Sailing ships

by E. Keble Chatterton

This Brigg Boat, and the Valdermoor one, probably belong to the class ascribed by Tacitus[29] in 70 A.D. to the Batavians and Frisians. Some have also thought that it was in such boats as these that the Romans crossed from Gaul to Britain. At any rate there can be no doubt that boats of this kind were to be found at this time still existing in Britain and along the shore washed by the English Channel and North Sea.

In addition to those dug-outs already enumerated, a similar craft was found in 1876 in Loch Arthur, about six miles west of Dumfries. She is 42 feet long and like all the others is hollowed out of oak. Her width and other characteristics show her to resemble very closely the Brigg boat, and accentuate still more the existence of a prevailing type of craft in Northern Europe during prehistoric times. The prow, like that of the primitive Koryaks, is shaped after the head of an animal. Unfortunately not the whole of this relic is preserved, but at least one third of her, and that the bow end, is to be found in the Museum of the Antiquarian Society of Edinburgh. More than twenty canoes of this same class have also been found in the neighbourhood of Glasgow. Almost all were formed out of single tree-trunks of oak and afford evidence of having been hollowed out by blunt tools such as the people of the Stone or Bronze Age would possess. Two obviously later boats were dug up in 1853 and were found to be of more elaborate construction, planks having now been introduced. The prow resembled the beak of an ancient galley, the stern being formed of a triangular piece of oak. For fastening the planks to the ribs oak pins and metallic nails had been used. For caulking, wool dipped in tar had been employed. Boehmer in his exceedingly valuable and careful paper on “Prehistoric Naval Architecture of the North of Europe,”[30] to which I am greatly indebted for some important facts, points out that in the bottom of one of these canoes a hole had been closed by means of a cork-plug, which Professor Geikie remarks could only have come from the latitudes of Spain, Southern France, or Italy. The inference is, of course, that notwithstanding their island home, even the very early inhabitants of Great Britain were in communication with distant parts of the Continent.

There can be no doubt that, at any rate among the least progressive peoples of Northern Europe, this dug-out, monoxylon type of boat lasted till very late, for an account is given by Velleius Paterculus, who about the year 5 A.D. served under Tiberius as prefect of cavalry. He distinctly refers to the Germanic craft as dug-outs, “cavatum, ut illis mos est, ex materia.” Pliny the elder speaks of the piratical ships of the Chauci, one of the most progressive of the coast tribes of Northern Europe, as having visited the rich provinces of Gallia. These ships were dug-outs and carried thirty men. This fact is interesting, as being the first time the Teutons had ventured on the open sea.

During the years 1885 to 1889, while excavations were being made at the port of Bremen at the mouth of the Weser, as many as seven of these dug-outs were found in the alluvial land at depths of from 6½ feet to 13 feet below the present level of the surface. They were made of oak-trunks, and had apparently been fashioned by axes. They were as usual flat-bottomed, without keels, but with prow cut obliquely and with holes for the insertion of oars. Of the seven four were entirely demolished, but of the remaining three the dimensions were respectively: 35 feet long by 2 feet 6 inches wide; 33 feet 4 inches long by 3 feet 6 inches; 26 feet 7 inches by 3 feet 3 inches. The height varied from 1 foot 5 inches up to 2 feet 2 inches. Several specimens of this type are preserved in the municipal museum of Bremen.

