run under canvas, 299 knots from noon to noon, whilst her
highest speed, also under sail alone, was 15 knots. She is still
happily with us, and is a familiar sight at Cowes, where she fits
out.
[Illustration: FIG. 117. THE YAWL “JULLANAR.” BUILT IN 1875.]
During the ’seventies, thanks to Mr. William Froude and others,
experiments of the highest educative value were made to discover the
laws which governed the resistance of water to bodies moving through
it. This led to a scientific basis on which to model the lines of
yachts’ hulls. But suddenly and unexpectedly, from Maldon, on the
Blackwater, in a remote corner of Essex, a Mr. E. H. Bentall, not a
professional naval architect but an agricultural implement maker, who
had received but little training in naval architecture, designed and
had built the now famous yacht the _Jullanar_, in 1875. Since length
means speed, he gave her much of this, whilst for stability she was
given a fairly deep draught. But getting right away from existing
conventions, he had the courage to dispense with the old-fashioned
straight stem and stern, and cut away all dead-wood from both. And so
the _Jullanar_, with her easy lines, and rigged as a yawl, came into
being. She had a tonnage of 126 (Thames measurement); length over all
110½ feet; beam 16·6 feet; and a draught of 13½ feet. She immediately
displayed such remarkable speed and was so successful as a racer that
her lines considerably influenced the late Mr. G. L. Watson, the
famous yacht architect of the nineteenth century, in designing the
_Thistle_, although this ship did not come into being until 1887. The
sketch in Fig. 117, showing the hull and rigging of the _Jullanar_,
has been made from the fine little model in the South Kensington
Museum.
[Illustration: FIG. 118. THE “SATANITA.” BUILT IN 1893.
_Photo. West & Son._]
[Illustration: FIG. 119. KING EDWARD VII.’S CUTTER “BRITANNIA,”
LAUNCHED 1893, SHOWING THE MAINSAIL BEING HOISTED BY FOURTEEN OF THE
CREW.
_Photo. S. Cribb._]
Yacht-design has been considerably modified by contemporary existing
measurement rules. Thus, when in the ’eighties the only taxed
dimensions were, not length over all, but length on water-line and
sail area, the temptation to introduce overhang both at bow and
stern was irresistible. In _Jullanar_ the germ of the idea existed,
but it developed to its fullest extent during the ’nineties, and so
by a curious fatality one becomes witness of still another revival,
more strange and curious than all the others, the revival of
that which was indeed one of the most characteristic features of
the Egyptian craft in the early dynasties, the overhanging bow and
stern. In 1893 was built the _Satanita_, in which this last-mentioned
feature is well shown. (See Fig. 118.) This powerful beauty has on
the water-line 97·7 feet, and an extreme beam of 24·7 feet, and
a draught of 16·5 feet. Her sail area (Y.R.A.) was in her Solent
days 9923 square feet. The beautifully-fitting sails seen in the
accompanying illustration are in wonderful contrast to those hollow
bags used in the pre-_America_ days. In the same year was launched
King Edward’s (then Prince of Wales’) _Britannia_, which with Captain
Carter at her helm, won both fame and a considerable number of prizes
during the ’nineties. Her length on the water-line is 87·8 feet; her
extreme beam 23·66 feet; and draught 15 feet. The illustration in
Fig. 119 of the counter of _Britannia_ has been specially included
to give the reader some idea of the weight of her mainsail, which,
as will be noticed, is being hoisted by no less than fourteen
hands on the halyard, including the ship’s cook and steward. The
year 1893 was made memorable by the launch also of the _Valkyrie_,
one of the famous trio of yachts of the same name. She measured
on the water-line 86·8 feet; her extreme beam was 22·33 feet. The
illustration in Fig. 120 shows _Valkyrie I._ It was during this year
that beam, being no longer taxed, was allowed to show its value, and
ever since that time the tendency has continued for a more wholesome
type of boat, instead of the vicious old plank-on-edge class of craft.
