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e.k. chatterton : sailing models, 1934.  

E. Kebel Chatterton : Sailing Models- Ancient and Modern, 1934.

Extracts from
Chatterton, E. Keble: Sailing Models
 
Ancient and Modern.
Hurst and Blackett, London, 1934.

Introduction.
Edward Keble Chatterton (10 September 1878 – 31 December 1944) was a prolific writer who published around a hundred books, pamphlets and magazine series, mainly on maritime and naval themes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Keble_Chatterton


Marine art historian Margarita Russell, describes the Hand G marine scenes as "capturing the first true vision of pure seascape" in art.

Gautier de Coincy. Les Miracles de Notre-Dame. Auteur : Delisle, Léopold. Auteur de lettres Date d'édition : 1301-1400 Contributeur : Gautier de Coinci Type : manuscrit Langue : Français Format : Parch. - I-III, A-B et 245 f. à 2 col. - 335 × 225 mm. - Reliure velours vert et soie brochée Droits : domaine public Identifiant : ark:/12148/btv1b6000451c
Pinned from
gallica.bnf.fr



barque de Pierre ballottée par les flots Breviarium ad usum fratrum Predicatorum, dit Bréviaire de Belleville. Bréviaire de Belleville, vol. I (partie hiver) Auteur : Jean Pucelle. Enlumineur Auteur : Maître du Cérémonial de Gand. Enlumineur Date d'édition : 1323-1326 Type : manuscrit
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Frontpiece

Fig. 123
A Beurtman of 1778.
(From a model in the Science Museum,
South Kensington)








Title
Page


Sailing Models- Ancient and Modern.

Page 7
Preface

This is an entirely new book on a subject which has an even wider appeal than when my first monograph was published years ago.
That volume is now rare and hard to obtain even at a premium: copies have changed hands at several times the original price.

Since then, however, much more information has become available on this fascinating subject; and the number of enthusiasts who find their recreation the study of sailing models, ancient or modern, has grown enormously.
I have long been asked to issue such a production as will give the reader two things: the pleasure of indulging in the glorious pageant of shipping, and a means whereby he can at a glance perceive representative models of each period available within the limits of European travel.

These specimens have been selected from private and public collections of the British Isles, Scandinavia, France, Germany, Holland, Spain, among other regions.
It is hoped that apart from the delight which is obtainable from beautiful things, these little ships through the ages will help to make dusty history a living and very human story.
In these hulls are summed up not merely the world's great sea-contests, but that striving for know¬ledge which is the basis of all discovery and progress.

I would like to express my gratitude to private owners as well as to those Curators who have most courteously rendered me every facility for presenting their exhibits.
Acknowledgments
(sic) have been made in the appropriate places.
But also I desire to thank for their assistance Mr. A. R. B. Lyman, the Ship Model Society of Liverpool, Professor A. Requejo, Captain Julio F. Guillen, Mr. G. E. C. Crone, Mr. J. W. Van Nouhuys, Mr. W. Voorbeytel Cannenburg, Mr. G. S. Laird Clowes, Captain Olof Traung, Mr. Albert Pinnell, Mr. Reginald Colver, Mr. H. Griffiths, and the Model Ship Society of Lancashire and Cheshire.

E. KEBLE CHATTERTON.

Page 8
[Blank]

Page 9
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
FIG. 1.
FIG. 2.
FIG. 3.
FIG. 4.
FIG. 5
.
FIG. 6.

FIG. 7.
FIG. 8.
FIG. 9.
FIG. 10.
FIG. 11.
FIG. 12.
FIG. 13.
FIG. 14.
FIG. 15.
FIG. 16.
FIG. 17.
FIG. 18.
FIG. 19.
FIG. 20.
FIG. 21.
FIG. 22.
FIG. 23.
FIG. 24.
FIG. 25.
FIG. 26.
FIG. 27.
FIG. 28.     
EGYPTIAN SAILING MODEL OF THE XITH DYNASTY
EGYPTIAN SAILING MODEL OF THE XITH DYNASTY
EGYPTIAN MODEL OF THE XITH DYNASTY
RECONSTRUCTED EGYPTIAN SAILING MODEL
ATHENIAN TRIREME OF FIFTH AND FOURTH CENTURIES B.C.
SHIP OF SIDON
ST. PAUL'S SHIP
WELSH CORACLES
DONEGAL CURRAGH
VIKING SHIP

ENGLISH CRUSADER (LATE THIRTEENTH CENTURY)
FOURTEENTH-CENTURY MEDITERRANEAN CARGO SHIP
EX-VOTO SPANISH FIFTEENTH-CENTURY MODEL
FIFTEENTH-CENTURY HANSEATIC COG SHIP
COLUMBUS'S SANTA MARIA
COLUMBUS'S
SANTA MARIA
COLUMBUS'S
SANTA MARIA
THE GREAT MICHAEL, 1511
HULL OF A SPANISH GALLEON, 1540
FRENCH GALLEON, 1560
DRAKE'S GOLDEN HIND, 1577
ELIZABETHAN GALLEON
ARK ROYAL, 1587
ELIZABETHAN GALLEON (ABOUT 1600).  (In Colour)
FLEMISH GALLEON, 1593
THE HALF MOON
HUDSON'S HALF MOON
THE CALMARE NYCKEL, 1629
Page 10
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
FIG. 29.        
FIG. 30.
FIG. 31.
FIG. 32.

FIG. 33.
FIG. 34.
FIG. 35.
FIG. 36
.
FIG. 37.
FIG. 38.
FIG. 39.
FIG. 40.

FIG. 41.
FIG. 42.
FIG. 43.
FIG. 44.
FIG. 45.
FIG. 46.
FIG. 47.
FIG. 4
8.
FIG. 49
.
FIG.
50.
FIG. 51.
FIG.
52.
FIG. 53
FIG.
54.
FIG. 55.
FIG.
56.

FIG.
57.

FIG. 58.
FIG.
59
.
FIG.
60.
FIG. 61.        
THE SOVERAIGNE OF THE SEAS, 1637
 THE SOVERAIGNE OF THE SEAS, 1637
ARMED MERCHANTMAN, 1641
DUTCH WARSHIP, 1650
DUTCH WARSHIP, 1650
FRENCH SECOND-RATE (PERIOD OF LOUIS XIV)
ENGLISH EAST INDIAMAN (ABOUT 1640)
PINNACE (TIME OF CHARLES I)
DUTCH FLUITSCHIP (ABOUT 1650)
THE 50-GUN AMARANTHE, 1653
THE NASEBY, 1655
THE NEPTUNE, 90 GUNS
THE NEPTUNE
HANGING CHURCH MODEL SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY WARSHIP
HANGING CHURCH MODEL, SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
THE JONGE JOHANN, SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
THE HOFFNUNG VON LUBECK, 1686
THE HOFFNUNG VON LUBECK,  1686
THE LOWE, SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
EX-VOTO FRIGATE FROM THE CANARIES (LATE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY)
DANISH EX-VOTO MODEL FROM A SWEDISH CHURCH (1700-1720)
DETAILS OF RIGGING OF DANISH EX-VOTO MODEL FROM SWEDISH CHURCH NEAR GOTHENBURG
DANISH EX-VOTO MODEL FROM SWEDISH CHURCH ON ISLAND NEAR GOTHENBURG OF 1700-1720
DUTCH EX-VOTO WARSHIP OF ABOUT 1700
DOCKYARD MODEL OF QUEEN ANNE IOO-GUN WARSHIP
70-GUN WARSHIP OF ABOUT 1712
50-GUN SHIP, NAVY BOARD MODEL OF 1727
THE NEPTUNUS, PRIVATEER (ABOUT 1717)
UNIDENTIFIED 50-GUN WARSHIP OF ABOUT 1727
50-GUN WARSHIP OF ABOUT 1727
UNIDENTIFIED 8O-GUN WARSHIP OF 1704
THE WASA, 1761
THE WASA, 1761
Page 11
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
FIG. 62.    
FIG.
63.
FIG. 64.
FIG. 65. 
FIG. 66.
FIG. 67.
FIG.
68.

FIG.
69.

FIG.
70

FIG.
71.

FIG.
72.

FIG.
73.

FIG.
74.

FIG.
75.
FIG. 76.
FIG.
77.

FIG.
78.

FIG.
79.

FIG.
80.
FIG. 81.
FIG. 82.
FIG. 83.
FIG. 84.
FIG. 85.
FIG.
86.

FIG.
87
.
FIG.
88.
FIG. 89.
FIG. 90.
FIG. 91.
FIG. 92.
FIG. 93.
FIG. 94.
FIG. 95.
FIG. 96.            
SWEDISH EAST INDIAMAN FINLAND, 1761
THE DUTCH FOR-TUYN, 1764
EAST ASIATIC COMPANY'S SHIP OF ABOUT 1768
SPANISH 8O-GUN SHIP RAYO  (1749-1805)

SPANISH 112-GUN SHIP REAL CARLOS (1787-1801)
CAPTAIN COOK'S ENDEAVOUR, 1768
BRIG ATALANTE, 1796
DUTCH WHALER (BOOTSCHIP), ABOUT 1770
THE THREE-MASTED DUTCH GALLEON GODE HOOP (LATE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY)
PRISONER-OF-WAR MODEL OF H.M.S. FOUDROYANT
THE LORD DUNCAN, 64 GUNS
THE FRIGATE PROSPERITY, 32 GUNS
THE BRIG FLAME, PRIVATEER, 150 TONS
FRENCH FRIGATE LE TERRIBLE
THE FRENCH FRIGATE LE MUIRON
ENGLISH CORVETTE OF ABOUT THE YEAR 1800
H.M.S. NELSON, 1814
H.M.S. CONWAY
THE STAR QUEEN (1820-1840)
FRIGATE OF 1830
DUNDEE SHIP ANN MILNE, 1841
FRENCH BRIG LES DEUX MARIES, NINETEENTH CENTURY
SHIPYARD OF ABOUT 1670
THE CHRISTINA AGATHA ABOUT TO BE LAUNCHED, 1843
CAREENING THE FRIGATE PRINS FREDERIK DER NEDERLANDIA, 1842
BRIG GARIBALDI, 1850
CLIPPER SHIP MARCO POLO, 1850
CLIPPER SHIP LIGHTNING, 1854
CLIPPER SHIP JAMES BAINES, 1854
AMERICAN CLIPPER OF ABOUT 1850
AMERICAN CLIPPER OF ABOUT 1850
FULL-RIGGED SHIP FRANCE, 900 TONS
STAR OF INDIA, 1861
IRON SHIP EVELYN
THE SOBRAON, 1866

Page 12
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
FIG. 97.
FIG.
98.

