Sailing ships

by E. Keble Chatterton

Charles I. took the liveliest interest in the Navy, and under him naval architecture continued its progression. The first additions he was responsible for were not of big ships, but of the sea-going pinnesses of about 50 tons and under, equipped with both oars and sails. They were square-rigged, three-masted, and had two decks. They were, however, sparred and ordnanced far too heavily. In spite of the fact that England had built a few large ships during the last century, she had not been conspicuously active in this respect. Far easier and cheaper had it been to capture the pick of the enemy’s fleet, and then to refit them and turn the prizes into English men-of-war. But this lethargy was beginning to disappear. Pett was one of the chief influences in regard to this, and it was he who, having closely studied the lines of a fine French ship lying in British waters, learned some of the improvements that afterwards were embodied in the ships of our country.

Fig. 61. The “Sovereign of the Seas.” Built in 1637.

The Sovereign of the Seas in Fig. 61, reproduced from an engraving in the British Museum, after the picture by Van der Velde, owes her design to Pett also. The reader will see how much nearer his craft approaches to the old wooden walls of the eighteenth century. Built in 1637, this vessel was for the next generation the admiration and envy of foreign nations. Like the Prince Royal at a later date, she was cut down in 1652 to a two-decker, having been found somewhat crank. But as originally constructed, the Sovereign of the Seas was a three-decker—the first of her kind—and her measurements, probably taken on the gun-deck, were: 169 feet 9 inches long, by 48 feet 4 inches beam, the depth of her hold being 19 feet 4 inches. She had a tonnage of 1683 burthen, and her anchor weighed 60 cwt. Designed by one member of the Pett family, Phineas, she was built under the supervision of Peter Pett. In 1684 she was practically rebuilt and then renamed the Royal Sovereign, but twelve years later had the misfortune to be burnt accidentally at Chatham, yet not before she had done excellent service under Blake and others during the seventeenth century wars. Notice in the illustration that instead of the rare use of the topgallant at the main, she carries them on all three masts: further still, observe the fact that by now royals have come into use for the first time. The fore and main have them stowed with yards lowered.[96] Originally the Sovereign of the Seas had four masts. She carried over 100 guns; had a figurehead; and the beak-head, though somewhat similar to that of the Prince Royal, is placed lower, while the length of the ship is proportionately greater, and the original tubby appearance of the Prince Royal is improved upon. There is a medal of the time of Charles I., commemorating the Declaration of Parliament of 1642. On one side is shown a conventionalised design of this or a similar ship, showing both topgallants and royals, the latter stowed.

Comparing a ship of the seventeenth century with a modern sailing craft of the same tonnage, the most striking defects that would appear in the former were the clumsiness in proportions. The lowness of the bow and the height of the stern seem to us nowadays ridiculous: so they were. But it was just one of the stages reached in the transition from those lofty forecastles and stern-castles that we saw originate in early times. But masts and spars were now no longer the stumpy items they had been. There was an improvement, too, in the existing rule of tonnage-measurement. Up to 1628 it had been far from reliable, being reckoned by the capacity for storing so many tuns of wine. From the time of Henry V. and long after, ton as applied to shipping denoted the capacity to hold a barrel measuring 42 cubic feet in the hold below deck. Therefore a vessel of 900 tons was capable of holding 900 such barrels. As the barrels were circular and could not be packed close together, the tonnage was really greater than what was given.[97] But from 1628 it was to be estimated from the length of the keel, leaving out the false post (a piece bolted to the after edge of the main sternpost), the greatest breadth within the plank, the depth from that breadth to the upper edge of the keel, and then to multiply these and divide the result by one hundred.[98]

