# What was scrap from the old sailing ships used for? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 15, 2015, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-scrap-from-the-old-sailing-ships-used-for/715062 "2015-03-15T21:20:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![dstarfire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dstarfire/32/5762_2.png) [@dstarfire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dstarfire)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2015, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-scrap-from-the-old-sailing-ships-used-for/715062/1 "2015-03-15T21:20:26Z")
So, as steam became the dominant power source for ships, and the old sailing ships were broken up, what did people use the scrap lumber for? I imagine most of the interior timber was used for housing material, but what about the planking that formed the outer hull? The parts below the waterline probably weren’t good for much other than firewood (if that), what with all the barnacles and seaweed. However, the planks above the waterline would likely be free of such encrustations, but they’d also be coated with pitch, tar, and other nastiness you wouldn’t want in your home. Dockyard facilities, maybe (piers, gangplanks, taverns, warehouses, etc.)? ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2015, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-scrap-from-the-old-sailing-ships-used-for/715062/2 "2015-03-15T22:44:06Z")
They built all kinds of things out of it. There were commercial ship salvage yards that broke them apart and then sold the salvageable lumber so the wood from one ship may have ended up in many different structure. For example, there is a barn in Jordans, Buckinghamshire England that was partially built from the remains of a ship called _Mayflower_. Some people claim that it came from _The Mayflower_ of Pilgrim fame but that isn’t proven because there were a number of ships with the same name. Regardless of the specific ship that the wood came from, it still serves as a good example of how the wood from them was reused. > **[Jordans, Buckinghamshire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jordans,_Buckinghamshire#The_Mayflower_Barn)** > > Jordans is a village in Chalfont St Giles parish, Buckinghamshire, England, and the civil parish of Hedgerley. It is a centre for Quakerism, holds the burial place of William Penn, founder of the Province of Pennsylvania, and so is a popular place with American visitors. It also contains the Mayflower Barn, made from ship timbers sometimes claimed to be from the Mayflower. Some 245 households and 700 residents are served by a nursery, primary school, youth hostel, village hall and community sh... ---
**Author:** ![thirdname](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d07c76/32.png) [@thirdname](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thirdname)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2015, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-scrap-from-the-old-sailing-ships-used-for/715062/3 "2015-03-20T23:09:39Z")
The President’s desk was made from an abandoned ship salvaged by the British: [Resolute desk - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resolute_desk) ---
**Author:** ![Mk\_VII](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Mk\_VII](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mk_VII)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2015, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-scrap-from-the-old-sailing-ships-used-for/715062/4 "2015-03-21T00:20:10Z")
Frequently they were just burnt, and any non-ferrous metals salvaged afterwards. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2015, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-scrap-from-the-old-sailing-ships-used-for/715062/5 "2015-03-21T00:27:17Z")
I know several fireplace mantels made from ship parts, often found as driftwood from wrecks. I know a cottage that was a pilothouse from a tug. It was installed on a foundation and connected to the usual utilities. I know an old fisherman who whittled things like chairs from such scraps. It’s recycling at its best. ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2015, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-scrap-from-the-old-sailing-ships-used-for/715062/6 "2015-03-21T06:03:01Z")
From here [http://www.naval-history.net/WW1NavyBritish-Shipbreak.htm](http://www.naval-history.net/WW1NavyBritish-Shipbreak.htm) > [@](#): > > There are many old-established businesses engaged solely in shipbreaking and the disposal of the material. This latter part of the business calls for great ingenuity. One of the pioneers was the firm of Castle, which started its shipbreaking business at the Baltic Wharf at Millbank on the Thames in 1838. The firm specialized in the breaking up of wooden warships there and as the size of ships increased, farther downstream. Turner’s famous picture “The Fighting Téméraire" shows that ship being towed to Castle’s yard. The timber of old, wooden warships, especially hard oak and teak, makes excellent material for garden furniture. It has wonderful weathering properties and is almost everlasting, needing neither paint nor varnish. It can be put to other purposes as well, as it was in 1922 when Liberty’s, of London, rebuilt their premises and made excellent use of the oak from the old training ships Impregnable and Hindostan which had been broken up on the Thames. > For many years Castle’s took the greatest care of the figureheads of the ships which they broke up. When, after a long period of neglect, the Admiralty suddenly realized that such trophies were of great value to the morale of the Service, it was enabled to make the famous dockyard collections principally through the co-operation of the scrappers. A number of figureheads are stil1 to be seen at Millbank, and others have gone to museums all over the country. The late King George V was particularly interested in relics made from the material of old ships. On the breaking-up in 1910 of the cruiser Melampus, which he had commanded when he was Duke of York, he had a garden chair made from her teak for his own use and a suite of garden furniture for Queen Alexandra. There’s a wooden-framed house here in York that incorporates a mermaid figurehead as an external cornerpost; others are kept on the _Cutty Sark_. ---