FIG.
99.

FIG.
100.

FIG.
101.

FIG.
102.

FIG.
103.

FIG. 104.
FIG. 105.
FIG.
106.
FIG. 107.
FIG. 108.
FIG.
109
.
FIG.
110.

FIG. 111
.

FIG. 112.
FIG. 113.
FIG. 114.
FIG. 115.
FIG. 116.
FIG. 117.
FIG. 118.
FIG. 119.
FIG. 120.
FIG. 121.
FIG. 122.
FIG. 123.
FIG. 124.
FIG. 125.
FIG. 126.
FIG. 127.
FIG. 128.
FIG. 129.
FIG. 130.
FIG. 131.     
TEA-CLIPPER CUTTY SARK
THE SHIP TORRENS
AMERICAN SHIP HENRY B. HYDE, 1884
THE SHIP CROWN OF ITALY, 1885
THE FOUR-MASTED BARQUE HOLKAR
THE FIVE-MASTER PREUSSEN, 1902
THE SHIP BERKSHIRE
SAILING BRIGS AND FULL-RIGGED SHIPS
SAILING SHIPS AND BARQUES
TOPSAIL SCHOONER IN FRESH BREEZE
FULL-RIGGED SHIP IGHTENHILL
H.M.S. IMPREGNABLE
NORTH CHINA TRADING JUNK, 1932.   (In Colour)
NORTH CHINA TRADING JUNK, SHOWING BOWS
NORTH CHINA TRADING JUNK, SHOWING DECORATED STERN
MEDITERRANEAN GALLEY OF 1780
MEDITERRANEAN XEBEC, 1780
MOORISH LATEENER
VENETIAN GALLEY
DECORATIVE MODEL OF GALLEY
ENGLISH YACHT OF LATE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
ENGLISH YACHT OF LATE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY, SHOWING DECK
CHARLES II YACHT.  (In Colour)
DUTCH YACHT OF 1761
DUTCH YACHT OF 1800
PAVILJOENPOON (LATE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY)
A BEURTMAN OF 1778. (In Colour.) (Frontispiece)
HERRING BUSS, 1800
FISHING HCEKER, 1845
KOFSCHIP, EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
HOOGAARTS FISHING VESSEL
HUMBER KEEL
NORFOLK WHERRY
MERSEY FLAT ELIZABETH, 1827
RIVER WEAVER FLAT AVON

Page 13
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
FIG. 132.
FIG. 133.
FIG.
134.
FIG. 135.
FIG. 136.
FIG. 137.
FIG. 138.
FIG. 139.
FIG. 140.
FIG. 141.
FIG. 142.
FIG. 143.
FIG.
144

DUTCH NAVAL CUTTER (LATE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY)
THE FAMOUS SCHOONER YACHT AMERICA
1851 PILOT SCHOONER PRIDE OF LIVERPOOL
FRENCH ICELANDIC FISHING SCHOONER
AMERICAN FISHING SCHOONER COLUMBIA
SCOTCH FIFIE

SCOTCH FIFIE NEPTUNE
SCOTCH ZULU

SMACK-RIGGED SCOTCH FISHING BOAT
SMACK-RIGGED SCOTCH FISHING BOAT
SUFFOLK BEACH YAWL BITTERN
SOUTHWOLD BEACH PUNT
BRIXHAM TRAWLER
PLANS
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
MODEL OF ELIZABETHAN GALLEON (ABOUT 1600)
STUART ROYAL YACHT—RIGGING PLAN
STUART ROYAL YACHT, 1670
TOPSAIL SCHOONER MY LADY - SAILS AND SPARS
TOPSAIL SCHOONER MY LADY - QUARTER SCALE
TOPSAIL SCHOONER MY LADY - COLOUR AND DECK FITTINGS
HUMBER KEEL
Page 14

[Blank]

Page 15
SAILING MODELS ANCIENT & MODERN

Amoung the intellectual pursuits it would be difficult to find any so fascinating and so rich in rewards as the study of ship evolution through the ages.
One may trace this subject through the channels of pure history as set forth in documents; it may be followed pictorially bv examining such drawings and paintings as have regard to maritime matters, but these are so few until the seventeenth century that a complete sequence becomes impossible.
Valuable though the comparatively few marine pictures are, when showing contemporary vessels, they not infrequently suffer from a lack of definiteness and slur over just those details which we desire to know with precision.

Conversely, it is undeniable that such artists as the Van de Veldes have left us with no little knowledge respecting the general appearance of ships under way, besides such minutiae as ornamentation externally and the set of sails.
It might be contended that the draught, or design, of a ship possesses a primary importance; which is perfectly true.
But that, again, is of comparatively modern practice and before the fifteenth century the universal custom was to build by eye and not from a plan.
Moreover, the earliest of these designs are very few, and at their best create a flat, lifeless impression; whereas, of all the objects created by the skill of man none is more round, more full of life and potential energy than a ship.

The whole fabric of civilisation is built up on travel, for life is progressive rather than static.
Human knowledge, commerce, exploration, colonisation, discovery, prosperity, and invention are all linked up with movement from place to place; but especially throughout all ages has the boat or sea-borne vessel been the means by which the exchange of ideas and commodities, the revelation of fresh information, become possible.
Rule

Page 16

out of the world's story marine transport, and there is but little to narrate.
Watch the development from skin-boat to ocean carrier, and you have the very framework of man's progress.


Now the rise of great nations such as the Egyptians, Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Venetians, Portuguese, Spanish, French, Dutch, English, Scandi­navian, has been so closely connected with the gradual perfecting of a sail-driven vessel that unless we have before our eyes some clear and definite conception as to the prevailing ship-type in each notable period, under­standing its limitations and its possibilities, we miss the very reasons and causes of results.
For example, how can dull print satisfy our minds when considering the Crusades, the voyages of Columbus, the planting of America, the Anglo-Dutch, or long Anglo-French naval wars, unless we know exactly how the shipping looked, how it could be handled, how it was rigged, what sort of accommodation it afforded, how it carried its armament ?


If, then, it be true that human progress for the most part has been built upon keels, the study of marine derivation and naval archaeology will be found not merely glorious in itself but full of illumination in regard to mankind's activities.
And it is here that the models, preferable to the drawings or paintings, of ships enable the imagination to visualise with an intense realism those great scenes of the past which were to decide the trend of mundane advancement.
Merely one glance at a model is to place oneself as a shipmate with any selected ocean adventurer.
We go aboard with Drake, or Anson, and sail round the world understanding the reasons for this rope and that spar, for that piece of canvas.
We learn why the guns were put here and not there; we can with a model see for ourselves not merely so much of the ship as is above waterline, but the entire hull shape, and at once we perceive that such underwater lines and such a grip, such clumsy sterns or such full bows, could scarcely allow a ship to make headway against the wind.
Thus, at once, we comprehend why for century after century the route to North America must be not direct but south towards the equator though homewards by the nearest way; following the trade winds and choosing a fair breeze, instead of the shortest distance.


There is in the making of a model a sincerity demanded far higher than normally presented by the painter.
Vagueness, or scamping of any item,


Page 17

will be recognised immediately.
Artistic licence gives way to meticulous exactness: the object is to be put before our eyes with entire fidelity, and no slipshod or careless craftsman ever produced a good ship-model by covering his laziness or ignorance with some brilliant gesture.
It is a proof of a man's honesty and patience if he sets forth to fashion a reproduction in wood, or ivory, or metal; to set up complicated rigging and shape the spars seaworthily.
But few efforts are more obviously ludicrous than a ship's representation ill conceived and robbed of conscientious skill.

Apart from its illustrative and historical appeal, the close study of these models has a sentimental and romantic attraction which continues unrivalled.
He who can stand before such an object without emotion is outside aesthetic influences.
Young or old, rich or poor, sailor or landsman, there are very few occasions when a ship in miniature does not excite immense admiration, sympathy, and unbounded joy.
Twenty-five years ago, when I published my Sailing Ships and Their Story, the number of nautical antiquarians was comparatively small; museum catalogues contained many an inaccuracy; the art of model-making belonged to the few.
To-day, however, both in the United Kingdom and the United States there are nautical research societies doing splendid work. They have made considerable additions to knowledge, and been influential in correcting a good deal of heresy.
Never, indeed, has the public mind taken so much interest in the sea and ships; never has so much care been given to marine models.
Not only in the British Isles and America, but on the European continent, these creations have taken on a new value.
Nautical museums in Liverpool and other ports have come into being; other collections, after the neglect of years, have begun to be overhauled and rearranged with greater affection.
In private houses dust-laden little ships, and long-forgotten, have been dug out from lumber-room and attic, treated with reverence, repaired, and reconstructed according to sound archaeological data for the pleasure of posterity.

Not many years ago this exact restoration would have been impossible: indeed it is scarcely an exaggeration to claim that by far the greater number of old models still in existence have been during the eighteenth, nineteenth, or early twentieth century, re-rigged and re-sparred not in accordance with their appropriate period, but with only the rigger's personal experience

Page 18

of modern sea-going.
Thus by unwarranted accretion have been added features which never belonged to that ship's lifetime; whilst, simultaneously, characteristic items of the past have ruthlessly been destroyed.

Now it is not practicable to prevent occasional breakages or the deterioration of wood and cordage.
Fragile rigging is especially likely to suffer as the years go by, and the amount of vibration along our roads week after week is doing real harm to some of our ship specimens.
(I know of one building where this is so bad that any photography must be made on Sundays.)
But, fortunately, just as the last old shellbacks are dying out or losing their eyesight, there is springing up a series of Ship Model Societies whose members make it their hobby and joy to build slowly yet authentically; to set up rigging and even sails so deftly and truly, that the most critical sailorman misses nothing that should be there.
It is a sign of this new-born interest that some of the ablest makers of ship models have no connection with the sea and on the contrary live far inland.
It would be hard to choose a hobby more delightful, employing mind, eyes, and hands in making something that is at once a work of art and sums up the past most charmingly.
At one glance the beholder has before him the expression of considerable research, yet this object has a living individuality of its own.
Whilst the most admirable painting shows a ship from one angle, the model can be viewed bow on, stern, amidships, looking down from a gull's eye view on to decks, or from a fish's aspect upwards.