So much, then, for the earliest type of craft. We have seen that the dug-out in the course of time became strengthened with ribs. The next stage in the advancement of the prehistoric shipbuilder is to dispense with the strenuous work which necessitated the hollowing out of a whole tree trunk of hard oak. The affixing of ribs has given him an idea. So, utilising the hides of the wild animals which he has shot whilst hunting, he stretches these over the same framework that he had used for strengthening his oak-trunk. He is still in the Stone Age, so nails are not yet invented. The skins have to be sewn together to fit the framework, and the result is precisely that of the coracle even now used in Wales and off Connemara. If the reader should happen never to have seen one of these, a visit to the Victoria and Albert Museum will quickly clear up any misunderstanding. Though we have no actual specimens of ancient skin-ships existing—and indeed we should not expect such a relic—yet the interesting survival of the boat-building language of that primitive time is found both in the Norwegian and English language of to-day. Thus, when you have allowed a ship to lie high and dry in the summer sun so that the planking warps and daylight can be seen through, what is the expression you would use to express this? Would you not remark that she has opened her seams? Now “seam” is an Anglo-Saxon word connoting the joining together of two edges of some texture by means of a needle. But let us take a further instance. Do you not constantly hear shipbuilders and designers refer to the planking that covers a ship’s ribs as her skin? Thus we have still in common use the very words which our sires employed in reference to the sewn hides of their primitive craft. Indeed, when one considers that all through history, even until now, shipbuilding has been an industry apart from ordinary occupations, and that both ships and seamen are, as we said in our introductory chapter, the most conservative of all peoples or created things, this survival is not so unnatural as might seem at first. We could continue to give other examples in the pertinacity of ancient seafaring expressions, but that would only be to digress from the immediate subject before us. We need only make reference to the interesting fact that Cæsar during his first Spanish campaign in the civil war, when he required some boats at the banks of the river Sicoris to get across, ordered the soldiers to make boats of the build that they had learned in former years from the British use. Thus first the keel was obtained and ribs were fashioned of light stuff; the rest of the boat’s body being then woven together of osiers and finally covered with hides.[31] According to Pliny the Britanni also in the first century of our era put to sea in wicker vessels done round with a covering of ox hide. In such vessels they would take a six days’ voyage to the Island of Mictis, whence the tin came.

We come now to the Bronze and Iron Ages. With the advent of metals we find a revolution scarcely inferior to that caused by the discovery of the edged stone. For whereas the latter could cut, yet its efforts were confined within narrow limitations. It was capable of felling a tree and of hollowing out its trunk with the expenditure of considerable labour and tediousness, yet that was its highest achievement in the department of shipbuilding. But now that the introduction of metals, of iron and bronze, is made, the primitive man finds that his sphere of energy is vastly widened. Instead of hollowing out the tree he cuts it up into planks. Instead of having to sew the outside together with thongs of hide, he has metallic nails as fastenings. To the same kind of ribs that framed his skin-boat, he can now nail down planks of oak and fir. He has a lighter and more easily propelled boat than the dug-out, and a stronger and more seaworthy ship than that made of stretched skins, although it is only fair to observe that the hide-boat was capable of far more than one would suppose. Mr. Jochelson in the account of the Jesup Expedition already referred to, relates his experience of being taken for a sail in one of the skin-boats of the Koryak. He was delighted by the endurance which the skins (of seal) exhibited. Not the least remarkable feature was the fact that the skin was capable of sustaining enormous weights without bursting. But in Europe our ancestors must have been glad to be able to discard the hide for that of wood, since the wear and tear in beaching on rock, pebble, or snag, exposed them to instant uselessness.

