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#1
11-11-2010, 08:57 AM
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How did old sailing ships maneuver?
My son is building a model of the USS Constitution, "Old Ironsides". This got me to thinking, how did these ships maneuver themselves? There was, and is, transatlantic trade. However, the winds primarily blow from west to east. So, how did the ships make the voyage from Europe to the New World? Is there some way to rig the sails so that the wind propels you in the direction you want to go even if the wind is actually blowing the other direction?
When the ship got to harbor, how was it safely maneuvered up to the dock? There were no tugboats and the ships themselves obviously did not have bow and stern thrusters. Would a sudden gust of wind send the ship crashing through the pier? So, in short, with wind being a variable source of power, how were people able to get where they were going with some reasonable degree of safety and reliability? 
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#2
11-11-2010, 09:05 AM
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Same way as modern sailing ships do: the basic, non-sailor's answer is by a combination of the rudder and the sails, with the rudder providing (mainly) direction and the sails providing speed. Even those with "fixed" sails can use them to direct the ship, and while sailing straight into the wind can end in dead sails pretty easily (flopping and not pushing you anywhere), sailing diagonally into the wind is easy enough. If your route would take you straight into the wind, what you do is zigzag around that direction, so that the zig and zag compensate for each other and end up taking you where you want to be.
For large ships and harbors, manoeuvering into a dock would be directed by the harbor's own pilot, not by the ship's. Check out some windsurfing videos. There is no rudder (the person acts as the rudder by leaning into/pressing down with his feet on the table to make it turn in the same way that planes do) but following how that single sail is used is easier than doing so in a video of a clipper. Last edited by Nava; 11-11-2010 at 09:10 AM.
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#3
11-11-2010, 09:12 AM
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Google 'tacking' or
http://www.gosailing.info/Tacking.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacking_(sailing) Explains how to sail into the wind.... Last edited by Philster; 11-11-2010 at 09:15 AM.
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#4
11-11-2010, 09:24 AM
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__________________
PLEONASM: An army of words escorting a corporal of thought. --- Ambrose Bierce
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#5
11-11-2010, 09:27 AM
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I think that a lot of people see the old sailing vessels and just notice the big square sails, and fail to notice the main and jibs. Those are the ones that do the primary work of getting around a good 270 degrees of direction. The big square sails act more like spinnakers.
Question, though -- through what range of direction are they useful? Surely they can't be used close-hauled?
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#6
11-11-2010, 09:32 AM
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BTW, the old square riggers couldn't point up into the wind very well. Fore and aft rigs are better in this regard, but square rigs were better at running before the wind, and working cargo ships in the age of sail had the trade winds and westerlies to take advantage of, sailing east in the lower latitudes, and west in the upper if at all possible.
Your typical modern day small sloop rigged sailboat manages about 45 degrees off the wind close hauled. They might actually do a bit better, but 45 is convenient - it means that when you tack, you're making a right angle. Look directly to your left or right over the high side rail - that's the way you'll be headed after the tack.
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#7
11-11-2010, 09:33 AM
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I would add that modern sailboats can sail a lot closer to the direction of wind than the old square riggers, and back in the day they would sail at different latitudes where the prevailing winds were more favorable to the direction they were heading.
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#8
11-11-2010, 09:37 AM
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Besides all the answers above that show how you can manuver (tack/wear and beat, which I mainly know from the Horatio Hornblower books)
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-XT Last edited by XT; 11-11-2010 at 09:39 AM.
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#9
11-11-2010, 09:42 AM
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Last edited by yabob; 11-11-2010 at 09:43 AM.
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#11
11-11-2010, 12:30 PM
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That's part of what made the US slave trade profitable. Start in Africa, pick up slaves. Take the tradewinds to the Caribbean, trade the slaves for sugar cane or rum. Sugar and rum go to either the US colonies or Europe, where they are traded for manufactured goods, which are taking back to Africa.
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#12
11-11-2010, 01:37 PM
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It seems like all the pictures you see of square-riggers have the yards (the horizontal beams the sails hang from) exactly perpendicular to the hull, but they don't have to be. There are lines called braces that are attached to the ends of the yards and extend aft and down to the side of the hull. If you haul on the port braces and ease on the starboard, you turn that whole stack of sails to catch the wind and propel yourself in the right direction.