We thus come to the several classes.
These are (a) old and contemporary, (b) modern representations of past ships, (c) new models of to-day's shipping.
The last two can be further divided into other categories.
Are they to be of the "show-case " sort- objects of beauty and instruction?
Or capable of being sailed, whilst not forfeiting their other virtues?
And these will all come under our consideration in the following pages.
The principle here followed is to offer the reader a pageant of shipping selected from the best contemporary models in Europe's public and private collections; and where contemporary items are unobtainable to choose the finest examples reconstructed in harmony with modern research.
The series of vessels here put forward should form a companion to any study of history, but they are especially valuable as indicating man's groping

Page 19

towards that kind of transport which would give him a measure of sea-independence.

With few exceptions we at once note that from early Egyptian times down to the Reformation ship-models were chiefly made because of some motive connected either with the next world or some religious inspiration.
After the mid-sixteenth century of our era the stream divides: in such regions as Spain and Brittany, as well as other Catholic maritime localities, the association of model boats and ships with churches continues to this day.
In England and more northern countries, such as Sweden, the Reformation banished these craft so ruthlessly that most of them were de­stroyed utterly and with them departed some priceless records.
But Queen Elizabeth
was not dead before Phineas Pett was making the earliest official English ship-models.
From that date we have a not quite continuous practice of model making in England, Holland, and presently in France no less than the Baltic States.
Sometimes these ships in embryo were as a guide for the builders; sometimes to excite a sovereign's enthusiasm; on other occasions they were made as unique presents; later on for the convenience of public or private shipowners about to give orders for new construction.


We set forth on our investigation, then, from Egypt, whose inhabitants were great sailors.
It has ever been the country for ships and boats ; since not only was the Nile its great and only continuous road, but there was the proximity of Mediterranean waters on the north and on the east a canal connecting with the Red Sea.
Thus modern exploration has revealed large numbers of illustrations dealing with such items as papyrus rafts, rowing boats, fishing boats with a long seine net, river sailing ships, ocean sailing cargo carriers, ceremonial boats, fighting ships, pirate boats. We know that the great ship of Snefru was 160 ft. long, that cabins were fre­quently erected; that mallet, chisel, and adze were the shipwrights' tools; that in order to prevent these banana-shaped hulls from hogging they were braced permanently as to the sea-going types, and temporarily in regard to the river class before being launched.


In his latest contribution to the subject Sir Flinders Petrie, the dis­tinguished Egyptologist (1), emphasises the interesting fact that the use of

Footnote
1. See Ancient Egypt and the East, 1933, Parts I-IV.


Page 20

inflated skins or basket-work coracles do not belong to Egypt, though so familiar in Babylonia.
But papyrus, being quite abundant in the Nile swamps, provided the standard boat-building material for craft even 30 ft. long.
The Egyptians actually went to Palestine in "vessels of bulrushes."
But timber was used concurrently, especially acacia and cedar from Lebanon.
The notable characteristic is that these ships were all carvel-built with no ribs, the whole structure being held together piecemeal by dowels and ties, and its principle of construction being that of the lashed reed-bundles of the papyrus boat secured with cords.


Whilst the Egyptian shipbuilder added cross-beams he did not consider framing necessary; and there was a standardised shape, no matter in what category the vessel might be placed; the only variations being in the ratio of length-over-all to extreme beam. The sail was single with one mast, and the former had a boom which was supported by numerous lifts.
In earlier instances the mast is frequently bipod, thus doing away with the need of rigging; though the later development was not merely to have one spar for mast, but to do away with the boom.
Ships without booms clewed up by brailing sail to yard; ships with booms lowered yard to boom.


Numerous strong backstays, which included the halyards, supported the mast in the case of big ships with a single or double forestay the other side
 In some boomless craft the sail is not square but almost triangular, coming to an apex at the foot; thus being able to catch the wind above the Nile banks without having a useless sail-area below.
For going in a southerly direction the sail was set to catch the northerly wind of the Nile and Red Sea: when bound north, or down the river, mast and sail were lowered on tressles and the oarsmen got out their paddles.


Now it is because the Egyptian mind was so steeped in boats and ships, that models of these were buried with the deceased and formed a prominent part in his eschatology.
They were intended to convey spiritual transport for him in the tomb.
By the courtesy of Sir Flinders Petrie and Dr. M. A. Murray, of the British School of Egyptian Archaeology, I am able to present three of the world's most ancient sailing models.
These belong to the Xl th Dynasty and are more than 4000 years old.
Found at Thebes, they illustrate just those points we have been discussing: the square sail with yard and boom, the lifts, the lowered mast and spars for the oarsmen to


Fig. 1
Egyptian Sailing Model
of the Xlth Dynasty.

Found at Thebes.

(Reproduced by courtesy of
Sir Flinders Petrie and Dr. M. A. Murray)

Fig. 2.
Egyptian Sailing Model
of the Xlth Dynasty.

Found at Thebes.

(Reproduced by courtesy of
Sir Flinders Petrie and Dr. M. A. Murray)

Fig. 3.
Egyptian Model of the Xlth Dynasty.

Sails and spars stowed to row against northerly wind.
Model found at Thebes.

(Reproduced by courtesy of
Sir Flinders Petrie and Dr. M. A. Murray)


Fig. 4.
Reconstructed Egyptian Sailing Model.

Found at Thebes.

(German Museum, Munich)

Page 21

row against the northerly wind.
We recognise the standardised hull with
considerable overhangs, and the flat bottom is quite accurate.
The immense paddle aft is the early use of that which eventually must become
a rudder, and has an interesting story of its own. The cabin aft protected from the sun, and the man right forward ready with his fender, are not without peculiar interest.
Some of these Nile types were steered by two, three, or more paddles on the quarter, which will be clearly noticed in the modern reconstruction of an Egyptian ship by Professor Busley.


This is from the German Museum, Munich, and the details sum up the results of modern research.
Observe how the hull is braced by means of
a rope truss running fore and aft.
The fender is again seen, the sail is loose-footed, but another accurate detail is the span of rope between two tall posts aft.
On to this span rested the mast when lowered, so that by hauling on both parts of this rope it would be easier to do the hoisting again when mast and spars required to be set up.


Among the most ancient ship-models must be reckoned likewise those made of pottery.
Egyptian examples are to be seen in the collection at University College, London, repeating the standardised shape with over-hangs and flat bottom.
Sir Flinders Petrie calls attention to a pottery boat preserved in that museum with holes as well for the mast as for the A-shaped spars which took the place of rigging.
Thus even in predynastic times, that is to say before 3500
B.C., vessels were sailing up the Nile.
Extremely interesting is the College's possession of a little model pirate boat with four thwarts and a ram.
This specimen dates from about 1000
B.C. and was found broken in a tomb: it had been mounted on wheels as a child's toy.

Outside Egypt have been discovered votive models dating back to the days of classical Greece and Rome.
There exists one in the museum at Athens, giving a faithful idea of a galley's hull.
In the British Museum is a terra-cotta model of a Greek ship dating from the sixth century
B.C.
She is clearly a cargo carrier.
With this should be compared a pottery model in University College which represents a Roman cargo vessel entirely differing from the warlike, long, lean galley type.
Notable features of this cargo model are the hatches, the combings at each side of the deck, and
a reasonably-shaped hull for the purpose of conveying safe and dry the greatest amount of goods.
Among the many terra-cotta models discovered

Page 22

by excavating at Amathus are both merchant and man-of-war examples, and one (dating from about the sixth century) will be seen in the Science Museum, South Kensington.

In the absence of complete contemporary models with their masts, sails, and oars of classical Mediterranean times, we must needs fall back on the reconstructions made by two distinguished continental archaeologists.
Professor Carl Busley has here given us a good idea of an Athenian trireme belonging to the fifth and fourth centuries
B.C.
The earliest species of Greek fighting ship was impelled by twenty oars, but by lengthening their galleys and increasing the number of their oars as well as rowers more speed was obtained; and this extreme mobility was the basis of their ramming tactics.
Thus the bireme, or two-banked galley, was destined to be superseded by the trireme or three-banked class which became the standard war vessel measuring 148 ft. long, 18 ft. beam, and drawing about 5 ft. of water.
The oarsmen toiled naked on their rowing benches and endured many a nasty knock when the enemy snapped off his opponents' blades, driving oar-handle into unprotected bodies.


Fig. 5.
Athenian Trireme Fifth and Fouth Century B.C.

Reconstructed by Carl Busley.

(German Museum, Munich)

It will be noticed that Professor Busley has given a large sail and a small one.
This is quite correct.
For making a long passage with a fair wind both would be carried, the smaller one being known as the
akation, a word which included sail and mast.
Before going into battle this was stowed.
Xenophon in his
Hellenica gives a most illuminating picture of sea life when describing (VI, 2) the voyage of Iphicrates in 373 B.C. from the Piraeus to modern Corfu. For this naval expedition Iphicrates left ashore his big square sails.
Cruising from headland to cape, they bivouacked at night on the beach, with a fire burning in front of the encampment to ward off sudden attack.
The voyage was resumed at dawn, stopping only for breakfast and supper when the ships were temporarily brought ashore; but in fine weather it was not unusual after the evening meal to haul off and continue the passage if pressed for time, the admiral showing a light from his ship to prevent straggling.
According to Xenophon, there was a code of signals which included such orders as "sail in column," " vessels in sight."


The reader will not fail to obtain a vivid picture of this galley class from the reconstruction of a "Ship of Sidon" by Dr. Jules Sottas of Paris.
The double rudders aft were descended from Egyptian and Phoenician


Page 23
influence.
The two most important officers on board were the
kubernetes (whose position aft was that of pilot as well as sailing master), and the proreus who commanded the fore part of the ship and was responsible for the look-out.
Each superintended those oarsmen in his respective part.
It was the
keleustes, or boatswain, who ordered the time to which the oarsmen pulled, and he was assisted either by a flute-player or a man with a hammer, for keeping up pace and regularity of rowing.
Only a few sailors were carried for hoisting the sail, working the sheets and halyards; the main portion of the ship's company were the
hoplites, or marines, who did the actual fighting and are clearly shown in Dr. Sottas' model on the upper deck, with the oarsmen below.