We have seen how, in the sixteenth century, the greatest rivals of the English were the Spaniards. Now, in the seventeenth century, it was the Dutch. Gradually they had been getting stronger and stronger until about the middle of the seventeenth century they had reached their zenith in prosperity and power. They had accumulated considerable wealth, were building fine, capable ships, and about the time we are speaking of had no equals in either of these possessions. Before the close of the sixteenth century we have seen them engaging on the first Arctic Expedition and inventing a new rig for small vessels. All through the reigns of James and Charles I. they had gone on developing. It was not until about the close of Elizabeth’s reign that Holland had commenced to build ships purely for fighting purposes, but by the year 1624 their men-of-war were the superior of ours. They kept their ships well, and we find incidentally that it was the practice of the Dutchmen to tallow the bottom of their ships while the English had allowed their vessels to become overgrown with weeds and barnacles below the water-line. The competition between the two countries set ablaze so much jealousy that an explosion was bound to come sooner or later. It did come during the Commonwealth, but though the Civil Wars of Charles I. had the same ill effects on our Navy as the Wars of the Roses, yet under Blake the Dutch were beaten, our Navy became again the finest in the world, and settled for the future the position which English fleets should occupy in respect of other nations. Highly ruinous as this war was to Dutch shipping and commerce, it meant the rise of our own Navy and merchant service. True, our vessels were slower under sail than the Dutchmen, yet we were more solidly built and armed more heavily. One result of the war in 1654, not a little gratifying to our pride, remained in the acceptation by the enemy that henceforth all Dutch ships, whether men-of-war or of the merchant service, on meeting any English men-of-war in British seas should strike their flags and lower topsails. Another and more practical result was that many valuable Dutch ships passed into our Navy as prizes.

During the Dutch hostilities was employed, for the first time, by the English, a man-of-war named the Constant Warwick, which was the successor of the galleasse and the immediate precursor of the frigate of the eighteenth century. Originally the name “frigate” (French, frégate) was only known in the Mediterranean: it was then used as applied to the galleasse type of craft, having oars plus sails. But it was the English who were the first to appear on the ocean, says “Falconer’s Marine Dictionary,” with frigates denoting “a light, nimble ship, built for the purpose of sailing swiftly.” The Constant Warwick was of 315 tons. Before the end of the Commonwealth the frigate was given finer lines to her underwater body, whilst the height of the hull above water was reduced and the keel lengthened. The rake fore and aft was lessened, so that the extreme length over all became diminished in proportion to the length of the keel. In spite of the obvious improvements which would ensue from this alteration, there was one vessel, the Gainsborough, which Mr. Oppenheim cites, that was unable to beat to windward. These new frigates were built at first without forecastles, but afterwards, except in the case of the fifth and sixth-rates, they were added to the larger ships. They were somewhat under-canvassed rather than the reverse. The longboat was still towed astern as we saw in an earlier century, the pinnace and skiff being stowed on board. Although during the Commonwealth the ornate decoration of ships was restricted, gilding being entirely stopped, yet in 1655 Mr. Oppenheim states that this restriction was relaxed. The figurehead, the arms on the stern and the two figures on the stern gallery were to be gilt, but elsewhere the hull was to be black and picked out in gold where there was carving. In spite of all that we can bring against Cromwell it is only fair to say that he exercised a considerable amount of good on behalf of the Navy and English commerce. In addition to settling the Dutch troubles, there had been another matter affecting our shipping that needed attention. For some time the piratical people of Algiers had made the seas to be so dangerous as practically to have throttled over-ocean trade. Cromwell, however, in his own determined manner undertook an expedition to the Mediterranean under the command of Blake, and secured relief for our commerce from the attacks by which it had been harassed.

From “Two Discourses of the Navy: 1638 and 1659,” by John Hollond,[99] we are able to gather some further information as to the material used for ships of the English Navy during the Commonwealth. Thus, the second of these discourses, written the year before Cromwell died, mentions that there were three kinds of hemp in use, viz.: Russian, which was the cause of considerable complaint because it lasted only a year, while home-made hemp endured for eighteen months; Rhine band being another variety, and Riga band the third. But there appears to have been a good deal of trickery and dishonesty generally going on at this time in connection with hemp and cordage.

As to the timber, English oak was used for straight, curved (referred to as “compass”), and knee timbers. Ash was used for blocks and tholes, &c., while elm and beech were used for the planking below the waterline and also for the keel. There was in this century a great dearth of timber, and the royal forests had seriously deteriorated. As a result, foreign planking was imported in large quantities from abroad, and especially the Baltic. In this may be found the explanation for the speed with which our ships decayed. In Charles II.’s time the planks and timbers were fastened with tree-nails or hard wooden pins. Those who have not forgotten their undergraduate days will be interested to hear that the best trees for this purpose were grown at Shotover and Stow Wood, Oxfordshire.

With regard to the iron used, by 1636 there were as many as three hundred iron works in the country. Iron nails were stolen in such large quantities that the systematic marking of Navy stores was begun about the time of the Restoration. A proclamation of 1661 introduced the broad arrow, as a Government mark on timber and anchors.