[Illustration: FIG. 120. THE “VALKYRIE I.” OWNED BY THE EARL OF
DUNHAVEN.
_Photo. West & Son._]
[Illustration: FIG. 121. THE AUXILIARY SHIP-RIGGED YACHT “VALHALLA.”
1490 TONS. BUILT IN 1892.
_Photo. West & Son._]
The illustration in Fig. 121 is of the _Valhalla_, which, like the
_Sunbeam_, has auxiliary engines and is one of the largest and finest
sailing yachts in the world. Under the ownership of the Earl of
Crawford she has made lengthy voyages to distant countries, and was
one of the fleet which raced in company with the _Sunbeam_ from the
U.S.A. to the Lizard for the German Emperor’s Cup, obtaining third
prize, and doing the passage across the Atlantic in 14 days 2 hours,
using sail only. She was built in 1892, and was first rigged as a
privateer of a hundred years ago with stun’s’ls. She even had her
ward-room, gun-room and armoury after the manner of the naval ships
of a century ago. In the accompanying illustration she is seen with
courses, topsails, t’gallants and royals. But when she came into the
hands of Lord Crawford the stun’s’ls were abolished, and she was
given double topsails instead of single so as to facilitate her being
worked with less labour. The old-fashioned deck arrangement below was
also entirely changed. This handsome 1490-ton yacht has recently been
sold, and left English waters to become an American training-ship.
[Illustration: FIG. 122. THE AMERICAN CUP DEFENDER “COLUMBIA.”
LAUNCHED IN 1899.
_Photo. West & Son._]
Although American yachting existed long before the races for the
America Cup, yet these contests have given an enormous fillip in
the United States to the building of cutters as apart from their
fast schooners. Such vessels, built to defend the Cup, as the
_Defender_, launched in 1895, the _Columbia_ in 1899 (see Fig. 122),
the _Constitution_ in 1901, and the _Reliance_ in 1903, are about
90 feet on the load water-line, and carry about 13,500 square feet
of canvas; though when _Reliance_ beat _Shamrock III._, the former
carried over 16,000 square feet. But the most popular American large
racing cutters are the 70-footers. In build the Americans have been
accustomed to use lighter scantlings than we on this side of the
Atlantic. _Meteor_, in Fig. 123, the well-known schooner belonging
to the German Emperor, was the product of an American yard. The
photograph here reproduced was taken while she was racing for the
King’s Cup inside the Isle of Wight.
[Illustration: FIG. 123. THE SCHOONER-YACHT “METEOR.” OWNED BY HIS
MAJESTY THE GERMAN EMPEROR.
_Photo. S. Cribb._]
Some sensation was caused in the Solent last summer by the arrival
and success of the _Germania_, a remarkably fast and pretty schooner,
notable as showing the ability to which German yacht designers and
builders have now attained. That we can in England still build
cruising as well as racing schooners is proved by two such different
examples as the _Elizabeth_ and the _Pampas_. The sail plan of the
former will be found in Plan 5. Launched in 1906 from the yard of
Messrs. White Brothers of Cowes from designs by Mr. H. W. White, her
tonnage (Thames measurement) is 236, her length over all 132 feet,
but on the water-line 93½ feet. Her draught is 12½ feet, and her sail
area 7938 square feet. She is also fitted with a motor that can be
run on either paraffin or petrol with a two-bladed propeller, giving
a mean speed under motor alone of six miles per hour. The deck plan
and longitudinal section showing motor installation will be found in
Plans 6 and 7.
The _Pampas_ is one of the most interesting yachts of 1908. In
her will be found the very last word in schooner designing and
building. The requirements were that she should be suitable to
go to any part of the world in comfort and with speed. In order
therefore that she might not be handicapped in the Doldrums she was
fitted with a 60-horse-power motor giving a speed of six knots in
smooth water. Designed by Mr. C. E. Nicholson, and built by Messrs.
