In the beginning

Nobody knows when primitive Mr Ug first noticed that his canoe or coracle was being blown by the wind and realised that by holding up a blanket he could catch get a free push - if the wind was blowing in the right direction. The earliest known large sailing vessels were used in the Persian Gulf around 5000 years ago, and possibly traded along the coast as far as Oman and NW India.

Their 'home ports' are believed to have been in the Tigris/ Euphrates Delta, although they may have also been used upriver to carry goods between the first city states at Uruk and Ur. These early ships were built of reeds, bundled and lashed together to form a 'hull' with crew and cargo being carried on deck. The explorer and anthromorphologist
Thor Heyerdahl
built and sailed several ships of this type during the 1970s, proving that they were perfectly capable of long distance trade and exploration.

By the time that Stonehenge was built (ca 3500 years ago) sailing vessels were making regular voyages around the Mediterranean Sea, and even venturing into the Atlantic Ocean as far as the British Isles.

¹

These ships were fragile, slow, and relied on oars as much they used the wind. Any fool can hoist a sail and let himself be carried along by the wind if it is blowing in the right direction, but no-one at that time knew how to sail towards the wind. Sailing voyages often included long stretches rowing, and in many places this state of affairs continued for thousands more years with only gradual, minimal, improvements being made.

The leading technology in the ancient world belonged to the Chinese, who, by Roman times, were being building large sailing ships that could 'point' into the wind as well as, if not better than, the best that the west could produce in the nineteenth century.

China was also the first civilisation to have a practical compass, in this case a magnetised spoon that balanced on its bowl while the handle pointed northwards. This is tremendously important for real seafaring as without the ability to know which direction you are going in there is little point venturing out of sight of land. For more information about how sailors navigate see
this entry, Celestial Navigation.

The first seafarers

The inward-looking nature of Chinese culture at the time discouraged anything more than coastal voyages. The first real seafarers were the polynesians, who had explored most of the Pacific Ocean by 1000BC. Although their canoes cannot really be called ships

²

the skill with which these 'primitive' people were able to navigate across thousands of miles of open ocean remains a marvel to this day. It was a long time before western cultures could come close to matching their achievements, and in many ways they remain unique because no one has ever successfully emulated their methods.

It wasn't until the fifth century CE that real seafaring began in Europe, with the appearance of the people known to us as the Vikings. The Viking longship was a considerable improvement on the technology of the day, being far more seaworthy and sailable than anything else in use at the time. They were light and rugged enough to ride out fierce weather, able to 'point' closer to the wind than any other ships, fast enough to make long voyages before the crew ran out of food, and carried enough cargo to make sea voyages a profitable activity.

Despite their fearsome reputation the Vikings were essentially traders and settlers. (There is an excellent article on this topic
here.
Over the course of several hundred years they explored from Scandinavia as far afield as Turkey and North America, ranging the oceans and also travelling far up inland waterways.

³

Their magnificent longships, carved and decorated, were an inspiration (and a cause of terror) to many during the dark ages and the foundation stone for much that was to happen later. Not only did their technology gradually spread, but among the Viking settlements to achieve lasting fame was the one in Normandy.

The Norman conquest of England, and subsequent capture of another famous Viking centre - Dublin, one of Europe's leading cities - were part of a larger pattern. The Normans voyaged to and conquered lands as far away as Sicily and The Canary Islands. Continued wars - with France, the crusades etc. - encouraged maritime activity, although development was slow and haphazard.

The middle ages, which ended late for sailors

Innovations were not always beneficial either. Almost every ship was considered a military ship, as it was owned by someone who had to be prepared to use force in defence of their own interests. Battles at sea were fought like battles on land, and ships would use grappling hooks to hold on to each other while armed soldiers fought hand to hand. In such circumstances a castle is a handy thing to have, so shipbuilders would build them on their ships. This made them slow, difficult to manoeuvre, and likely to tip over at any moment.

Clearly this was not working, although everyone in Europe was doing it.

Nevertheless, progress continued slowly. European shipwrights, especially in Portugal, gradually began to focus on making their vessels seaworthy instead of simply impressive. As ships grew bigger, more masts were added. Masts were extended upwards and more sails were added. Unwieldy appendages were truncated, and thought was given to how a ship sailed in different weather conditions. Ships slowly became more or less capable of long sea voyages, but old attitudes persisted, as the sinking of the Mary Rose demonstrated. Britain and France seemingly thought that they were in competition to build the biggest and most ornate ships. Larger than life statues, gardens, balconies and other useless junk were the order of the day until late in the fifteenth century - by which time cannon were being carried on ships, and the old style of fighting was obsolete.

The defeat of the Spanish Armada by Britain's superior ships and harsh weather highlighted both the weaknesses of the old style ships and the benefits of the new. A few years later in 1492 the discovery of the new world by
Columbus
drove the lesson home. The best of his three ships was the new style caravelle 'Nina', which sailed so much faster than his flagship, the older Santa Maria, that she constantly had to wait for the rest of the expedition. Although the Santa Maria was wrecked, Nina returned safely to Spain, through the worst storm in living memory, and crossed the Atlantic several times more. Her design drew on lessons learned from arab dhows, which in turn were inspired by contacts with China over the preceeding several centuries.

In China the development of the Junk had far outstripped that of European ships, and a more aggressive culture with the same advantages could easily have conquered the world. After Genghis Khan conquered China he assembled a huge fleet to invade Japan, but it was destroyed in harbour by a typhoon - and the Mongol hordes were allegedly frightened of nothing except storms! This terrible setback turned his ambitions westward, and extended Chinese influence and technology to the Islamic world, which at the time included southern Spain and Portugal. Everyone else ultimately benefited from this but China had lost the opportunity to become the world's foremost maritime power.
Zheng He
tried again one last time - his fleets of massive ships
⁴
ranged across the world’s oceans long before Columbus was born - but became the victims of conservative politics at home, and the middle kingdom turned it’s back on the sea forever.