The Romans did not take naturally to the sea, but became a naval nation in spite of themselves, and Polybius informs us that it was through a Carthaginian ship getting ashore that they were provided with a model for building.
Rome was essentially a military rather than a seafaring people, but on the Tiber banks she built her galleys with their bronze-shod rams, one large mast and sail, but also the small mast and sail which she called a
dolon.
As in Greece, the oarsmen were the lowest human beings, and it was beneath the dignity of a Roman citizen to row.
The generic word for ship's mast, sail, halyards, sheets, and braces- that is to say her cruising gear- was
armamenta.
Livy uses the expression sublatis armamentis ( with all gear hoisted") to signify "under full sail" ; and demendis armamentis to mean that all this gear had been taken down in readiness for battle.
The marines of each Roman ship were organised as a century under a fleet-centurion
(centurio classicus), so that the soldiers merely came afloat to do their fighting and then went back ashore, ending their period of service after twenty-five years.

By means of a gangway fitted underneath with spikes like to a raven's claws- for which reason this boarding-bridge was known as a corvus, or crow- the soldiers could pour forth and board the enemy alongside, and thus naval tactics still continued with more regard for land precedent than was to be paid after the Middle Ages produced big-bodied vessels unable to manoeuvre rapidly but capable of carrying guns.

Now the Roman merchantmen- naves oneraria- sometimes transported passengers but they were especially valuable for bringing corn to Ostia,

Page 24

whose outer harbour plan was not unlike that of Ramsgate Harbour to-day, though the former's entrance had been made wider, measuring 120 yards but divided by an island pier.
Owing to constant alluvial deposits, this outer harbour became shallow, and Claudius made an inner one which he joined by a new cut to the Tiber.


Into Ostia came not merely corn but cargoes of wine, timber, and costly marbles.
The wind which made the outer harbour most uncomfortable was from NNW., sending in dangerous waves.
The best time for a Roman ship outward bound for Alexandria was to leave Ostia between July 20 and August 20 when a northerly wind-
aquilo- could be expected.
These corn carriers were of necessity to the Roman citizens, and from Lucian (who lived about
a.d. 125-200) we know that the big corn ship Goddess Isis, which had put into the Piraeus, measured 180 ft. long, more than a quarter of that in beam, whilst from deck to keel through the hold the height was 44 ft.
She had a tall mast with square sail and forestay, lofty curved stern with her name thereon, a flame-coloured smaller square foresail, anchors, windlass, capstan and stern cabins.
Her capacity was alleged to be such that she could transport enough corn to feed every person in Attica for a whole year.


Unfortunately there have survived the fewest pictorial records of these very attractive corn vessels, which were the great Mediterranean traders during the first generations of the Christian era, and will ever be associated with the voyaging of St. Paul. But from the design shown in relief on the tomb of Naevoleia Tyche at Pompeii, together with a relief discovered at Ostia only in 1863, it is possible to form a clear conception of a navis oneraria, so short, round, beamy, and flat, that the Dutch hoeker reproduced in our present volume has a ridiculous resemblance in many general features.

Thanks again to the patience and skill of Dr. Sottas, who has made a special study of the subject, we are able here to consider a model not merely in accord with the two reliefs, but inspired and made complete from liter­ature.
And it is to be added that during the season 1913-1914 Dr. Cotenau of the Louvre Museum discovered at Sidon, that historic port which shel­tered so many corn ships, a sarcophagus containing a bas-relief which likewise indicates an Alexandrian corn ship under way.
She has one big mast with square sail and yard ; but also a smaller square sail and yard (known as the
artemon) on the bowsprit end.
The stern has a swan neck


Fig. 6.
Ship of Siddon.

Reconstruction by Dr. Jules Sottas.

Page 25

and head, the mainyard is in two pieces lashed together (just as the Mediterranean tartane fishermen do to this day), there is a cabin in the stern, the steering paddle or rudder projects on the quarter, and the hull is guarded externally by parallel wales.
The mainyard has its halyards and slings with shrouds at either side of the mainmast, besides braces for the mainyard.


Now, whilst this discovery was made by Dr. Cotenau only after Dr. Sottas' model was built, the former generally confirms the latter.
We know from the New Testament that St. Paul's Alexandrian grain ship was so big that besides her wheat she could carry 276 persons.
I find that Roman shipowner-merchants were granted special privileges provided the vessel had a capacity for carrying 10,000 modii, and that corn was brought to Rome for a period of six years.
The size of a corn ship may thus be reckoned as able to carry at least 280 tons.
Dr. Sottas has made his model of a vessel carrying 250 tons, which is much the same.


The artemon was certainly in general use by A.D. 50, but for steering purposes when the wind was on the quarter and when
close-hauled to prevent the ship luffing up.
The word is probably derived from
artao, meaning "to hang some thing on another," and the sail was to prove valuable (though for a different purpose) in St. Paul's ship.
With this model in front of us, and reading the Revised Version (rather than the hopeless seventeenth century translation which fails to interpret early seamanship), we can follow St. Paul's experiences intelligently and sympathetically.
The past becomes the present; the dead becomes alive.



Fig. 7.
St. Paul's Ship of Siddon.

The merchantmen in which he sailed his last voyage.

(Reconstruction by
Dr. Jules Sottas)

We observe that she could make good 100 miles daily, yet took "long days" to cover 200 miles against a head wind.
Picture this vessel caught in a heavy NE. squall from Mount Ida and having to run for it to Clauda, towing the
skaphe (or dinghy). This was afterwards hoisted aboard- by tackles from the mainyard, as shown in the model.
The ship was then strengthened by those girdles or trusses whose origin we have seen in Egypt and survived through Greek and Roman times.
When encountering bad weather towards the North African coast, they lowered mainsail and yard, sending the whole lot below to diminish windage.
This obviously would make her roll considerably, so they first threw overboard some of the wheat and then the mainsail with its yard.


Page 26

Later, when approaching the land, they took soundings with the lead, and let go four anchors from the stern.
Why?
Because this was the higher part of the ship (clearly proved by the three reliefs though not quite sufficiently stressed in Dr. Sottas' model) and she would ride drier that way, but the anchors were not too reliable.
The sailors got out of control, and lowered the dinghy under pretence of laying out anchors from the bows.
The soldiers cast her adrift.
Next day the four anchors were slipped, and the
artemon or small foresail was hoisted; under which seamanlike method she ran easily before the wind till she hit the ground of Malta.
Three months after this shipwreck, the passengers were carried by the corn ship
Castor and Pollux- her name was painted in relief on either bow- to Syra­cuse, Pvhegium, and so to Puteoli, where passengers and corn were landed.

All these people would have had little room for moving about.
There was a deck cabin abaft the mast, though this would be used by none except the shipmaster, pilot, and centurion.
The steering was done with two half rudders worked by rotation on an axis by a tiller and constantly held in position.
The mainmast is shown supported by seven shrouds on either side, the yard being held to the mast by a rope strop, supported by lifts, controlled by braces.
From relief evidence we know that triangular top­sails, or rafees, were set on occasions from the masthead to the mainyard.
The mainsail had boltropes with sheets, and it could be lengthened by strips of leather.
Brails were attached to the footrope and passed through thimbles up to the yard, then down the other side ; thus by hauling on the brails you could shorten sail till it was close up to the yard.


By a careful examination of the classics a model-maker to-day can create, for us those ships which have long since become historic, but, in the wild imaginations of unlearned artists, have too long been perpetuated as mean­ingless inventions.
The Homeric literature, with its unrivalled details and catalogue of vessels, their colour, capabilities and other qualifications, might well be drawn on with a gathering of other data from Virgil as a beginning.
The missing links are fewer than might be imagined, and sea-sense informed from other knowledge supplies the rest.


The belief in untameable anger of the sea, its tyranny over ships, man's helplessness against winds and waves, his instinct as a weak mortal, date back to pagan centuries, but are definitely expressed through the Middle

Page 27

Ages.
In Catholic worship the connection with maritime thought is specially noticeable through Spain.
Churches were built in the shape of an inverted ship, and the structure called a nave.
The story of the Ark, and of Jonah, prevented even the most inland peoples from forgetting the sea.
From about the ninth century onwards the receptacle for incense was shaped like, and given the name of, a boat or
naveta.
In the Madrid Naval Museum is a fourteenth century example with rounded bows and square stern similar to a contemporary ship of that period: there is even a stern-castle on this incense naveta.
Much more elaborate and instructive as a contemporary model is the fifteenth century naveta in the Capilla del Con-destable, Burgos.

Here we have a reasonable, well-designed and executed hull which really resembles a ship not too far removed from Columbus' caravel.
Like the superb Burgos cathedral, this model is decoratively Gothic, for on both sterncastle and forecastle rises a church tower. So also at inland Florence will be found in the museum a mediaeval church lamp.
Another fifteenth century Spanish
naveta, with castles, but also mast and squaresail, is in Saragossa.
A sixteenth century silver
naveta exists in the church of Santa Maria, Pontevedra, also showing both fore and sterncastles.

Side by side with these models grew up examples which were made and presented in fulfilment of a solemn vow and gratitude for deliverance from sea peril.
Through such ex-voto offerings developed the custom of carry­ing little ships in procession on special feast-days.
From at least the fifteenth century these ex-voto church models become more frequent, for the reason that more adventurous voyaging was taking place.
Nor have they by any means ended.


Many are rough, crude efforts of simple sailormen, showing a greater care for correct detail as to such matters that strike a seafarer's imagination, than for right proportions and artistic effect.
Whereas the ecclesiastical models are of precious metal, these vow-fulfilled expressions are of wood, and whilst they may seem to the critical barbaric, - at least they were sincere attempts.
There could be made a list of them forming a running com­mentary of the centuries' marine dangers.
One need go no further afloat than the Calais churches to find fishing vessels of our own period, and not even steam has banished from Spanish mariners the custom of making


Page 28

ex-voto models after their own ships.
At Tortosa, for instance, there is one of the year 1840 showing a three-masted early steamer with square yards and paddles; whilst at Tenerife in the Canaries is a very modern one dated 1920, with such things as funnels, round scuttles, upper deck, and bridge.
Need one remind ourselves of the schooner models carried to-day in processions through the streets of Breton ports ?


