Sailing ships

by E. Keble Chatterton

Fig. 2. Norwegian “Jaegt.”

The influence of this dogged conservative spirit of the Norwegians is to be seen extending over Great Britain in other ways. No one who has visited the Orkney and Shetland Isles can have failed to have noticed the close similarity between their boats and those of the Norwegian. Until about forty years ago their fishing boat was exactly a Norwegian “yawl,” the most obvious descendant from the lines of a Viking ship. Indeed, until about the year 1860 all the larger fishing boats of the Shetlands were imported in boards direct from Norway ready for putting together at Lerwick. The type is still farther preserved in the whale-boats that are despatched from the mother ships in various parts of the world to harpoon the cachalot. And, not to weary the reader with yet more examples of the great influence which these Viking ships have had on the naval architecture of our country, it is interesting to remark that the latest fashion in yacht design is the so-called “canoe-stern” or “double-ender.” This, of course, derives its inspiration from the Norwegian ships of the present day; and, as we have already said, they in their turn have conservatively held to the models of their ancestors. Whether, as some have thought, the Viking “double-ender” can trace a direct descent from the ships of Egypt is a point that we must defer to another chapter.

Next to the squaresail rig, none has survived so persistently as the lateen. I think that in all probability it was adapted, a few centuries before the introduction of Christianity, from the Egyptian squaresail. Its very appearance and the corner of the world in which it is found as the prevailing rig both suggest that. It is reasonable to assume that in the course of years, when the more experienced Easterns began to discover the art of sailing against the wind and to find that the rig of the Nile boats was not suitable for this, there would be evolved a modification of the Egyptian sail to allow of tacking. This, probably, was the origin of the lateen sail of the dhow. It is of extreme antiquity, and has endured with but little alteration from the time of Alexander the Great, about 350 B.C. The prevalence of this kind of rig in the Red Sea, the Indian Ocean, off the East Coast of Africa, especially as far south as Zanzibar, is well known. The fact that it is still found everywhere up and down the Mediterranean, on the Nile and on Swiss lakes, shows how firmly established did this lateen rig become in the course of time. As we shall see, at a subsequent stage the lateen sail was adopted by our mediæval ships for the mizzen, and this continued right down till the close of the eighteenth century. It will assist us to realise this conservatism if we remember that the ships of St. Paul’s time were of a similar kind to these Eastern ships of which we are now speaking. Let me here be allowed to quote again from an author who has sailed in every sea and been preserved to tell us in so many charming records what many others have seen but not troubled to notice. In a further essay on “The Sea in the New Testament” Mr. Bullen, referring to the ships in which St. Paul voyaged, remarks:

“On the East African coast, even to this day, we find precisely the same kind of vessels, the same primitive ideas of navigation, the same absence of even the most elementary notions of comfort, the same touching faith in its being always fine weather as evinced by the absence of any precautions against a storm.

“Such a vessel as this [i.e., St. Paul’s] carried one huge sail bent to a yard resembling a gigantic fishing-rod, whose butt, when the sail was set, came nearly down to the deck, while the tapering end soared many feet above the masthead. As it was the work of all hands to hoist it, and the operation took a long time, when once it was hoisted it was kept so if possible, and the nimble sailors, with their almost prehensile toes, climbed by the scanty rigging and, clinging to the yard, gave the sail a bungling furl.” Again, referring to the sailors’ activities on the ship in which St. Paul was sailing, Mr. Bullen goes on: “They sounded and got twenty fathoms, and in a little while found the water had shoaled to fifteen. Then they performed a piece of seamanship which may be continually seen in execution on the East African coast to-day—they let their anchors down to their full scope of cable and prayed for daylight. The Arabs do it in fair weather or foul—lower the sail, slack down the anchor, and go to sleep. She will bring up before she hits anything.” I have received a like testimony from one who has also cruised in those parts within recent years.

The prevalence of the fighting top has been maintained from the time of the Egyptians down to the present day. To mention but a few instances, the fighting top is seen in a battleship of Rameses III. (about B.C. 1200), and it is found on ancient seals of the thirteenth century of the present era, and so on, of course, through the Middle Ages to our latest battleships.

From the times of the Egyptians the stern was always reserved for the owner or captain and officers. This custom was that of the Greeks, the Romans, the Vikings, and the English right down to the building of H.M.S. Dreadnought a short while ago, when the longstanding practice of the officers being quartered aft and the men forward was for the first time broken, to the satisfaction, I understand, of neither officers nor men. There has always been a sense of reverence on the part of the sailor for the poop-deck, and though in the Merchant Service many of the old ways have recently disappeared, yet the custom in the Navy, of “saluting the deck” in honour of the Sovereign is, of course, well known. In ancient illustrations we see the place of honour always placed aft.

Finally we must needs refer to the extraordinary longevity of the Mediterranean galley. Adapted from the Egyptians by the Greeks and afterwards the Romans, it flourished, especially in the Adriatic, up to the sixteenth century in a modified form, and only the advent of steam finally closed its career. Even now the gondola will be recognised as bearing a family likeness, and the prow of the latter still shows the survival of the spear-heads which were used in the manœuvre of ramming.

These, then, are some of the characteristics that have been persistent during the course of development of the sailing ship. Each national design and each nation’s rig are the survival of all that has been found to be the best for that particular locality. The more ships a nation builds, the more they sail to other ports—seeing other kinds of ships, comparing them with their own, and adopting whatever is worth while—so much the faster does the ship improve. This, indeed, has been the custom throughout the history of the English nation. When she sent her ships to the Mediterranean at the time of the Crusades, her sailors returned home with new ideas. Thus, the ships in which Richard, with his large fleet, voyaged to Palestine in 1190 would be still of the Viking type. Only a hundred and thirty years had elapsed since William the Conqueror landed in similar boats, as we know from the Bayeux tapestry. When Richard was in the Mediterranean he was joined by a number of galleys. It is not assuming too much to say that an exchange of visits would be made between the crews of the respective ships. The difference in ships would most certainly be criticised, for of all people who inhabit this planet, none are more critical of each other’s possessions than sailormen. The Mediterranean inhabitants, having reached civilisation earlier than the dwellers of Northern Europe, and having had the advantage of living nearer, both historically and geographically, to the first builders of ships, would no doubt have been far in advance of the shipbuilders of Northern Europe. Therefore, it is fairly certain that the English returned from the Crusades knowing far more of maritime matters than when they had set out. At any rate, it is significant that the illustrations of ships of the date of 1238, or about fifty years after Richard set forth to the East, show the Viking-like ship greatly modified. The beginnings of the stern-castle and fore-castle and of fighting top are now seen. It seems to me highly probable that the idea for these was obtained from the galleys, still influenced in their architecture by the methods of fighting adopted by the Greeks and the Romans.