Take a look at these two pictures, you can see the yards are turned to catch the wind coming from the starboard quarter. Quote:
As for getting in to harbors, if the approach was directly upwind, you couldn't just sail in. You'd lower a boat and they take a rope, row forward and tie the end to a piling. The crew on deck would wrap that rope around the capstan (here, bottom left) and essentially winch themselves forward.
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#13
11-11-2010, 01:57 PM
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Here's a picture that shows the braces a little better. The ship is tied up to a pier (the red shack is on the pier, the pale yellow is the ship) and the picture is looking toward the bow. Just on the left edge, near the bottom, are three lines tied to the side of the ship, and they go up and forward to the yards. (The top two braces are close together, the lowest one doubles back through a couple pulleys.)
Those are the first lines you learn on a ship, along with how to haul, ease, and tie them off while working as a team.
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#14
11-11-2010, 04:12 PM
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Thanks for the pictures and explanations. That last pic, RobertArm makes me cold just looking at it. It would not have been fun working on the mooring of that ship.
So, suppose now I'm on a warship pursuing the enemy. The enemy has gotten out in front. Are there things that I can do to catch up and come alongside? I want to launch a volley from my starboard cannons.
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#15
11-11-2010, 04:43 PM
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It's not necessarily easy, or even possible. But some hulls will cut through the water better than others, and even if your ships are of identical design, you may have an edge if you have been able to scrape off the weed and barnacles recently. Longer waterlines spell higher speed, and so does more sail, so a two-decker "seventy-four" could often run down a frigate - and outgunned her handsomely too - she was a bigger ship and could spread more sail. Again, you might have to trim your ship for best results; if any weight you're carrying is unevenly distributed, you might be down by the stem or the stern, and make slower progress than if you were properly balanced. But it's an old maxim that "a stern chase is a long chase".
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#16
11-11-2010, 05:44 PM
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I don't know the details, really, just that there was a huge science behind those sorts of battle tactics.
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#17
11-11-2010, 06:36 PM
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What you wanted to do is "cross their T" - you wanted to bring a whole broadside of your guns to bear on one of the little ends of their ship, where they didn't have any guns and you had the most opportunity to make a hit (more "ship" for your shot to traverse, as opposed to just across the narrow bit, if that makes sense.) It's a lot more fun to hit people who can't hit back except with a little popgun.
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#18
11-11-2010, 06:39 PM
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#19
11-11-2010, 06:50 PM
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#20
11-11-2010, 06:55 PM
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Gain the weather gauge!
Raking, firing your broadside through his bow or stern would kill lots of people since the decks had few or no solid partitions.
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#21
11-11-2010, 07:00 PM
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Probably a stupid question but I've always wondered.
On a sailing ship, you've got the mast, which is the vertical piece of wood, and you've got the yards, which are the horizontal crosspieces attached to the mast (I think I've got the terminology right). Now if you want to change the direction the sails are facing to the wind, do you pivot the mast where it meets the deck or do you pivot the yards where they meet the mast?
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#22
11-11-2010, 07:04 PM
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The yards.
All sorts of rigging held the masts in place.
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#23
11-11-2010, 07:27 PM
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For his "Hornblower in Space" Honor Harrington books, David Weber went to the length of creating a FTL spaceship system that "recreated" the need for "up the skirt" shots, therefore producing space battles that mimic the Age of Sail tactics. (Rather well, really - he has a talent for narrating them that makes the "geography" clear in the reader's mind. It's pulp, but pretty good pulp as it goes. I stopped reading at some point, though.)
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#24
11-11-2010, 07:55 PM
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And there are different ways of attaching the yards to the mast. In the pictures I posted, the lowest yard had a double pivot; you could haul the braces to turn it left or right, or you could raise one end and lower the other (that yard is the longest, and you might need to move it like that to come alongside a pier with a warehouse, or something). The next yard up was just a simple pivot, for bracing left or right. The upper yards weren't really attached to the mast at all. The yard was attached to a collar that wrapped around the mast, and to set the sail, you'd haul on a line that would actually raise the whole yard. Look at this picture again; you can see two of the yards on the main mast are really close together. When that upper one is set, it actually goes about ten feet up the mast. The mast is a darker color where that collar wraps around it, and someone has to go up there every now and then and grease the mast. (Mike Rowe did it on an episode of Dirty Jobs, once.) All that said, I've seen pictures of modern sailing yachts where everything is computer controlled. It looks like there's almost none of the traditional rigging, and I wouldn't be surprised if they do rotate the whole mast to brace the yards. Is everybody getting tired of me geeking out on this subject yet?
