From the specimens so preserved it is known that the Norsemen knew how to shape the hulls of their boats almost as well as the modern boat-builder. This fact is interesting because the immediate successors of the Norsemen, either through ignorance or choice, reverted to most primitive types in building their boats. Thus it required centuries for them to develop a knowledge of hull-construction that was familiar in ancient times to the northern rovers. Scandinavia itself never entirely forgot the art, and there are boats built in Norway to-day closely similar in all essentials to some of the boats constructed by the Norsemen.
MEDIÆVAL SHIPS
The contrast in shape and construction between the trim ships of the Norsemen and the short, top-heavy vessels which were the approved European type during the early Middle Ages, is most striking. The Mediæval shipbuilders in striving to improve their craft, making them as seaworthy and as spacious as possible, first added decks, and then built towering superstructures at bow and stern. The result was a vessel which would have been so top-heavy that it would be likely to capsize had it not been so broad that "turning turtle" was out of the question.
It was in such ships that Columbus made his voyage of discovery in 1492, although the superstructures fore and aft on his boat were less exaggerated than in some later vessels. Nevertheless they were veritable "tubs"; and we know from the experience of the crew that sailed the replica of the Santa Maria across the ocean in 1893, that they were anything but comfortable craft for ocean traveling.
This replica of the Santa Maria was reproduced with great fidelity by the Spanish shipbuilders, and, manned by a Spanish crew, crossed the ocean on a course exactly following that taken by Columbus on his first voyage. Sir George Holmes' terse description of this voyage is sufficiently illuminating without elaboration. "The time occupied was thirty-six days," he says; "and the maximum speed attained was about 6-1/2 knots. The vessel pitched horribly!"
Two full centuries before the discovery of America the rudder had been invented. There is no record to show who was responsible for this innovation, although its superiority over the older steering appliances must have been appreciated fully. But after the beginning of the fourteenth century the rudder seems to have come into general use, entirely supplanting the older side-rudder, or clavus.
MODERN SAILING SHIPS
For a full century after the voyage of Columbus little progress was made in ship construction; short, stocky boats, with many decks high above the water-line at bow and stem continuing to be the most popular type. In the opening years of the seventeenth century, however, the English naval architect, Phineas Pett, departed from many of the accepted standards of his time, and produced ships not unlike modern full-rigged sailing vessels, except that the stern was still considerably elevated, and the bow of peculiar construction. One of Pett's ships, The Sovereign of the Seas, was a vessel 167 feet long, with 48 foot beam, and of 1,683 tons burthen. The introduction of this type of vessel was a distinct step forward toward modern shipbuilding.
THE OLD AND THE NEW—A CONTRAST