Sailing ships
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There's something wonderful about sailing ships. Whether it's a tall ship or a racing yacht, or a sprightly sailing dinghy, a vessel under sail is graceful and gorgeous. Before the invention of the steam engine, using the power of the wind was the only way to cross the sea, carry cargo, travel the known world or wage naval war. Here you can read about the sailing ships and boats through the history of the Mediterranean Sea: Elsewhere on this site you can find information on:
I also write about ships or boats that I love on my blog.
Early Mediterranean traders People sailed even before they figured out how to write about their adventures. They had to sail (or paddle, or row) to survive. Thousands of years ago people all over the world traded along the coasts, fished in the rivers and oceans, set up villages and settlements by the water, crossed lakes and seas to find new homes and food. There are pictures of boats with sails on ancient Egyptian monuments (from around 3000BC), and we know that the River Nile was an important trading route in the days of the Pharaohs. The feluccas that still sail upriver are not so different from those early trading vessels. All around the Mediterranean, in what we now call North Africa, the Middle East, Turkey, the Adriatic coast and Europe, people were sailing from town to town, fishing and trading. But the first great bluewater sailors in the Mediterranean Sea were the Phoenicians. From Lebanon and Syria, they set up trade routes to Greece, Spain, and across North Africa, and grew rich selling cargos of wine, grain, metal, glass, dyes and fruit. Their cedar wood trading ships were heavy and strong, but probably slow, with plenty of room for cargo. One huge square sail captured the wind, and banks of oars on each side propelled the ship. The Phoenicians were brilliant navigators, and many of their methods were in use for centuries. But their role as rulers of the Middle Sea was soon taken over by the ancient Greek city states and later Rome. The Phoenicians also had warships, fast galleys without sails, rowed into battle by oars banked up in two or three layers. The galley's prow was a sharp battering ram that could be aimed at other ships. This style of warship was later used by the Greeks and Romans, and eventually became the sleek medieval galleys in the fleets of Venice, Genoa, Constantinople, the Barbary states and the Knights of Malta. But through the Middle Ages, new ships were built, with no oars at all, lighter and faster, reliant only on their sails. Northern European traders relied on square-rigged ships, which harnessed the power of the wind like never before. The single-masted ship of the Mediterranean traders featured a triangular (or lateen) sail, so it could sail a shorter course as it tacked (zigzagged) into the wind. By 1200 the lateen-rigged ships had become heavier, had two masts, and were even faster. After the development of the saw to cut wood, ship design changed dramatically. Mediterranean ships were made in the "carvel" or caravel shape. The wooden planks that made up the hull were fitted edge to edge over a frame and the gaps sealed with caulking. Carvel planking required a strong inside frame, they weren't always water-tight, and they were hard to handle. But caravels could be made quite large, so they were used a lot by merchants and explorers from Spain and Portugal. By the time Richard the Lionheart set out on his crusade in the twelfth century, he could boast a fleet of 110 ships. But two hundred years before King Richard, Britain and northern Europe faced a new threat from the terrifying Vikings of Scandinavia. Viking ships were fast, long and slender, powered by oarsmen and a large square sail. The smallest, the skuta, had 30 oars while the skeid boasted 60 oars and a crew of 240. They were shallow, almost like a large canoe, with fearsome carved prows, and steered with a single oar from the side. The longships could sail on long voyages, even across the Atlantic to North America, and yet were easy to handle in the rivers of Europe. They often had a raised platform in the stern or bow on which the Vikings would stand and fight. The ships are clearly pictured in the Bayeux Tapestry, and described in the Viking sagas or epic poems, like 'King Harald's Saga': See the great longship Battle-keen warriors Sails wet with spray These were great fearsome ships, designed for raiding. The Vikings also built larger cargo ships, traded in timber, ivory, fur and glass, and set out to establish new colonies in places like Eng land.. The Vikings didn't have saws: like many boat-building people they carved the wood with adzes, and made "clinker built" hulls of over-lapping planks. In time, these boat-building traditions of northern Europe and the Mediterranean came together to create sailing ships that were capable of carrying cargo, sailing great distances, manoeuvring quickly, and were heavy enough to make use of the new sensation: gunpowder. By 1380 the fleets of France, Venice and Spain were all armed with cannon. The changes in ship design enabled generations of Mediterranean and European sailors to undertake voyages of years, to explore the oceans of the world as they had never really been able to do. They found what they called "The New World", but of course to the people already living there it seemed like the old world. Chinese sailors had used compasses for 1500 years before Europeans invented a similar device, and had rudders fitted on their ships' sterns 1000 years before it occurred to anyone in the West. Their massive junks would have dwarfed a European caravel. For centuries, Arab traders had sailed along the African coast and right across the Indian Ocean in their dhows. Now trade and commerce between continents exploded, as Europeans made contact with people in China, India, South-East Asia and the Americas. There the Europeans came across other great seafaring people, like the Pacific Islanders who could navigate all over the vast ocean to find tiny islands; the fisherfolk of the islands of the Philippines and Indonesia, who travelled great distances to trade and hunt; and the Chinese, who had already explored much of the world. They all had their own ships and boats, capable of long journeys or river trading. Soon ships like the Dutch East Indiamen regularly carried spices, gold, timber and silk from China and the Indies back to Europe, and European settlers and explorers set out to map "The New World". The great trading nations of Europe now depended on their merchant ships for food and wealth - and the ship owners depended on their navies for protection against enemy ships, and against the new breed of pirates. The stage was set for the golden age of sail. Here's more information on: Here are some useful websites about ships and seafaring: |
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| ©2006 Kelly Gardiner |