The golden age

Nevertheless, three hundred years later, at the start of the nineteenth century, sailing ships were still lumbering unhurriedly along with small cargoes. Ship designs had hardly changed in centuries, and the economics of their operation were simple: Load a nice solid ship with anyone who can be persuaded to go,

⁵

fight with anyone who argues with you when you get to your destination, and when you get back the shortage of supply will guarantee a good return on your investment.

In the first half of the nineteenth century shipbuilders in New England broke with the conservative traditions of Europe, and started building a new type of sailing ship. These were smaller, lighter and of far superior design which enabled them to be faster and more manoeuvrable. Many were outfitted as privateers during the war of 1812 with England, and successfully raided against the enemy - some capturing a ship a day! Backed up with the might of America's new heavy warships, of which the Constitution still survives, they brought about a revolution in the maritime industry.

American sailing ships, the Yankee clippers, developed a lucrative trade carrying premium cargoes at 'express' speeds, which seriously disrupted the comfortable monopolies of the European trading concerns. Anxious to compete, they were forced to buy American-built ships at ruinous cost, which carried tea from China and wool from Australia to markets at home which were expanding rapidly.

Not surprisingly shipyards in Europe, especially Britain, started producing clipper ships and it is this period that is often seen as the golden age of sail. The annual competition to bring tea from China to England in the shortest possible time generated huge public interest, fostered by merchants eager to sell the new product to the mass market. The tea clipper
Cutty Sark
is preserved in London as a last link with those golden days that were overshadowed by dark clouds that were literally massing on the horizon - spelling disaster for sailing ships the world over.

The beginning of the end

In 1871 a French consortium succeeded in building a canal linking the Mediterranean Sea and Indian Oceans at Suez in Egypt. Until this time all cargo along the most lucrative trade route - between India and Britain - had to go around the southern tip of Africa. This route was so long that none of the newly developed steamships could hope to make the trip - and certainly wouldn't have space for any cargo. With the opening of the Suez Canal all this changed. Not only was the new route a lot shorter, it was mostly along a coastline, which meant that the ships could stop to pick up extra coal and therefore carry more cargo.

Suddenly steamships could carry cargoes more quickly, and to a more regular schedule, than the sailing ships. The longer ocean voyages were still beyond the capabilities of ships that needed fuel, but with the new financial incentives to improve designs it wasn't long before the tell-tale smoke-clouds of steamships began to appear all over the world.

Sail ship operators fought back, encouraging the tea-drinking public to believe that their favourite beverage would be ruined by exposure to fumes, and promoting the sailing ship as a relaxed and elegant way to travel. For some years this was moderately successful. The Tea Clippers held their own against steam, delivering their cargoes just as quickly and allegedly in a better condition. Sail continued to provide the motive power for the Australia trade, and other long ocean crossings. The Euterpe, for instance, carried emigrants from England to New Zealand for 21 years after being displaced from the India trade.

The Euterpe (Now
The Star of India
) survives today, along with the SS Great Britain, as a fine example of another quantum leap in shipbuilding- the use of iron and, later, steel. Steel began to be used extensively for ship construction, and sailing ships grew to a size and speed that amazed the old school. The Potosi, nearly 500 feet long, was probably the supreme example of sail technology refined to its limit. While other ships might occasionally make a spectacularly fast crossing, the Potosi consistently delivered large cargoes of nitrates from Chile to Germany at faster average speeds than the steamships it was competing against in the early twentieth century. She also made steady profits for her owners - the
Laiesz Flying ‘P’ line
of Hamburg - until she was sunk by an incompetent steamship driver in the English channel.

The end of an era?

With more ship-owners like Laiesz sailing ships might have continued to compete with steam. But by the start of the twentieth century they were in the minority. Once proud ships now tramped in disrepair from port to port in search of a cargo. Some were reduced to carrying coal to ports where it would be used by their competitors. Others suffered the ultimate ignominy - their masts were cut down and the hulls used as floating coal storage depots for steamships.

By the late 1920s it was all pretty much over for sailing ships in the western world. Small chinese junks still plied their ancient coastal routes. Arab dhows still exploited the reliable monsoon winds of the Indian Ocean as they traded from Madagascar to the Persian Gulf and on to India. But the clippers and big full-rigged ships fell to pieces as they struggled to earn their keep, or gave up and lay mouldering in ports around the world, waiting for inevitable and ignominious ends as targets for navies to practise shooting at. (Or occasionally as shipwrecks in Hollywood movies!)

A few were saved as museum exhibits – the clipper
Cutty Sark and
The Star of India
(formerly the Euterpe) being the most famous - and in more recent times have been the focal point of a resurgence of interest in
the art of sailing a tall ship
. And as interest has grown new ships have been built, both to preserve the traditions of a bygone age and also to investigate the possibilities of using sailing ships again for commercial purposes.

Today

Organisations as diverse as breweries, tourism companies, and large engineering concerns from around the world have built sailing ships as commercial ventures and some of them have been successful. Many governments around the world continue to operate large sail training vessels, which often make 'goodwill' visits to other countries. In addition, there are several 'original' sailing ships still considered active and putting to sea occasionally.

There are currently more active sailing ships, and more under construction, than at any time during the twentieth century. Sailing ships, although still very much a novelty, are still around and look like they will still be around for a very long time. For more information on sailing ships which you can visit, or even sail aboard.