Camper & Nicholson for Señor Aaron de Anchorena, of Buenos Ayres,
she has considerably more overhang than the _Elizabeth_, and has
shown herself to be very fast under sail alone. The sail and rigging
plan in Plan 8 will explain itself, whilst from the other plans the
general internal arrangement of this most modern of yachts will
be realised. She has between her two masts a sunken deck-house, a
feature that has recently become very popular on sailing yachts. The
two large cabins athwart the ship are fitted in satinwood, and other
accommodation is in ivory white. Electric light and ventilating fans
are also found on her, and she is classed twenty years A1 at Lloyd’s.
[Illustration: FIG. 124. “WHITE HEATHER II.,” 23-MÈTRE CUTTER.
_Photo. West & Son._]
To return to the English cutters, one of the most interesting of
modern yachts is that seen in Fig. 124, which represents _White
Heather II._ For size and sweet lines, with her bold bows and white
graceful hull, her lofty mast and her mountain of canvas, she is an
imposing sight if one comes across her on the Solent. She is at her
best in a strong wind; in light winds she used to be no match for the
latest _Shamrock_. But during the past winter _White Heather_ has had
some structural alterations made to improve her power in light winds.
[Illustration: FIG. 125. “SHAMROCK IV.,” 23-MÈTRE CUTTER. OWNED BY
SIR THOMAS LIPTON. LAUNCHED 1908.
_Photo. West & Son._]
An important step was taken in 1906, when an international conference
was held to devise such an international rule as would be acceptable
to the whole of yachting Europe. During the last fifteen years
various rating rules had been in force at different times. It was
now felt that something should be done to prevent the success of the
racing-machine and skimming-dish type, and recent rating rules had
indeed tended to produce a wholesome cruiser that was nevertheless
good for racing. The conference therefore formulated a new rule based
on that which had produced such recent healthy types as _Nyria_; but
a premium was placed on freeboard and a check on clumsy overhangs,
in order that a thoroughly healthy type of sea-going yacht might be
evolved that should be good as well for cruising as for racing. Care
was taken also to ensure the requisite strength in construction. The
rule came into force on January 1, 1908. Under this rule, _Shamrock
IV._, seen in Fig. 125, was built, and during her maiden season last
year she showed that in light weather there was nothing of her size
to catch her. In spite of adverse criticisms the new rule has in it
much that is likely to be an influence for good; and since it is to
be in force for ten years, it will certainly add to the prosperity of
yachting by introducing to an extent hitherto unknown the element of
international racing.
_Shamrock_, the fourth of that name owned by Sir Thomas Lipton,
belongs to the 23-metre class. She was designed by Mr. William
Fife and built by Messrs. William Fife & Son of Fairlie. She is of
composite construction, her planking being of mahogany and her frames
of steel. In yachting, as in the biggest sailing ships, wire rigging
has now ousted the old-fashioned hemp. Runners, topping lifts,
bobstay falls, outhauls, halyards—all are of wire. Racing boats and
many cruisers now have rigging screws too, while the custom as to
ballast is to bolt most of it outside the keel.
* * * * *
But our limit is at length reached. We have watched the primitive
ship evolve from the tree; we have seen how she has been changed and
revived, degenerated and improved, made larger or smaller, tubbier or
more graceful according as it has pleased the hand of man. Now that
we have shown, however imperfectly, with however many omissions,
her noble and illustrious pedigree, her ancestry reaching back
through the centuries into the first blush of the dawn of the world’s
creation, perhaps we shall regard her with an interest, a respect
and affection at once greater and deeper because we have become
better acquainted with the reasons that have caused each of these
developments.
THE END.
GLOSSARY.
BRACES. Ropes rove through blocks by which to control the yards of a
square-rigged ship.
BRAILS. Ropes used for the purpose of shortening a ship’s canvas,
as in the case of the Phœnician and Roman ships, and to-day in the
Thames barge.
CAREEN. To lay a ship over on to her side in order to be able to
caulk her lower seams.
CARVEL-BUILD. The manner of building a vessel so that the planks are
laid edge to edge, and not overlapping.