Sometimes, too, a metal-wrought ship model was designed for a reliquary, and that in Mallorca cathedral belonging to 1547 with main and mizzen masts, forecastle and the now much more extensive poop which had developed out of the sterncastle, is worthy of note.
If it has some modifi­cations suggestive of the uninformed metal craftsman rather than the sailor, it possesses much which is worth while studying, e.g., the channels for the mizzen.
Indeed the collective value of all these conscience-inspired mini­ature ships is that they confirm, explain, and complete our knowledge derived from illuminated manuscripts, church windows, carvings, tapestries, paintings, and other manifestations. Some point which seems obscure in a contemporary narrative becomes clarified from a study of such creations in plate or wood. One can never be too thankful that so many have been spared from the ravages of time, wars, and the prejudices of man.


It is sad to think that in Northern Europe hundreds of ex-voto fleets were swept out of existence.
Mr. Morton Nance has stated
(Mariner's Mirror, VI, 26) that in one Bristol church no fewer than thirty-two used to hang from the roof.
They were made in silver and wood.
What a wonderful epitome of West Country seafaring they must have been!
How many Atlantic gales and narrow escapes they suggested!
Still, even in our own generation the old custom of hanging contemporary models within the walls of churches has been revived.
In Southwold, for example, you will find a lifeboat among others; and in the church of St. James, Southampton, has been deposited one of a liner.
Now that each year sees fewer fishermen going afloat in sailing craft, and their ships are being sold away or broken up, we shall some day be thankful that somewhere they can still be admired in miniature.


We shall return to southern ships presently.

In Northern Europe the evolution of the ship's hull owes nothing to the raft, after the floating tree has been excavated into the primitive boat

Page 29

that we call a dug-out; but the employment of skins, stretched over a wicker framework, connotes a higher mental attainment and is well on the way towards building vessels with planks over wooden frames.
As every tourist knows, coracles are still used in parts of Wales, on the Wye and also on the Dee.
The only essential difference between these and the historic British coracle lies in the adoption of tarred canvas instead of skin. The two specimens here illustrated are from the Liverpool Museum, and show respectively the Towy and Teivy species.
With these river examples must be compared a sea development to be found in the Donegal curragh also still in use.


Fig. 8.
Welsh Coracles

That on the left the Towy type : that on the right used along the Teivy.

(Liverpool Museum)

These Irish open boats are made of several sheet thicknesses with twigs for ribs, practically the only wood being that for constructing the gun­wales.
The curragh measures about 18 ft. long with 3 ft. beam, and a depth amidships of 2 1/2 ft.
Such a craft weighs 120 lbs., and draws only 6 inches, carrying a couple of men.
The sloping bow with its slight sheer, and the cut away stern, make the design far more seaworthy than would be imagined.
I have often watched a similar type crossing from the Blasket Islands to the Kerry coast during a heavy Atlantic swell with several people on board, and remarked on their marvellous behaviour where most wooden dinghies would succumb.
A couple of men can carry her up to the island top, safe from the effect of waves, and the great virtue of these curraghs is extreme buoyancy.
Mr. Mannin Crane (to whose remarks I am indebted for further information) states that a Donegal curragh will carry eight persons in fine weather, and two paddlers can impel them quite easily at 5 knots.
"They do not fear heavy seas as much as a high wind."


With the various Norse ships which have been unearthed in Denmark, Scandinavia, and Germany we have no present concern since they are not models; but the information obtainable from the examination of actual hulls combines with our other facts to make a reconstruction very accurate.
Contemporary carvings, such literature as the "Sagas" and the "Song of Beowulf"- so rich in picturesque nautical detail- or much early English poetry, the discovery of anchors as well as other bits of inventory, all pro­vide answers to our questions.
Whilst it is true that no section in the history of mediaeval civilisation is so lacking as that which pertains to sea­faring, yet by careful investigation we can complete a composite picture.



Fig. 9.
Donegal  Curragh

(Liverpool Museum)

With the various Norse ships which have been unearthed in Denmark, Scandinavia, and Germany we have no present concern since they are not models; but the information obtainable from the examination of actual hulls combines with our other facts to make a reconstruction very accurate.
Contemporary carvings, such literature as the "Sagas" and the "Song of Beowulf"- so rich in picturesque nautical detail- or much early English poetry, the discovery of anchors as well as other bits of inventory, all pro­vide answers to our questions.
Whilst it is true that no section in the history of mediaeval civilisation is so lacking as that which pertains to sea­faring, yet by careful investigation we can complete a composite picture.


Fig. 10.
Viking Ship

(Liverpool Museum)

Page 30

In their widest sense the Middle Ages are covered by the dates 600-1500, the Viking period being from 789 to 912, and the Saga age from 900 to 1050.
We think of the Norse ships with their red-blue, or blue-red-green, or yellow-blue striped sails, though royal vessels and great dragons sometimes decorated their sails with historical pictures.
The model here shown is a reconstruction from the Liverpool Museum, and the rudder still bears strong affinity to that of Egyptian and classical Mediterranean custom.
Why ?
Because similar problems in the same conditions naturally produce almost identical solutions.
The stern of Egyptian sailing ship, Greek galley, or Roman corn ship, was rounded and not square: therefore the most obvious place for any steering method must be right aft on the side.
Furthermore, since these craft were frequently beached, some means had to be provided for hauling up the rudder. This will be noted in the model.
So also the mast could be readily lowered when the time came for the oarsmen to pull against the wind.
There were plenty of hands aboard for hoisting, pulling, fighting.
At night, and in sheltered waters, an awning was stretched amidships to keep out rain and cold.
The ridge pole and one of the crutches for this purpose will be noticed.


The figureheads, and round wooden shields to protect the crew, the oak planking and clinker build, the pivoted shutters to prevent the sea from entering the oar-holes, the design of hull to make her light to row yet able to carry sail, the great length in proportion to beam; all such exhibit the progress of these rough north Europeans by the ninth century.
And if we would demand actual measurements we have them in the Gogstad ship discovered in 1880.
Built of oak planking 1 3/4 inches thick, her length is 79 ft. 4 in., beam 16 1/2 ft., draught 3 ft. 7 in., rowed by 32 oars ; this being the kind of vessel undertaking voyages over the North Sea, Atlantic, and even south to the Mediterranean.
Such ships were fitted with windlass, a cable of flax or walrus-skin, this being secured for'ard under a knee.
It was not unusual to moor with two anchors, which were buoyed. I surprising to note how light were these.
True, the twelfth century Norse ships carried one best anchor and eight others- apart from their fighting grapnels- but it is remarkable to find one of the Oseberg ship (unearthed in 1903) weighing only 22 lbs.
Also, curiously, there were no hawse holes in these craft.


Page 31

From contemporary manuscripts, church windows, but especially from reliefs and seals, the model-maker of to-day can with patience bring to life again those bigger-bodied and castellated single-masted vessels which were characteristic of the Atlantic seaboard down to the fourteenth century.
In England the seals of Winchelsea, Sandwich, Hastings, and the barons of Dover are most illuminative.
So likewise in Spain the thirteenth and fourteenth century seals of San Sebastian and Pamplona, together with
rral fourteenth century sculptures in Lisbon, enable us to get no uncer­tain idea of those ships which were still very much under Norse influence and carried the rudder at the starboard (or steering) side.


Fig. 11.
English Crusader
(Late Thirteenth Centeury)

Modern reconstruction partially finished,
based on the the seals of Winchelsea and Sandwich
.

G. F. Campbell, Esq.)
The English Crusader model here shown has been constructed as a result of research and largely relying on the Winchelsea-Sandwich seals.
It represents a clinker-built ship of 73 ft. long and 19! ft. beam, with a depth of 9 ft. 7 in. through the hold.
The mast would rise 58 ft. above deck to set one large squaresail.
The bulwarks would be 3 ft. 9 in. high, the castles decorated in red and yellow, the hull oak-coloured, and black pitched below water-line.
Built to the scale of 1 inch to 1 foot, this model has yet to be completed, but it properly shows the rudder and tiller on their way to becoming a more solid feature, just as the castles were eventually to be embodied in the hull, instead of being mere superstructures, that has been introduced during the thirteenth century.
Noticeable, too, is the gradual preference for sails rather than oars- the latter being carried only for auxiliary purposes.
As we know from other sources, the bowsprit was being introduced during the thirteenth century, though not for the purpose of setting additional sail.
During the fourteenth century, at any rate, the squaresail had already begun to lace a bonnet on its foot, but reef points are distinctly shown in the thirteenth century Hastings seal.


The largest north European vessels by the mid-twelfth century were of about 80 tons, but in the Mediterranean the use of two and even three masts was not exceptional.
By the end of the thirteenth century Genoese ships traded up to the English Channel, and the more frequent voyaging naturally caused owners to demand oceanworthy, sea-keeping types rather than the modified open boat species.
It was from about the year 1100 that an improvement set in which was as decided as revolutionary ; though by no means universal or rapid.
At the top of the mast was another castle


Page 32

whence archers could shower their arrows on an enemy's decks, whilst others let fall heavy stones; and this topcastle was destined to become a more permanent fighting top through which the mast penetrated.
As to the bow­sprit, there were depended from its outboard end a chain and grapnel to be used as preliminary for boarding.


By the year 1320 the largest of England's ships were of 240 tons and able to transport forty horses of crusaders; and even a century earlier they were fitted with cabins, which meant nothing more than light partitions able to be rigged or unrigged quickly.
But from early in the thirteenth century the transition from big boats to little ships becomes more marked.
The history of the stern-post rudder is still to-day a little vague, though expert knowledge inclines to the belief that it originated not in the Mediter­ranean but up the Baltic or North Sea.
Certainly by 1240 north Europeans had begun to shift the primitive Egyptian-Phoenician-Greek-Roman paddle from the side to the stern's extremity; though the evidence of seals proves that by no means every important ship type accepted the innovation.
The change, however, was bound to come, and for two reasons.
Ships were carrying more men and more cargo on longer voyages, which connoted bigger hulls, bigger sail area, and need for greater steering control.
More­over, as the ship became beamier and the sterncastle part of its structure, it was not practicable to persist in a side rudder.
The Dutch word for the new fashion was hangroeder: the distinction between hanging (or semi­permanent) rudder and that which was now more solidly affixed aft along the midship line, well indicates the cleavage between ancient and modern marine thought.
So we shall soon find the old-time round stern giving way to a square, in order that the rudder may the more firmly be secured.


