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| Merchant Ships; (Types & Pictures) | |
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| Topic Started: 30 Sep 2007, 04:47 AM (445 Views) | |
| Brendan | 30 Sep 2007, 04:47 AM Post #1 |
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The definitions below show what each term would have meant to a member of His Majesty's Navy between 1793 and 1815. Most ship descriptions were based on hull form, trade, or function, but not rig. Eighteenth-century ship types were only slowly becoming standardised, and there were many regional variations. Picture are provided where available. Many of the below vessels were more commonly found in the Mediterranean, but such trading ships sailed freely over most of the world. Barca longa A Spanish fishing boat to about 70ft long with two or three masts, each with one lugsail. Bark, barque Originally a hull form of merchant vessels, like cat, by 1793 barks usually carried three masts without a mizzen topsails. In the nineteenth century 'barque' usually meant a rig, three masts square-rigged exxcept for the after mast. Bean-cod A very weatherly Portugese fishing vessel, with a single mast with a lateen sail extending its length; extremely sharp forward, having its stem bent inward above into a great curve. Bilander A North Sea and Baltic merchant vessel with a two-masted rig, like a brig, but with a lateen mainsail, bent the whole length of a fore-and-aft yard at 45° hanging above the stern and sloping downwards, as far forward as the middle of the vessel, with a vertical or near-vertical forward edge. They were originally introduced by the Dutch. Although not uncommon for this vessel to have ventured as far as the North Sea or the Mediterranean it was mostly utilized for regional coastal trading or on the canals of Holland. Brig Originally northern European, it was a very popular and very successful merchant and naval rig, often used in combination with others; 'brig' was probably a shortened form of brigantine. A brig had two masts, a square-rigged fore and a main with a gaff-rigged fore-and-aft mainsail extended with a boom at the foot, and rather than a main yard, which could set a sail, a cross-jack, which usually could not. From about 1800 a brig often had a main yard. Brigantine A northern European merchant type whose name ran into and overlapped with brig-schooners, hermaphrodite brigs, and schooners. By the nineteenth century 'brigantine' meant a vessel with a square-rigged foremast and a fore-and-aft main, earlier with a square topsail. Buss, herring buss Small vessels typically of 50-70 tons burthen, used especially by the Dutch and English in the North Sea herring fisheries, with three short one-piece masts each with a square-sail, and sometimes a top-sail; in fine weather they could set up a driver. Cat Strongly built bulk carriers of 400-600 tons burthen, found throughout northern Europe, with a narrow stern, projecting quarters, a deep waist, and no figure-head. In the English trade the name was particularly associated with colliers from Northumbria. In the 1790s they usually had pole-masts (i.e. in one piece) and no topgallants. Other images: One Chasse-marée A French, especially Breton, merchant coastal vessel for fishing, smuggling, and privateering. Usually rigged as a lugger. Many were around 50ft with two masts, but privateers were often larger, and some, especially in naval use, had three masts. Cutter Originally uniquely English, cutters were uses by smugglers and privateers, and by the navy as coastal cruisers, inshore scouting vessels, and dispatch boats. 'Cutter' described a light, sharp clinker-built hull with a single gaff-rigged mast and a running bowsprit throughout the period; by the 1790s a new cutter, particularly a larger naval or revenue cutter, would usually have an integrated topmast and separate topgallant, and two jibs on the bowsprit. The most likely rig was a large gaff mainsail, iwth a square topsail deeply cut away to allow the high forestay; a small square sail could be hoisted to fill the gap, but this feature was less common in the 1800s. Large cutters could be converted to brig-rig for easier sail-handling, becoming cutter-brigs. Dogger A small short boat, originally Dutch, used for fishing on the Dogger Bank, but found throughout the Nort Sea. Usually rigged with a square main and a lugsail on the mizzen and the bowsprit with two jibs. Felucca A small Mediterranean coasting vessel, typically with two lateen-rigged masts raked forward 3°, and 10-16 pairs of oars. As privateers they might carry two 2pdrs and thirty-two swivels. Flute 1. (Fluyt) Dutch cargo ships, ship-rigged (three square-rigged masts) and pink sterned. 2. (Flute) French supply ships from 200-900 tons burthern, frigate-rigged but with a very full hull, resembling a fluyt. They were pierced for up to about eighteen 4pdrs, 6pdrs, or 8pdrs carried amidships on the upper deck. The captured Ménagère, renamed HMS Albermarle (a Sixth Rate from 1781-4) was 543 6/94 tons, and 125ft 3½in long, with a depth in hold of 13ft 7½in; a contemporary British frigate, the Porcupine, 24, was 513 55/94 tons and 114ft 3in long, with a depth in hold of 10ft 3in. 3. (en flûte) A naval ship serving as a transport with its main battery struck into the hold; three ships the Porcupine's size could carry 600 men (the typical active strength of one British battalion of soldiers), and a 44, with its two decs, 800 for short distances, such as to Ostend. Moore's 28,000 men were extracted from Coruña by 110 transports, mostly about 200 tons, though the men were too tightly packed to move. Galley A fighting vessel powered principally by oars, usually with two lateen-rigged masts as well; the largest had three masts and were about 150 x 20ft with twenty-five or twenty-six benches on each side, each oar with five oarsmen, carrying 100-200 sailors and soldiers with one or two heavy guns at the bows (eg 24-36pdrs) and swivels or light guns on the broadside for defence. Minor Mediterranean states and the Ottoman Empire had small fleets, usually only until about 1800, but France and Spain had almost abolished theirs (though the British captured the Prima off Genoa on 21 May,1800 and sold her to the Sardinians for $15,000). Half- and quarter-galleys were