CAULK. To stop the seams of a ship with oakum, so as to prevent the
water entering between the planking.
CLEW. The lower corners of a squaresail, and the aftermost corner of
a staysail.
CLINKER-BUILD. The manner of building a vessel so that the planks
overlap each other. (Compare “carvel-build.”)
CRANK. An adjective applied to a ship when she is liable to capsize.
DAVITS. Short pieces, formerly of timber, now of iron, projecting
over a vessel’s side, for hoisting up the ship’s anchors or boats.
DHOW. The term applied generally to the lateen-rigged ships of the
East.
FREEBOARD. The amount of a ship’s hull extending from the waterline
to the gunwale.
GAFF. A spar used for extending the upper edge of a fore-and-aft
rectangular sail—_e.g._, the mainsail of a cutter.
GOARING. An old English expression in use during Elizabethan times,
applied when the lower corners of the sail extended much further out
than the width of the canvas stretched along the yard.
GOOSENECK. A piece of bent iron fitted to the end of a boom by which
to connect the latter to the ship.
GUY. A rope attached to a spar for the purpose of steadying it.
GYBE. When a ship so alters her course in running free that the wind,
instead of coming from one quarter, comes from the opposite quarter,
the mainsail of a fore-and-after will have swung over, and be said to
have gybed.
HALYARD. A rope or tackle used for hoisting or lowering sails and
spars.
JETTISON. To lighten a ship by throwing goods overboard.
JIB-BOOM. The spar which continues further forward the projection of
the bowsprit.
KEELSON. The piece of timber which is laid on the middle of the floor
timbers over the keel.
LANYARD. A short piece of rope used for various purposes—_e.g._, for
making fast the shrouds to a ship’s side.
LATEEN. A long triangular sail bent to a long yard, a characteristic
sail of the Mediterranean and dhow-rigged craft. Also carried on the
mizzen and bonaventure mizzen of mediæval full-rigged ships.
LEACH. The vertical edges of a sail.
LUG. A fore-and-aft sail hoisted on a yard, of which not more
than about a third of its length is forward of the mast. In the
dupping-lug the tack of the sail is made fast some distance forward
of the mast, and because the sail must needs be set on the lee side
of the mast it has to be dipped at each tack and hoisted afresh on
the other side.
MIZZEN. The aftermost mast of a vessel having two or more masts;
sometimes called a jigger. In the case of mediæval ships having four
masts, the aftermost was called the bonaventure mizzen, and the one
immediately forward of this the main mizzen.
PARRAL. A band for keeping the end of a yard to the mast; made in
different ages of basket-work or rope—in the latter case running
through a number of circular pieces of wood, to prevent friction in
raising and lowering the yard or gaff.
PAVISSES. Shields of wood or other material placed round a ship’s
side for a protection against the enemy’s missiles; used also in open
boats for keeping out the spray.
PINTLE. The bolt by which a rudder is attached to the stern of a ship.
QUANT. A pole used extensively in Holland and East Anglia for the
purpose of propelling a craft along shallow waterways. (Greek κοντὸς,
Latin _contus_, a pole.)
RACE. A rapid current of disturbed water caused by the unevenness of
the bottom of the sea, frequently found off headlands—_e.g._, St.
Alban’s Head, Portland Bill, &c.
ROCKER. The curvature of a piece or pieces of wood in a vessel’s
structure.
SCUTTLE. To cause a ship to sink by making holes in her hull below
the water-line.
SHEER. The curve of a vessel’s hull from bow to stern, or _vice
versâ_.
SPINNAKER. A light, triangular-shaped sail set on the side opposite
to that on which the mainsail extends, and used when running before
the wind.
SPRIT, SPRITSAIL. (1) In full-rigged ships the _spritsail_ was a
square-sail set on a yard below the bowsprit; now obsolete. (2) In
fore-and-aft vessels the _sprit_ is a spar used for stretching the
peak of the sail, thus extending diagonally across the mast—as, for
instance, in the case of a Thames barge (see Fig. 99).