One could not expect vast sudden improvements to take place in thir­teenth century England, which at that time was financially poor, though this in turn was the inspiration of no little piracy along the Narrow Seas.
The voyages of crusaders and others to the Mediterranean could not fail to have their effects, and about 1297 we find the first mention of admiral, followed less than a century later by the first instructions regarding con­voys; since English kings and princes enjoyed the wines of Bordeaux, and took the trouble to escort the twenty wine-barrel ships with others well armed.


Page 33


During the Middle Ages Genoa, Venice, and Pisa were the three great Mediterranean maritime powers.
And it is from the relief completed by a Pisan artist (Giovanni di Balduccio) in 1339 for the shrine of St. Peter Martyr in the church of St. Eustorgio, Milan, that we can obtain a good conception of a fourteenth century trader.
In the Victoria and Albert Museum is exhibited a full-size reproduction of the shrine, but more to our purpose is the model which Mr. G. Kruger Gray has based on this sculp­ture, making only a few seamanlike modifications as the Pisan landsman's
of nautical knowledge demanded.
At present this reconstructed ship
is at to the Science Museum, South Kensington, and an excellent instance of what can be done without being inaccurate.
So to speak, this vessel has been released from dull stone to its former freedom, and it needs only the slightest imagination on our part to go aboard, take her to sea, dodge pirates and mistrals, land cargo, and hurry homewards.



Fig. 12.
Fourteenth-Century Mediterranean Cargo Ship

(From a model in the Science Museum, South Kensington,
by permission of
Mr. G. Kruger Gray, Esq., F.S.A.)

In order effectually to concentrate attention on any subject, it is necessary to segregate and put all else aside; then to magnify and compare.
If that is the scientist's method with the microscope, and of the judge confronted with a mass of statements, it is not less requisite for the naval archaeologist.
In a painting or a sculpture we are hindered by the setting and technique from perceiving all the values which can only be appreciated by separation and comparison.
In this model we are able to confine our attention to the following among other features.
First of all, she has not a square sail but a lateen (or " sail of the Latins ").
We cannot assign an actual date to the introduction of this fore-and-aft rig into the Mediterranean, but certainly by the thirteenth century it was there in general use, and there is good reason for supposing that it had been adopted to some extent during the ninth century resulting from Arab influence.
The year A.D. 880 is the earliest actual evidence of Europeans having this triangular shape, yet the curious fact has yet to be explained why in 1521 when the Portuguese Magellan dis­covered the Pacific Ladrone Islands he found native boats rigged with a fore-and-aft sail of similar form ; wherefore he named those the "Islas de las Velas Latinas."
Perhaps it may be that the lateen really originated in the Far East, and, through the voyages of Chinese as well as Arabian ships westwards, it became familiar to the Near East mariners, but finally by means of the Arab it was brought from Indian Ocean to the Red Sea.


Page 34

At any rate it was found so useful in the Mediterranean that Christians and Moslems alike adopted it for their galleys till it reached its fullest expression at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, when both masts carried an enormous curved yard.
The advantage over the squaresail lay in being able to point a couple of points nearer the wind.
As we know from the Bishop of Mondonedo, who went to sea in one of Charles V's galleys, "every time the wind changes, when it passes from one side to the other, the lateen-yards are lowered each time to be rehoisted."


So in this model before us the sail was set to leeward, but if the wind changed, the yard must be dipped and hoisted the other side; for which reason the shrouds are running and not standing.
Yard and sail must be allowed full play to go right outside, so the shrouds can easily be slacked off by tackles to leeward and hauled tight on the weather side, similar indeed to the runners in our modern cutters.
This will be obvious on looking at the model's blocks and tackles.
Of course in harbour the sail was stowed along the yard which could be kept in the hoisted position, but with the tack hauled down and peak much higher than the illustration suggests.
In the Gulf of Lions, for example, I have seen the whole fishing fleet of lateeners thus snug in port so that their antennae look like so many pheasants' tails sticking up in the air.


By reason of the movable shrouds, no ratlines are practicable, but a rope-ladder set fore-and-aft runs up to the masthead.
It was customary then, as we still find to-day, for the yard to be in two pieces securely lashed together ; otherwise it were difficult to find a spar sufficiently long, and a serious matter if it snapped. Notice the three castles- stern- fore- and top; and observe that since the time of St. Paul not so very much alteration has taken place in the hull during thirteen hundred years.
The captain's cabin is aft, the cargo hold is amidships, and the steering arrangement is almost identical with that of the ancient Roman corn carriers.
The tackle was for hoisting up the windward rudder, and to prevent damage when lying alongside a quay.
Such a ship was of about 20 tons burthen, measured 32 ft. long by 9! ft. beam and 9 ft. depth.
In northern Europe a similar hull, but with a square stern and square sail, was her counterpart.


The lateen- as the sole sail and not as an auxiliary- was scarcely suitable for the boisterous northern waters of Europe, though our ancestors were

Page 35

still much indebted to southerners.
Venice and Genoa were exporting northwards sails, ropes, anchors and other parts of a ship's furnishing.
Venetian laws took such care of their merchant galleys that the captain must be a patrician, and eight young nobles were to embark in each craft to gain experience as well of shiphandling as of how to conduct a bargain.
Passengers brought with them their own food, wine, cooking utensils, firewood and mattresses.
They subsisted on salt meat, vegetables, cheese, onions, garlic, vinegar, and biscuits.
Drinking water was supplied free, but scantily.
If he were a wise man the traveller deposited his gold with the shipmaster; for the sailors were so dishonest that sometimes they even tried to sell the ship's anchor.
These men were engaged from March 1 to the last day of November; winter was not a sailing season.


A large trade was done with Acre; merchants of Venice, Genoa, and Pisa sailing thither for pepper, silks and sugar that had come overland from the Orient.
But the pilgrim passenger trade to the Holy Land from such ports as Venice, Genoa, and Marseilles was to give shipping quite an encourage­ment. Fourteenth century English mariners were still feeling their way clumsily towards the ideal sailing vessel, yet most of the carrying trade from the north to Spain and the Middle Sea was done in Flemish ships, which often had just one white mainsail showing up against the brown hull and yellow spars.
The bowsprit was well steeved, and the rudder plumb in the centre, with the tiller coming in through a square stern.
Such a short, stubby, stolid vessel was slow but seaworthy, and in the summer voyaged so far west as Newfoundland.
A topsail was set flying, sometimes, the sheets leading into the topcastle.
Some of the shrouds had ratlines, there were deadeyes and sheeves, whilst the lifts of the mainyard had tackles.


Our next model shows a Spanish fifteenth century ship of this class, wherein will be observed those features just enumerated, together with rubbing strakes for going alongside; the castellated architecture, and the well-developed fighting top.
This is probably the oldest wooden model in existence (apart from Egyptian relics) and is now in the Prins Hendrik Maritime Museum, Rotterdam.
Interesting by itself, it confirms the evidence of contemporary stained glass windows, paintings, and manu­scripts.
She is the midway development between the Cinque port type



Fig. 13.
Ex-Voto Spanish Fifteenth-Century Model.

(Prins Hendrik Maritime Museum, Rotterdam)

Page 36

of the Winchelsea seal, and the two-master which during this same fifteenth century was to sail the seas.
In the illustration before us can be seen the basic design on which the galleon would eventually be made.
The bow­sprit is missing and the rigging is showing the bad results of time; but there remains quite enough detail to enable the modern modeller to make a perfect reconstruction.


All similarity with the galley type has departed; the ship depends on sails absolutely, but still the demand for bigger cargo carriers continues so that two masts must be employed for dividing up the sail-spread and during the fifteenth century we get even a third.
At first these two additional spars set only quite small squaresails, until the foresail became bigger and the mizzen did away with a quadrangular, in favour of a triangular lateen.
The word " mizzen," found with variations in Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, German, and French nautical terminology, originally signified a sail set in the middle line of the ship.
And it was especially when hauled well in, sailing on a wind, that the ship of any size found it valuable, just as the modern Thames barge's tiny mizzen assists her steering.


The mediaeval sailor spoke of the square mainsail as the "crossayl."
He also called it the "grete cloth."
The crew hove up the anchor by means of a capstan, and when almost atrip hands were sent aloft to let go the gaskets which were round the yard.
To "cross the mast " was to hoist a yard.
To "turn the lufe " was to steer as near to the wind as possible, and the "payntede clothys " were the waistcloths for protection against enemy's missiles.
"Payntede scheldes," or pavesses, were a survival from Norse days.
"Stere-burde" was the right-hand side, and the expressions "haul the bowline," for sailing on a wind, "veer the sheet," when running free; "no nearer ! " (to the helmsman when sailing too close in the wind), and "haul in the brails " were part of the fifteenth English sailor's language.


They drank beer, ate bread and roasted or boiled meats, though the pilgrims who voyaged from England to St. James at Compostella were so prostrate with seasickness long before sighting the Spanish coast that they preferred hot malmsey wine and salted toast.
"How ! Hisaa ! Y'howe ! Trussa ! " were the cries of sailors hauling on ropes, and not so different from the modern "Heave ! And she comes ! Heave, and again ! "


The transition from a two-masted ship to the three-masted carrack was

Page 37

relatively small in effort, but important as to results.
For the next hundred vears the carrack was to be the world's "great " ship till the galleon super­seded her.
The increased tonnage and higher free-board gave more in­dependence and robbed the ocean of some tyranny; which is to say that the dawn of maritime discovery was not far distant.
Whilst off the Portuguese and Spanish coasts, and in the Mediterranean, the two- and even three- masted lateen caravel was very generally employed contemporaneously with the nau or big ship of squaresails and lateen mizzen, and the warlike galley stubbornly persisted, northern seamen were concentrating on the carrack and cog.