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#25
11-11-2010, 09:05 PM
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That's fighting ignorance for you!
I thought crossing the T was what Nelson did at Trafalgar when the English broke the French line. Several ships in line astern firing broadsides at two single enemy ships. In other words, two ships had to take the fire of the entire line.
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#26
11-11-2010, 09:45 PM
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#27
11-11-2010, 09:49 PM
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#28
11-11-2010, 09:49 PM
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#29
11-11-2010, 10:02 PM
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The balls were heavy enough and moving fast enough (depending on calibre etc) to go straight through the ship, hull, bulkheads, and flesh and bone notwithstanding. If you fired at the ship's side the ball would have much less chance of doing damage because it would only cross the narrow dimension. If you fired at the bow or stern the ball would enter and pass down the length of the ship, and have far greater chance of hitting something crucial (and probably more than one thing). Last edited by Princhester; 11-11-2010 at 10:03 PM.
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#30
11-11-2010, 10:08 PM
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#31
11-12-2010, 03:25 AM
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Alright, there are enough questions here that I won't attempt to answer them all individually, so I'll write a short essay instead
 Full disclosure: My experience of sailing ships is a lifelong passion, as well as sailing a couple of weeks with the replica Götheborg, an 18th century Eastindiaman. On tacking against the wind As noted, square riggers fare far better before the wind than tacking. The main reason that square riggs were used for ocean going cruisers was the fact that most of the time was spent in a predictable and reliable trade wind, meaning that a square rig would end up making the best time on an ocean voyage. Note that as technology progressed, ships would gain more and more staysails (the triangular sails which allow tacking), allowing more flexibility. Ships more likely to encounter adverse winds such as trawlers, coasters and tramps would carry more staysails as well as gaff riggs, giving less speed on open water but more flexibility close to shore. Note also that square sails can also be used in tacking, but are far less effective at creating a proper airfoil due to their shape, and are far more labor intensive than a gaff rigg of the same size due to the added complexity. How to get a ship into harbor Large ships did in fact rarely sail all the way into harbor, but would instead lay anchor in a good anchorage and then offload goods to coasters, barges and other small craft. Should a ship be required to go all the way in, it could be either pulled in by its own long boats or warped in, i.e. pull itself forward using small anchors that were dropped in front of the ship by its long boats. When the steam boat was introduced, one of its first roles was as tug boat. On holding the wind gage In 18th century tactics, holding the wind gage meant being upwind and thus deciding when and where a battle was to be fought. The other side of the coin was that the fleet which was downwind always had the ability to retreat when it decided to. The English, seeking total naval supremacy, always tried to hold the wind gage and engage their enemy. The French on the other hand, having a far smaller navy than Great Britain, sought primarily to exist as a threat to English shipping, and avoided at all costs battles where the fleet might be lost. Raking fire, stern and bow chasers As noted, the ultimate maneuver in naval warfare was raking fire, where a ship would pass behind it's enemy and fire shot all through its length. The closer this maneuver was done the better, allowing double or tripple shot to be loaded, mixed with grapeshot if occasion allowed. The most famous example of this maneuver was, as was noted, Nelson at Trafalgar. Ships carried guns in the stern, but this was as much a defense against gun boats and other small craft. A ship intent on escaping would have its full crew in the rig, while a ship intent on fighting wouldn't be showing its aft at all. Bow chasers were used much in the same purpose, but during pursuit could also be used to fire chains into a fleeing opponent's rig in order to slow them down. This was of course far from the rule, and the British would in later years use huge caliber carronades in the bow instead. Note also that broadsides were not common, as they put enormous stress on the ship, and were primarily used at range in order to fire as the ship was on the up-roll. Normally, gun deck captains would order their guns to be fired as they bared.
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#32
11-12-2010, 04:09 AM
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Do you mean "weather gage"?
Also, at least according to Patrick O'Brian's characters (who I understand as above to generally be accurate) would describe firing all the guns on one side during one manouevre as they bear as a broadside: I have never heard his characters make a distinction by which it is only a broadside if the fire is simultaneous.
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#33
11-12-2010, 06:41 AM
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I hold that broadside means firing a whole ship's battery at the same time though, as does wiki.
