Ships of the seven seas

by Hawthorne Daniel

The bowsprit was a crude affair but was highly important, which was the reason for its continued use despite the fact that even in ordinary weather in the open sea the pitching of the dumpy hulls often drove the spritsail into the waves. Perhaps this troublesome feature of the spritsail was partially responsible, as the desire for more head sails certainly was, for the addition at the end of the bowsprit of a short, vertical spar on which a new sail called the “sprit topsail” was spread. In heavy weather this sail could be carried without plunging it into the sea long after the spritsail, which was spread on a spar mounted below the bowsprit, had to be taken in.

And now the masts of these ships began to undergo an important change. Hitherto a mast was simply a long sturdy spar made of a single tree, with a single square sail mounted on a single yard. The desire for more canvas led at first to the setting of a triangular sail above the square sail. This new sail was set with its lower corners made fast to the extremities of the yard and with its apex at the apex of the mast. Soon, however, a short yard appeared at the top of this sail, which in the course of later developments became more and more rectangular until finally it became the highly important topsail of the square-rigged ships of to-day. As still other sails were added this topsail became the sail that is carried for a greater part of the time than any other of the square sails, for in heavy weather it is the last to be taken in, and continues to hold its place long after its predecessor, the great square sail below it, has been furled.

So successful was this topsail that ship-builders and sailors began to think of ways of making it larger. Its size was limited to the height of the mast above the great square mainsail. At first masts were cut from taller trees, but soon a practical limit to this method of securing additional height was reached, because of the limited size of trees. Then it was that the topmast was invented. Another mast, only slightly smaller than the first, was lashed with its base overlapping the top of the mainmast, which, because the upper part was now of no use, was again shortened. This proved satisfactory, and later another section and another still was added until the mast had grown from one simple spar into a structure made up of three or four or even five rising one above the other until, in the greatest of all square-rigged ships—the Great Republic, built in 1853—the mainmast, surmounted by the topmast, the topgallant, the royal, and the skysailmasts, towered almost half as high above her keel as the summit of Washington Monument stands above its concrete base. But that was long years after the times we are discussing, and such a ship was far beyond even the imaginations of the shipwrights and sailors of 1500.

Years before this time, as I have already explained, ships had developed raised structures at bow and stern, called forecastles and sterncastles, and by now these had become integral parts of the hull. But the hulls! It can be said with little fear of contradiction that they had become the most ridiculous ships, in appearance at least, that ever sailed the seas. Their sterns were built up and up into huge structures that contained many decks and many cabins. Forward these ships, more often than not, ran their ridiculous noses down until it sometimes seemed as if they were inquisitive to learn what was beneath the surface of the water. Above these weird hulls were three or four towering masts, and forward was a long bowsprit that reared itself up at so steep an angle as to suggest that it feared that the bow, at the very next moment, would surely go completely beneath the sea.

The mast farthest astern—which in a three-masted northern ship was then and still is called the mizzenmast—for many years carried only a lateen sail. Finally, however, the part of this triangular sail that ran forward of the mast was eliminated, although the spar itself was still the same. But finally this long spar was cut off where it met the mast, and it became the gaff of the sail that now is called, on square-rigged ships, the spanker. On this mast, too, above this lateen sail that, pollywog-like, was losing its tail in its growth into a spanker, it slowly became the custom to set sails similar to those which on the other masts had come into common use above the great square sails that were set nearest to the deck.

THE AMARANTHE

A British warship of 1654. This ship is an excellent example of the ships that were in use just before the jib began to put in its appearance. The lateen sail on the mizzenmast is similar to the one used on the caravels, but both the rigging and the hull are greatly refined as compared with the ships of the time of Columbus.

This growth, of course, was slow. The life of a single sailor was not enough to see the general acceptance of more than one or two of these steps, for seamen are conservative when it comes to changes in their ships, and are not given to the rapid acceptance of revolutionary improvements. But by comparison with the slow development of the preceding thousand years changes were coming with almost breathless speed.

It was during this period that another important improvement was introduced. I have explained how, on cruder ships, it was the custom, when more sail area was needed, to lace a separate strip of cloth to the foot of the great square sail. This extra piece of sail was called the “bonnet” and sometimes another similar piece called the “drabbler” was laced to the foot of the bonnet. If the wind increased until less sail was desired these two extra sections of the sail were unlaced and the sail area was reduced by that much. In earlier times the sail was sometimes puckered up by passing lines over the spar and tying them so as to make the sail into a bundle more or less loosely tied, depending on how much or how little the sail area was to be reduced. But now came the introduction of “reef points” which, down to the present day, are still the accepted method of reducing sail.