With the galley they had little sympathy, though in Tudor times royal attempts to make its introduction a valuable war vessel were only failures at the last.
But that foreign lateen sail remained in popularity for centuries of English seafaring.
When running before the wind, at the order "Change the mizzen" the yard was unparrelled from the mast, so that both lateen yard and sail were shifted to leeward over the quarter, yet always inside the shrouds, and kept boomed out by means of a spar.


By the late fourteenth century the cog of the Cinque port seals was soon to become the normal North Sea three-master.
As so often happened through nautical history, ships changed their character but retained their class name.
Just as the word " sloop " in different generations has meant quite different vessels- from sailing craft to steel men-of-war- so the cog.
In her final evolution as a late fifteenth century Hanseatic big trader with sprit-sail on her bowsprit, foresail, main course, lateen mizzen, and topsails, she is presented in the reconstructed model of the Liibeck Museum.
The grapnel will be noticed at the bowsprit end from which it was dropped by means of a chain; but to this bowsprit was led the forestay as well as the bowlines of the foresail.
The supply of stones and darts was hoisted into the topcastle by means of bags and "cranelines."
Observe that the stern galley is now becoming part of the hull's design, the capstan and bitts are below deck, the poop is fast developing in length and height, there is more cabin accommodation (though still limited), but there was great difficulty in preserving food or drink.
Salt beef was placed in tubs secured outside on the quarters well above the waterline, but beer in casks had to be stowed below where it soon went sour.



Fig. 14.
Fifteenth-Century Hanseatic Cog Ship

(Reconstructed model in 
Museum fur Kulturgeschichte, Lubeck)

Page 38

It was no rare occasion for these fifteenth and sixteenth century ships to spring their masts on a voyage, though spare spars were carried.
Medi­evalism, however, was fast disappearing and the Renaissance spirit was to come over shipmen as it affected the minds and outlook of landsmen.
Until the three-masted ocean-going vessel and the rudimentary methods of fixing her latitude at sea had been made available, there could be no expeditions to find the New World.
To venture across the uncertain Atlantic, carrying food and drink for an unknown period, denoted at least a sea-keeping vessel of fair size.
And the undertaking of Columbus was courageous even if we think merely of the risk from starvation.
Very different were coastal voyages within the Middle Sea, or even down the African coast. Other than the Norse expeditions to north-east America, Columbian enterprise had been unrivalled so that we can well agree with Gomara's well-known remark that the West Indies' discovery was the greatest event since the creation of the world, the Incarnation, and Calvary.


Of the three ships which set out on his initial voyage two were caravels, and of the latter one carried a squaresail at her foremast. The flagship, Santa Maria, was the kind of carrack which traded to Flanders, her full name being Santa Maria la Galante. Characteristic features of a carrack were her carvel build with longitudinal wales, overhanging forecastle, with square foresail, main course, and lateen mizzen, though a spritsail and main topsail were soon added.
We know from his diary that Columbus' Santa Maria carried these five sails.
Not more than 40 men made up her complement.
Apart from the fact that she also had a boat and a cannon, the above facts exhaust pretty well all that is authentic.
Therefore, the various attempts which have been made by modern model craftsmen have necessarily differed in results, and some have been definitely inaccurate.


Those three here reproduced have their own merits.
The first comes from the Liverpool Museum and with minor modifications, is identical with that in the Science Museum, South Kensington, which in turn was presented to the British nation by the Spanish Government in 1923.
This gift, most beautifully made and decorated, a perfect bit of craftsmanship, was copied from a model made during 1892 in the Madrid Naval Museum that had been constructed from information contained in contemporary



Fig. 15.
Columbus's "Santa Maria"

(Reconstructed model in Liverpool Museum).

Page 39

documents.
Nevertheless, in spite of the painstaking care, and the aesthetic success, this model does not completely satisfy.
There are inaccuracies which were better omitted.
To begin with, no ratlines are legitimate, the bobstay is not correct, the mainstay should be undivided.
Since the Santa Maria was an ordinary carrack, and the carrack of this period had a round stern, the square stern as here shown cannot be accepted.
In the year 1927 Captain Julio F. Guillen, Director of the Madrid Naval Museum, con­structed a fresh model which embodies the results of certain criticisms.
Thus the stern is round, the bobstay is not there, and the mizzen yard has been quite rightly shown to consist of two parts.
By Captain Guillen's courtesy I am able to reproduce this model.


Fig. 16.
Columbus's "Santa Maria"

(As reconstructed in 1927 by Captain Julio F. Guillen,
Director of the Naval Museum
, Madrid)

The third example has been recently finished by Mr. E. V. Michael.
Here again there is perfect craftsmanship, and every effort to be correct; yet at the best we are really thrown back for our reliable information on such details of a carrack as are found in Carpaccio's well-known painting of "The Departure of St. Ursula," and the famous print by the Flemish master "W. A.", supplemented by a few other contemporary details.
It is im­possible to recreate the flagship of Columbus without surmise and con­jecture; even the length of hull (between stem and sternpost) has been estimated variously between 74 and 86 ft., whilst the supposed beam is about 25 or 27! ft.
Her displacement we can take to work out at less than 250 tons.
One of the greatest losses to posterity was the wreck of Santa Maria off Haiti that Christmas Day; for if there be one ship in all the world's history which deserved to be hauled ashore into preservation she belonged to the Iberian peninsula.


Fig. 17.
Columbus's "Santa Maria"

(Made to scale by E. V. Michael, Esq.)

From such contemporary accounts of Columbian voyaging as were written by Bernaldez and Chanca we can add many a lively detail to the leader's own diary.
We can see the ships taking on board their salt meat, bacon, live lambs, calves, heifers, biscuits, corn, and wine, though the slack work of coopers sometimes caused the latter's loss.
As to the speed of the late fifteenth century vessels, we have quite definite information.
On the second voyage in 1493 Dr. Chanca went as physician.
He has left it on record that during favourable wind and weather they made in two days about 200 miles, but that they covered the distance from the Canaries to Dominica in fourteen days.
For the sake of comparison it may be


Page 40


mentioned that the British yawl yacht Amaryllis, in 1920, sailed from the Canaries to Barbados through about the same weeks of the year also in twenty days.
Chanca adds that "we should have sighted it in fourteen or fifteen days if the flagship had been as good a sailer as the other vessels, for on many occasions the other ships shortened sail because they were leaving us so far behind."


That this is no exaggeration may be proved by the fact that, on his fourth voyage, Columbus reached the West Indies from the Canaries in sixteen days, and in 1585 the Elizabethan Sir Richard Grenville did it in fifteen days.
Thus these old ships with their heavy gear, their rough-and-ready outfit, could reel off a steady seven knots in the trade winds under all sail.
The Liverpool Museum model of Santa Maria and the Liibeck Museum model of a fifteenth-century cog give an "outligger " (outrigger) for sheeting home the lateen mizzen.
It is questionable if that spar were already generally in use quite so early,(1) though it certainly had been adopted forty years later, by which date ratlines are noticeable in contemporary illustrations.
So also during the fifteenth century the word caravel was applied not merely to fore-and-afters of the lateen rig but to deep-sea vessels rigged after the manner of Santa Maria.
Another instance of the same word being used for different ship-types.


From the carrack developed the galleon, which was not essentially a Spanish type, since Spain was the last of great maritime nations to adopt it.
The galleon being built rather for war than for merchandise, had finer lines and was introduced into the English Navy of Henry VIII long before it formed one of the Spanish units; and here we get the prototype of the ship fit to lie in line of battle, just as the galleasse foreshadowed the frigate and the pinnace was forerunner of the corvette.
In the galleon the fore­castle no longer overhangs beyond the bows, but is well inboard, and this removal of a heavy weight at the end would make the vessel less inclined to plunge into a head sea.
But the galleon did add a beak which follows that of a contemporary Mediterranean galley and with modifications had sur­vived all the centuries since imperial Rome.
During the latter part of the seventeenth century this beak became shortened and curved upwards into


Footnote 1.
It is, however, shown in an engraving illustrating Historia do Imperador Vespasiano, printed at Lisbon during 1496.


Page 41

a piece of carving till finally it was stereotyped as little more than a figure­head.

The difference between the carrack and galleon may well be observed by first studying the Great Michael model with those which follow.
During the early sixteenth century there was a European craze for building huge warships.
The Scots' Navy had the Great Michael, the English Navy had the Henry Grace a Dieu, or Great Harry, and the French were afflicted with the same zeal.
Both the Great Michael and Great Harry were built after the manner of carracks and not galleons.
As will be seen from the former, there is no beak but a heavy overhanging forecastle; and the round stern is now being supplanted by a square-tuck.
Guns and gunports have come to stay, three masts have increased to four, and we thus have in the Scottish production what was described as "a very monstrous ship."



Fig. 18.
The "Great Michael"

(Royal Scottish Museum, Edinburgh)

She was built in 1511 (which also was three years before Great Harry) at Leith under the direction of a Frenchman.
The Scots' Navy was short­lived, but this vessel made a considerable sensation.
Constructed of oak, they sent to France for her canvas, and to Spain for her anchors.
To prevent risk of singeing by firing, her gunports were lined with leather.
Her length on water line was probably 180 ft., and her beam 38 ft., but she carried 120 gunners, 300 sailors, and 1000 marines. She changed her nationality to French in 1514, when Louis XII purchased her for 40,000 francs.
This model is in the Royal Scottish Museum, Edinburgh, and was constructed some years ago by Mr. R. Patterson only after diligent endeavour to embody such historical facts as are known.
It suggests similarity with the Great Harry of 1514 which was also four-masted, and according to her inventory (still in existence) carried 184 pieces of ordnance.
She was reputed to be of 1500 tons, but we cannot accept Tudor figures without reserve.
Sometimes in these manuscripts even the simplest addition is inaccurate, and there was no rule formulated for calculating tonnage till 1582.
It is not exceptional to find a manuscript at one place giving a vessel's tonnage over 150 tons more than mentioned at another. There existed a very human reason for making this as big as possible; for when prize-money had to be assigned, one-third went to the tonnage, so the bigger the ship, the more money came to be divided.