**Author:** ![davida03801](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b5e925/32.png) [@davida03801](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davida03801)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2015, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-scrap-from-the-old-sailing-ships-used-for/715062/7 "2015-03-21T14:27:30Z")
I believe there are some old wooden ship graveyards still around. I recall reading of one of them but not remember where it was. ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2015, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-scrap-from-the-old-sailing-ships-used-for/715062/8 "2015-03-21T15:23:11Z")
How many years did this transition take? My assumption had been that it took decades and the way the transition proceeded was that the new ships built were steam and and the sailing ships mostly continued to be used until they wore out. ---
**Author:** ![TSBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/77aa72/32.png) [@TSBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TSBG)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2015, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-scrap-from-the-old-sailing-ships-used-for/715062/9 "2015-03-22T05:36:45Z")
I saw houses in, I think, St. Jean de Luz, France, with beams made from old sailing ships. I don’t remember how old they were, but obviously contemporary to the ships. ---
**Author:** ![Mk\_VII](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Mk\_VII](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mk_VII)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2015, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-scrap-from-the-old-sailing-ships-used-for/715062/10 "2015-03-22T16:15:21Z")
Sailing ships continued while it remained economic for them to do so. Eric Newby’s _The Last Grain Race_ describes his voyage in a (steel-hulled) sailing barque between England and Australia in 1939, carrying grain. Until the invention of the compound-expansion steam engine, coal consumption was too high for really long voyages to be economic and would have required significant investment in coaling stations. ---
**Author:** ![donkeyoatey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e47c2d/32.png) [@donkeyoatey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/donkeyoatey)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2015, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-scrap-from-the-old-sailing-ships-used-for/715062/11 "2015-03-22T20:11:05Z")
I don’t think they were ever broken up because they were obsolete, they were disposed of at the end of their serviceable life and replaced by a more modern ship. This [site](http://www.naval-history.net/WW1NavyBritish-Shipbreak.htm) has some info: > [@](#): > > THE business of shipbreaking is one of the numerous industries which have grown up round shipping and the sea. It was apparently first practised in the dismantling of ships which had been driven ashore in bad weather. Those who had the legal right to a wreck, and often those who had not, used the materials for building their huts ashore or for any other purpose. > > Shipbreaking as an industry does not appear until a later date, but in Tudor days it was the regular practice to break up worn-out warships in the dockyards and to work all the material that was still serviceable into new hulls. The frequent shortages of seasoned timber, especially in wartime, made this practice necessary and it saved infinite trouble and labour with primitive tools in the making of new parts. Many of the ships so built, however, showed weakness from the first. > > When there was no shortage of material, and the ships could be carefully and leisurely built, it was not as a rule worth while breaking up a wooden ship. ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2015, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-scrap-from-the-old-sailing-ships-used-for/715062/12 "2015-03-22T21:28:28Z")
Curiously enough that is the same ;link that I posted earlier. 🙂 I did read a book a couple of years ago that mentioned a big Victorian shipbreakers yard on the Thames - probably Castle’s. They had a huge pile of figureheads and other richly carved wood near the entrance. Presumably sold to the highest bidder - with quite a lot of it preserved for posterity in various ways. ---
**Author:** ![donkeyoatey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e47c2d/32.png) [@donkeyoatey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/donkeyoatey)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2015, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-scrap-from-the-old-sailing-ships-used-for/715062/13 "2015-03-22T21:45:23Z")
> [@eburacum45](#): > > Curiously enough that is the same ;link that I posted earlier. 🙂 :o Sorry, I missed that. I think I had your link open, did a search and didn’t realize it was yours. I need to stop having 20+ windows open at once. ---
**Author:** ![dstarfire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dstarfire/32/5762_2.png) [@dstarfire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dstarfire)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2015, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-scrap-from-the-old-sailing-ships-used-for/715062/14 "2015-03-22T22:34:15Z")
Either I’m amazingly transparent, or some people here are psychic. The painting “The Fighting Téméraire” is exactly what sparked this thread. _Not that I know more than Jacque Merde about art, it was just mentioned in a Bill Bailey special, and stuck with me because of it’s beauty, and the elegantly simple way it portrays the death of sail._ ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2015, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-scrap-from-the-old-sailing-ships-used-for/715062/15 "2015-03-22T22:34:35Z")
Some of the decorative flotsam from Titanic ended up in a pub, IIRC. The entire first-class smoking room or something like that, a whole bunch of fabulously carved and finished cabinetry from a sister ship, ended up as a dining room or pub hall as well.