STAYSAIL. Usually triangular in shape, though in the seventeenth
century sometimes rectangular, hoisted on a stay, between the masts
or forward of the foremast.
STEEVING. The angle which a ship’s bowsprit makes with the horizon.
STEMPOST. The piece of timber to which the two sides of a ship’s
planking are united at the forward end.
STEP. The block of wood into which the keel of a mast is fixed.
STRUT-FRAME. A piece of timber used in shipbuilding for strengthening
the vessel.
TOPPING-LIFTS. Ropes used for the support of the boom of a sail when
the latter is stowed.
TRUCK. A small wooden cap at the summit of a mast.
VANG. A rope leading down from the end of a gaff to the deck. A
characteristic of the Dutch sloops and Thames barge rig.
WALE. One of the planks of a ship.
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INDEX
Aberdeen, 267
Adams, Clement, 192
Adams, M. Robert, 216
Admirals, rank of, 248
Admiralty and sheathing, 245;
Admiralty flag, 199
Adriatic Sea, naval battle on the, 216
Africans, East, and the art of navigation, 51
Ailsa, Marquis of, 327
Alderney Race, 251
Alexander the Great, 44
Alfred’s, King, ships, 131
Algiers, bombardment of, 235;
piracy, 233
Althiburus mosaic, 84
Amasis, 48
America, Columbus and, 183;
the Vikings and, 92;
the Phœnicians and, 50
America Cup, 293, 325
America, North, discovery of, 258;
timber, 268
American Civil War, 266, 269;
frigates, 256
American shipbuilding, 266;
the Dutch and, 293
American War of 1812, 256;
wasters, 296;
yachting, 330;
yachts, 325
Amsterdam, Rijks Museum, 241
Anchorena, Señor A. de, 332
Anchors, 72, 147, 154, 156
Anglo-Saxon ships, 131-133
Anne, Queen, navy of, 249
Anson, Lord, 258
Anthony’s, Anthony, “Roll,” 186
Aphlaston, the, 54, 58
Arctic expedition, Dutch, 231;
exploration, 218
Armada, Spanish, 194, 197, 198, 202, 203, 206;
tapestries of, 207;
number of ships and their construction, 211-214
Artemon, or foresail, 79
Arun, River, ancient boat found near, 100
Atlantic emigrant traffic, 272;
steamers, 266;
yacht race across the, 330
Australia, 246, 268, 272
Australian aborigines and stone implements, 99
Babylonia, 20
Bakhuizen, Ludolf, 5
Ballast, 196, 324
Baltic, Phœnicians on the, 112;
ketches, 303;
ships, 10
Banners, 153. _See also_ Flags
Barber, Commander T. M., 37
Barcelona ships, 170
Barton Broad, 307
Baston, T. (engraver), 250
Bayeux Tapestry, the, 17, 134
Beaching, 60
Bedford, John, Duke of, 166
“Before the Mast,” 154
Bentall, Mr. E. H., 328
Bergen law for sailors, 127
Bernoulli, Jean, 243
Bibliography, 335 _et seq._
Bilge water, 249
Bill-hooks, 187, 199
Billingsgate, 235, 285, 303
Binnacles, 179
Black Ball liners, 270
Blackwall, 246, 267
Blake, Admiral, 230, 232, 233
Blankenberg boat, 312
Boar’s head, 60
Bodleian Library MS., 203
Bombay yacht, 309
Bonaventure mast, 175
Bonhomme, —, 209
Bonnets, 153, 178, 195, 275
Booms, 123
Boreas, 129
Boston, 255
Botley, Viking ship discovered at, 115
Bounty system for shipbuilding, 179
Bowlines, 179, 198, 210
Bows, 86;
clipper, 266, 324;
Greek, 61;
overhanging, 329;
Phœnician, 55;
round, 257;
schooner, 276;
Viking double, 94