Noticeable features in this "monstrous " model are the grappling iron

Page 42

for'ard, the hooks at each end of the mainyard arm for fouling and destroying the enemy's rigging during boarding tactics; the nettings stretched over the waist to protect men from falling spars; the " outligger " or bumpkin of the after-mizzen (known as the "bonaventure," while the third mast was called the main-mizzen); and the very intricate rigging of multiple shrouds.
It should be stressed that the tactical use of cannon at this period was quite different from our modern ideas.
Short-ranged, these iron or brass pieces were employed primarily to destroy men, sails, masts, and render the enemy's ship such a cripple that she could be finished off by boarding.
Except in calm weather these tall ships were more than a match for the low-lying galley, down on to whose deck and oarsmen the heavy iron balls could crash.


The hull of a Spanish galleon, dated 1540, is from a contemporary ex-voto model in the Naval Museum, Madrid.
The long half-deck extend­ing from aft to the mainmast, the square tuck at the stern, the short waist, and the forecastle well waterborne instead of projecting, are at once obvious.
There are exaggerations, as for instance the size of the wales and rubbing strakes, but the model is a sailor-made job and can well be studied along with those other galleons which sail the seas on old maps and prints.
Where the latter give us so much information as to contemporary rigging and set of sails, there is in the Madrid exhibit a fine opportunity for getting acquainted with a galleon's essential architecture.


Fig. 19.
Hull of Spanish Galleon, 1540

(contempoary ex-voto model in the Naval Museum, Madrid)

Before we examine the other deep sea vessels, one must remember that smaller craft were coasting and fishing : the caravel, carrack, and galleon were the cargo steamers, passenger liners, and battleships of those days.
But, also, must be mentioned the dogger, hooker, and crayer.
The first two were single-squaresail rigged, not so very different from the Humber and Tyne keels of to-day.
Sometimes the dogger carried two masts, but never three.
She was the kind of vessel which went out to
fish in the North Sea, and existed certainly by the mid-fourteenth century.
I think it very probable she was the ancestor of the sixteenth and seventeenth century herring-buss.
Crayers were of two kinds: the bigger, of 75 tons, carried a master and 12 mariners with a boy, but the smaller, of 55 tons, had two men fewer.


Smaller fifteenth century vessels had already adopted the fore-and-aft

Page 43

rig though different from the Mediterranean lateen.
The earliest known illustration of a north European craft thus rigged is the beautiful little picture in Les Tres Belles Heures de Notre Dame (1) (thought to be the work of Hubert van Eyck) which shows an open boat with sprit lugsail, and the date is thought to be about 1416.
The earliest English pictorial evidence of a fore-and-after that I have been able to discover is also that of a sprit lugsail, but the date is 1527. During the following century, however, there was some relation between Spanish and English fore-and-afters.
That breezy and reprobate Jacobean sea-dog, Captain Nathaniel Boteler (or Butler), in his well-known " Dialogues " has an interesting reference to the hoy which was a useful little coaster and worked her way handily up the Thames.
He says that this two-master was "a small bark which saileth not with cross (i.e. square) sails nor yards as ships do, but with sails cut into the form of mizzen sails and so like those caravels (which are much in use about Spain) will sail far nearer the wind than any vessel with cross yards can possibly do."
They were of about 50 tons, 38 ft. long, 16 ft. beam, 8 ft. deep, and 8 ft. draught.


The hoys, at least, were inaugurating among English shipping that cleavage which later was to separate square-rigged ocean-goers from the ketches and schooners trading along the coast or across the English Channel and North Sea.
The "cross-sail" vessels with their poop, poop royal, summercastle superstructures, ill-designed hulls, badly cut sails, could romp along with wind on the quarter; but tacking was a farce, they sagged to leeward in the most grievous manner, and whilst they could head no nearer the wind than 7 points, they would never fetch.
The only way to handle them and make progress was to sail them ramping full, and that is why one finds them waiting weeks- even months- for a fair wind.


The French galleon model of 1560, in the Royal Scottish Museum, Edinburgh, is a faithful copy of that original model which is preserved in Trinity House, Leith.
Whilst the hull is contemporary, and the decorations as well on sides as galleries, yet the rigging was done afresh in the early eighteenth century according to Georgian notions; the most flagrant error being what should be the lateen yard.
Unfortunately this bad habit of


Footnote1.
Unfortunately destroyed during our own generation, but a reproduction will be found in the Mariner's Mirror (Vol. VI).


- Pages 44 to 93, and the photographs of the associated models, are not reproduced. -

Page 94

The five northern models are from the Royal Scottish Museum, Edin­burgh.
In the first two we have the high-peaked Fifie lugsails evolved from the traditional square-sail of the North Sea.
Steered by a wheel, not quick in stays, having a steam capstan for hauling their nets, they were improved upon when the Zulu class of about 1878 came along.
The vertical bows of the Fifie were retained, but the stern will be observed to be that of a Skaffie; i.e. considerably raked, whilst the hull is beamier, deeper, with a flatter bottom.
With greater deck space, and quicker in stays, the Zulu's sail is broader along the foot.
She also has a steering wheel and she sails remark­ably near the wind, her deep forefoot giving her a handsome grip on the water. To watch a fleet of these simple-rigged vessels coming back from the herring grounds with that immense mainsail filled with a smart breeze is an unforgettable experience.
Motors have since been introduced, but it is rather as wonderfully fast luggers measuring 83 ft. over all and 61 ft. along the keel, that they will occupy a prominent part in the story of small vessels.

Figure 137. Scotch Fifie
(In the Royal Scottish Museum, Edinburgh.)


Figure 138. Scotch Fifie "Neptune."
(In the Royal Scottish Museum, Edinburgh.)

Figure 13
9. Scotch Zulu
(In the Royal Scottish Museum, Edinburgh.)


In the last two of these five Scottish models we see the smack-rig (i.e. with gaff and boom) preferred in lieu of the lug, but the round stern con­tinued.
These herring-boats were used about the year 1880 until the lug­sail ousted them as steam drifters and motor drifters have to-day.


Figure 140. Smack Rigged Scotch Fishing Boat
(In the Royal Scottish Museum, Edinburgh.)

Figure 14
1. Smack Rigged Scotch Fishing Boat
(In the Royal Scottish Museum, Edinburgh.)


But all round the coast some of the age-honoured fishing boats are passing into the chapters of history.
The Norfolk and Suffolk beach-yawls a generation ago were famous for their speed under lugsails, yet they have now departed. The Bittern was about the last of that fleet, and she was broken up in 1928.
In the Southwold Sailors' Reading Room she is still commemorated by a beautiful model with every article of her inventory.
Made by a veteran of 78, she is exact in every detail, and her ancestry can be traced to the days of smugglers, when even two dipping lugs and one standing lug were the rig, and they required an exceptionally smart cutter to get anywhere near them.
From the same collection we have a perfect model of a Southwold beach punt, which is of permanent interest now that practically all these punts have been converted to motor craft.



Figure 142. Suffork Beach Yawl "Bittern."
(In the Southwell Sailor's Reading Room.)


Figure 143. Southwold Beach Punt
(From the Southwell Sailor's Reading Room.)

PLANS

PLAN 1.



MODEL OF ELIZABETHAN GALLEON (ABOUT 160
0)

2. STUART ROYAL YACHT
- RIGGING PLAN



PLAN 3.

STUART ROYAL YACHT, 1670


PLAN 4.
TOPSAIL SCHOONER MY LADY
- SAILS AND SPARS


PLAN 5.

TOPSAIL SCHOONER MY LADY - QUARTER SCALE

PLAN 6.
TOPSAIL SCHOONER MY LADY
- COLOUR AND DECK FITTINGS
[?]


PLAN 7.
HUMBER KEEL

Page 19

Footnote 1.
Sir Flinders Petrie: Ancient Egypt and the East, 1933, Parts I-IV.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flinders_Petrie

Hathi Trust (limited view)
http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000637705

Page 40

... an "outligger " (outrigger) for sheeting home the lateen mizzen.
It is questionable if that spar were already generally in use quite so early,(1)
Footnote 1.
It is, however, shown in an engraving illustrating Historia do Imperador Vespasiano, printed at Lisbon during 1496

Seville, Pierre Brun, 1499. Historia del imperador Vespasiano.

Pierre Brun of Geneva had been working in Spain for over twenty years when this book was published ; at Tortosa with Nic. Spindeler (1477), at Barcelona firstwith Spindeler (1478) and then with Posa (1481) at Seville with Giovanni Gentile (1492), and now again, after an interval, at Seville on his own account, in 1499.



Marine art historian Margarita Russell, describes the Hand G marine scenes as "capturing the first true vision of pure seascape" in art.
http://jhna.org/index.php/past-issues/vol-62-2014/296-the-turin-milan-hours-revised-dating-and-attribution



Flavius Josèphe, Antiquités judaïques (Livres I-XXXX) Guerre des Juifs (Livres XX-XXVII) Auteur : Josephus, Flavius (0038?-0100?). Auteur du texte Auteur : Maître de la Cité des dames. Enlumineur de l'œuvre reproduite Date d'édition : 1400-1415 Type : manuscrit

Gautier de Coincy. Les Miracles de Notre-Dame. Auteur : Delisle, Léopold. Auteur de lettres Date d'édition : 1301-1400 Contributeur : Gautier de Coinci Type : manuscrit Langue : Français Format : Parch. - I-III, A-B et 245 f. à 2 col. - 335 × 225 mm. - Reliure velours vert et soie brochée Droits : domaine public Identifiant : ark:/12148/btv1b6000451c



barque de Pierre ballottée par les flots Breviarium ad usum fratrum Predicatorum, dit Bréviaire de Belleville. Bréviaire de Belleville, vol. I (partie hiver) Auteur : Jean Pucelle. Enlumineur Auteur : Maître du Cérémonial de Gand. Enlumineur Date d'édition : 1323-1326 Type : manuscrit
Pinned from
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Chatterton, E. Keble: Sailing Models
 
Ancient and Modern.
Hurst and Blackett, London, 1934.
.

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home catalogue history references appendix

Geoff Cater (2015) : E. Kebel Chatterton : Sailing Models, 1934.
http://www.surfresearch.com.au/1934_Chatterton_Ship_Models.html