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#34
11-12-2010, 06:44 AM
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#35
11-12-2010, 07:25 AM
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Sometimes they would fire two cannon balls connected by a chain, to damage the rigging. And "canister" was an anti-personnel charge, which was a tin container full of musket balls fired from a cannon into groups of people. The tin disintegrated and it was like a really big shot gun blast. One of the things I learned from the Hornblower books was that the sides of the ship were not a primary target. The rigging was. The idea being to disable the ship from being able to maneuver, and then get into position where you could fire at them but they couldn't hit back in return, and then just hammer them into surrender. Read the account of the battle between the Lydia and the Natividad in the Hornblower book Beat to Quarters for a wonderful account of naval ship-to-ship combat during the Napoleonic period. Regards, Shodan
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#36
11-12-2010, 07:49 AM
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#37
11-12-2010, 08:45 AM
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Also, it was a question of tactics of wether you fired into the rigging or hulls. The British had a long tradition of aiming for the waterline, and would rarely employ chain except when commerce raiding. The French, on the other hand, whose aim was to keep their navy sailing, employed chain to a greater degree, to great effect in the battle of Chesapeake Bay. This is just from memory though, so if I'm wrong then please correct me =)
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#38
11-12-2010, 09:56 AM
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Also...I vaguely recall that one side (British) either stopped using, or actually banned, chain shot, on humanitarian grounds. I guess the dangers of having a limb lopped off by flying chain were regarded differently than the dangers of being eviscerated by splinters or holed by grape.
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#39
11-12-2010, 10:10 AM
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 In my defense, you do sow grapes, don't you? 
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#40
11-12-2010, 10:51 AM
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The French on the other hand spent a lot of time being blockaded within their own ports and not able to practice much gunnery. Napoleon hogged most of the gunpowder anyhow. So when it came time for battle, they went for the sails hoping to slow the opponent down enough to get away. This didn't work out so well for them in most cases. Last edited by UncleRojelio; 11-12-2010 at 10:51 AM.
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#41
11-12-2010, 11:09 PM
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I thought the Brits were out to sink and the French wanted to capture intact vessels.
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#42
11-13-2010, 01:44 AM
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#43
11-13-2010, 06:57 AM
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I was reading that wiki article on tacking and learned something new. I learned what "I like the cut of your jib" means. I mean, I knew it meant some kind of sailing term, but that's all. It means, literally, "I like the way we are moving fast in the water because you put the sails in a good position for it in relation to the wind" but that doesn't have the same kind of panache.
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#44
11-13-2010, 02:12 PM
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Sailing technology and techniques have already been covered well here. The one question that hasn't been answered is: how were the ships prevented from running into the dock/pier? They let down their sails to slow down.
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#45
11-13-2010, 03:09 PM
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#46
11-13-2010, 05:01 PM
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Not to believe Mythbusters is an authority on naval history but they did try to replicate lethal wooden splinters in sea battles on the show and could not make it happen. The built a replicate of a ship's hull and fired a real canon at the target, they got a lot of splinters but none would be considered lethal. The canon was a civil war replica, perhaps it was not as large as the naval guns being discussed in the thread. I questioned their results because everything I have read about naval warfare in the age of sail notes just how dangerous the flying splinters were. Last edited by Icerigger; 11-13-2010 at 05:01 PM.
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#47
11-13-2010, 05:07 PM
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They used a piece of field artillery, so I'm not sure about the results. For one thing IIRC it was a 6 lb cannon (maybe an 8), so that would be small for a large ship (though about right for a merchantman I suppose). That said, it would have had a higher muzzle velocity since it was Civil War era, instead of the earlier cannon used more during earlier eras.
A cannon with a larger shot probably would have thrown out more lethal splinters (larger at least), since it would have had more kinetic energy (they also needed to bring the range down, since a lot of the fighting took place at point blank range, at least in the novels I read). Maybe this will be one of the myths they revisit in the future if enough historical buffs convince them that their tests weren't representative. -XT Last edited by XT; 11-13-2010 at 05:08 PM.
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#48
11-13-2010, 05:08 PM
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They did paint the gun deck red for some reason.
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#49
11-13-2010, 05:57 PM
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Yup, naval guns circa 1800 were 6 and 12 pounders on frigates, 24 and 32 pounders on ships of the line - inconveniently large in the latter cases for field use. Some line-of-battle ships carried carronades which delivered still heavier loads - 68lb shot on the Victory - hence the nickname "Smasher". So I don't think Mythbusters' results should be considered canon.
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#50
11-13-2010, 07:13 PM
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__________________
You callous bastard! More of my illusions have just been shattered!! -G0sp3l
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