Bowsprit, 275
Brails, 65, 82, 262, 285
Brassey, Lord, 50, 327
Bremen, ancient boats discovered at, 102
Breydon Water, 307
Brigg prehistoric boat, 95
Brighton, 129, 136, 322
Bristol as port, 138
Britanni, the, 104
British Empire shipping tonnage in 1821, 258
British Museum, models in, 27;
and Brigg prehistoric boat, 96
British Navy, size of, in 1813, 256 (_see also under the names of
monarchs_);
last sailing ship in the, 300
Brixham ketch, 303;
Mumble Bees, 291
Broad arrow as Government mark, 234
Bronze and Iron Age ships, 104
Brooking, Charles, 5, 323
Brosen Viking ship, 117
Bruges, 163
Budge, Dr. E. A. Wallis, 22, 28
Bulkheads, 196
Bullen, Mr. F. T., on the way of the ship, 12;
on the ships of St. Paul’s voyage, 15;
on Elizabethan sea-terms, 210;
on spritsails, 265;
on clipper ships, 271
Bulwarks, 178
Burgess, W., 295
Burmese junks, 7, 31
“Butter-rigged,” 298
Byrne, Mr. St. Clare, 327
Bytharne’s “Book of War,” 188
Cabins, 148
Cables, 276
Cabot, John, 184
Cæsar, ships used by, 87, 93, 103, 106, 107;
and the Northern seas, 107
Calais, siege of, 159
California, 268
Caligula, ships of, 76
Cambyses, 48
Camper and Nicholson, Messrs., 326, 332
Canary Isles, discovery of, 158
Cannon, introduction of, 158, 168
Canterbury Cathedral, picture of a ship formerly in, 185
Cape Horn, 268, 273, 274, 277
Cape La Hogue, 240
Cape Verde Islands, 292
Cappelle, Jan van der, 5, 284
Captain, the, _temp._ James I., 225
“Caravel,” derivation of, 182
Careening, 226
Carpaccio’s pictures of ships, 130, 162
Carrying trade, _temp._ Queen Elizabeth, 193
Carter, Captain, 329
Carvel-work, 323
Cary-Elwes, Mr. V., ancient boat belonging to, 96
Castles on ships, 68, 140, 156, 169;
on Armada ships, 211;
absorbed into the hull, 164;
fore and stern, 171
Catteville, 138
Caulking, 178
“Ceols,” 134
Chancellor, Richard, 191
Chapman, F. H. af, 243
Charles I. and his navy, 228
Charles II. and his navy, 234-246;
gift of Dutch yacht for, 289, 321;
introduces yacht-racing, 321
Chatham, 200, 229, 236, 237, 241
China tea trade, 268
Chinese junks, 31, 310
Christiania, 291
Cinque Ports, the, 129, 148, 152, 154
Civil War, the, 232
Claude Lorraine’s “St. Ursula,” 5
Clipper races in China tea trade, 269
Clitherowe, Admiral, seal of, 166
Clowes, Sir W. Laird, 177
Clyde, the, ancient boat found, 100;
five-master built on, 273
Coal-carrying trade, 300
Coasting trade, _temp._ Queen Elizabeth, 193
“Cocke,” or _coque_, 200
Coins, ships on, 128, 157
Colbert, Jean B., 249
Cole, Mr. Vicat, 5
Columbus’s Christopher, ship, 176, 180, 183;
model, 182;
replica, 180;
navigation instruments, 184
Commonwealth, the, and war with the Dutch, 232;
construction of ships, 234;
decoration of ships, 233;
and the flying of flags, 241
Compass, variation of the, 193
Concas, Captain D. V., 180
Connolly, Mr. J. B., 294
Cook, Captain, 258
Cooke, E. W., R.A., 261
Cooking galley, Elizabethan, 196
Copper sheathing, 251
Coracle, the, 103
Cork, 322
Corks, 178
Cornwall, men of, 202
Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, MS., 146, 154
Cotton ships, 266
Cowes, 322, 327, 331
“Crane line,” 178
Crawford, Earl of, 330