proportionally shorter; Bombay-galleys, shorter still, were used in North Africans states, especially Barbary, for raiding and piracy. Galliot, galiot A Baltic and northern European trading and (translating galjoot) Dutch fishing vessel. The usual rig was a main with a large gaff mainsail, a flying topsail, and a staysail on the main stay, and a mizzen, and a bowsprit with one or two jibs, with sometimes a jigger mast stepped aft with a sail hauled out to a boom on the foot. Occasionally known as Dutch galleasses. Hermaphrodite, hermaphrodite brig A merchant trading vessel found throughout Europe which could work as a brig and a snow. It had two masts, and on the mainmast two mainsails, a square mainsail, when a snow and a boom when a brig. (The definition 'brig-rigged forward and schooner-rigged aft' did not yet apply.) Howario Mediterranean merchant vessels. Two fore-and-aft-rigged masts with sliding topmasts and gunter sails (sails set on a pole that was an almost vertical extension of the mast) abaft the masts. Ketch A rig very widely found in European merchant ships, especially in coastal traders, of 100-250 tons burthen. In naval service it had been used for bomb vessels, but these were ship-rigged by the 1790s. Ketch rig meant square-rigged masts: a square main course and topgallant with a gaff-headed wing sail abaft the main mast, and a gaff sail and topsail on the mizzen mast. (The fore-and-aft-rigged ketch was a later development.) Lugger A merchant rig, typically fishing vessels but also (since they sailed very close to the wind) smugglers and privateers. The French navy built more than fifty between 1772 and 1815, typically 120-130 tons burthen and 60-70ft on the deck, with eight 4pdrs or four 3pdrs and six swivels, and a crew of fifty; in the Royal Navy, hired luggers were often attached to blockading squadrons. Luggers had two masts in two sections with only the topmast abaft the masthead, a horizontal bowsprit, and often (very far aft) a third mast, the jigger. Lug-sails were four-sided, with the head two-thirds the length of the foot, bent on a yard which hung obliquely to the mast, as a third of its length. Parancelle Neapolitan version of the tartane with a single mast, a lateen, a jib on an outrigger, and ten pairs of oars. Pink 1. Northern: square-rigged ships (often 400-500 tons) with rounded sides and a flat bottom. The name came from the narrow overhanging stern (so pink-snow meant a snow with a pink's stern, etc.) 2. Mediterranean (also Fr. pinque, It. pinco): they were like xebecs with a long narrow stern but were cargo-carriers, and so were loftier and round-bottomed. They had three masts, carrying lateen sails replaceable by square canvas going downwind. Polacre, polacca, polacre-settee Small merchant vessels found in the Mediterranean, especially in the Levant. Occasionally used by navies, because they had some of the advantages to windward of the lateen rig, with some of the manoeuvrability of the square rig. They had three pole (one-piece) masts, without topmas or topgallant mast, the fore lateen, the main square, and the mizzen with a square topsail and lateen sail; from the 1780s, some, especially from Provence, had square sails on all three masts. Schooner A rig most often found in America, in cod-fishing off Newfoundland, in the carrying trade, and as privateers, and in naval use; less common in Europe. It was very fast and successful, sailing well on the wind, and needing fewer men than most other rigs. They had two masts, main and fore, both fore-and-aft-rigged with (especially in naval use) square topsails on the foremast and at least one head sail set on the bowsprit. Settee Merchant vessels found mostly in the eastern Mediterranean, with two lateen-rigged masts similar to galleys but with settee-sails (quadrilateral sails bent to a lateen yard). Sloop Small merchant vessels, ubiquitous in northern Europe and America. They had a single fore-and-aft-rigged mast like a cutter, but the hull was less extreme and carvel- not clinker-built (i.e. with aligning planks). The mainsail had a gaff; sloops had a separate topmast, a fixed steeved bowsprit, and a jib-stay. Snow The most common two-masted merchant vessel in northern Europe. They looked rather like a brig with two square-rigged masts, a main and a foremast, but to the seaman, the additional trysail mast hoisting a gaff-headed loose-footed sail abaft the main mast was unmistakable. When brigs were rigged as snows, they used a horse (stout rope) as the trysail mast, the fore part of the sail being attached by rings to it. Tartane Very common Mediterranean merchant and pirate vessels, with a hull form like a stumpy version of a xebec or Mediterranean pink, and a single fore-and-aft-rigged mast iwth a large lateen sail and a triangular headsail, occasionally with fore-and-main or main-and-mizzen masts. With a flat bottom and used as a fishing boat, often called tartana. Trabalacco An Italian lug-rigged medium-sized coasting and fishing vessel with one or two masts. Xebec A Mediterranean hull type, used in the Spanish, French, and Turkish navies in sloop roles, and by corsairs and privateers, when they typically had 16-30 guns and 130-150 crew. They were like a polacre in appeareance, but with a very overhanging bow and stern, a narrow floor (for speed), and a broad beam. In the French navy, they gradually adopted polacre rig; in the Spanish navy, they had a decked forecastle and quarterdeck on more frigate-like hulls, typically 113ft 11in x 30ft 10in. When xebec-rigged, they had three masts (sometimes two). Most were lateen-rigged but by the 1790s some had a changing sail-plan: these were square-rigged on the foremast and lateen on the main and mizzen; when close to the wind, fully lateen with overlong yards; with the wind fair, square-rigged on the main, again with overlong yards; and in strong winds, they had normal yards. The fore-and mainmasts were short, the fore raked far forwards; the mizzen often with a topsail to keep them better to the wind. Also called a chebec, chebeck, shebeck, zebec; with three masts, especially with a frigate hull, often a xebec-frigate. Other images: One From The Illustrated Companion to Nelson's Navy by Nicholas Blake and Richard Lawrence. |
 
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4:17 AM Jul 30