Although shipbuilding proper comes with the Metallic Age, we must not assume that the change was made universally or at once. The transition would be made rapidly or but slowly in proportion as the tribe or nation were enthusiastically maritime or otherwise. In some parts of Europe the skin-boat or even the dug-out would be in use, while other shores were seeing built vessels of planks and ribs. The first historic account that we possess of these more modern vessels is to be found in Cæsar’s account of the Naval Campaign against the Veneti in the year 54 B.C. From this narrative we learn that the ships of the Veneti were somewhat flatter than those of the Romans, so that they could more easily encounter the shallows and ebbing of the tide.[32] The prows, we are told, were raised very high, and the sterns likewise—“proræ admodum erectæ atque item puppes”—so that they were suited for the force of the waves and storms which they had been constructed to sustain. We have, then, here a new design in naval architecture recorded—the Viking type of ship—although it had been in existence for a considerable time in the North. The high prows and sterns would immediately impress those who had come from the more peaceful waters of Italy. Further it is said that these ships were built of oak throughout and designed to be enormously strong. The crossbeams, made of logs a foot thick, were fastened by iron spikes as thick as a man’s thumb. The anchors were made fast by iron chains instead of cables, while their sails were made of skin and dressed leather. These were used because they lacked canvas or the knowledge to apply it to such a use, or more probably because they thought canvas would be of too little strength to endure the tempests of the ocean and violent gales of wind, and that ships of such great burden could not be managed by them. Perhaps in the use of hides for sails, we have the parent of the practice of using tanned sails so common in our fishing fleet and barges. The relative character of the two kinds of ships Cæsar points out, as we mentioned earlier in the chapter, was that the Roman fleet excelled in speed alone and in oarsmanship. Otherwise the ships of the Veneti were, considering the nature of the place, and the violence of the storms more suitable and better adapted on their side. Nor could the Roman ships injure severely the ships of the Veneti by means of their beaks, so strong were they. And further, so high were these ships that the Romans found great difficulty in hurling weapons at them. Whenever a storm arose and the ships of the Veneti ran before the wind, they could weather it more readily and heave-to safely in the shallows, and when left by the tide feared nothing from rocks and shelves, for—“the risk of all such things,” ends the account pathetically, “was much to be dreaded by our ships.”

Those who are familiar with the terrible tides and treacherous coast of northern France[33] will readily understand how such able Viking-like ships as the Veneti possessed, appealed to the Romans with their fast but unsuitable craft. The difference would be that between the smart Thames skiff and the tubby though seaworthy dinghy of a North Sea fishing smack. For we know pretty accurately now, thanks to the Althiburus mosaics referred to in the previous chapter, just what Cæsar’s craft were like. Hitherto we have known them as naves actuariæ—that is, light vessels of surpassing speed. But if the reader will refer back to Fig. 24 he will find that the navis actuaria, whilst propelled both with oars and sail, was nevertheless not much of a ship to be caught in off the rocks and narrow channels in a breeze of wind. Although these actuariæ were neither freight ships (onerariæ) nor war-vessels properly speaking, yet they still possessed rams and were used on this expedition for a war-like purpose. There cannot be much doubt that the Veneti had obtained their design and ideas of shipbuilding from the Norsemen who relentlessly swept down from their colder climes and plundered and pillaged from one end of the coast of Northern Europe to the other. As we shall see presently, this design was prevalent for many years before Cæsar came, and as we shall also see from the following chapter it had altered but little at the time when William the Conqueror left the French shores for England in the eleventh century.

In the year 15 A.D. we learn from Tacitus[34] that Germanicus had built near the mouth of the river Rhine a thousand ships with sharp bows so as to be able to resist better the waves. Some had flat bottoms to enable them to take the ground with impunity. Some had a steering apparatus at both bow and stern in order that thereby they could be rowed in either direction. Many were decked for the accommodation of throwing machines. They were equally useful as rowing and sailing ships, and just as in the mediæval times ships were built with towering decks for “majesty and terror of the enemy,” so as early as this period these vessels were imposing as to their size whilst inspiring confidence to their own soldiery. Good serviceable ships as they were, yet after defeating the Cherusci at the mouth of the Ems they were shipwrecked in a storm although the wind blew from the south. It is only fair to add, however, that the ancients, especially the Romans, were wont to build their vessels very quickly[35] and consequently they erred, no doubt, in constructing them too slightly. The Saxons who, after the death of Alexander the Great, came to the mouth of the Elbe and subjugated the Thuringians, and who are said to have possessed the art of tacking, already referred to, had such light vessels as belonged to the stone age. They were wonderfully light, made out of willows and covered with skins, but had a keel of knotty oak; yet these daring navigators, without compass or chart, and with but a feeble knowledge of the stars, managed to find their way to the Orkneys.