NavList:
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Sailing vessel types and rigs
From: George Huxtable
Date: 2001 Nov 27, 4:19 PM
From: George Huxtable
Date: 2001 Nov 27, 4:19 PM
It's clear that several subscribers to this list take an interest in the sailing vessels of past eras. And there always seems to be much confusion about the names of the various types and rigs of sailing vessels. So when I came across a clear and succinct account of that complex topic, in answer to a query sent in to another mailing list (MARHST-L) it seemed worth reposting here for the benefit of NAV-L members. The author, Trevor Kenchington, has agreed to this, so here it is. Dr Kenchington also has an interest in astro-navigation, and I am pleased to note that he has just joined the NAV-L list. So if anyone wishes to comment or respond, they should do so to the list or to the author, but not to me. Here it is- ==================================== Tom Brady asked: > So: what was a "sloop" in 1650, and how was it rigged? To answer that question, it is necessary to explore the processes by which the meanings of words evolve -- or at least the meanings of technical terms in semi-literate communities. The idea that vessel types should be defined by their rigs really only appeared (in English) in the second half of the 19th century. Before then, a lug-rigged boat (for example) might be termed a "lugger" because she had a lug rig but that was her rig, not her type (which might be locally known as a sixern, a coble, a punt or whatever). Working and fighting vessels, then as now, had type names based on their function and the hull form that went along with that function. Hence, there were "whalers", "colliers", "frigates" and so forth. Some rigs were so closely associated with particular function/form types that the name of the type became transferred to the rig. "Cutter rig" was one such that emerged in the 18th century. As late as the very end of working sail in Britain, the spritsail rig used on Thames barges was becoming known as "barge rig" (though the process was never quite finished before diesel too over). It was these terms for rigs that mutated into terms for rig-defined types, such that (after 1850) people began to term a vessel a "cutter" because it was cutter-rigged, even though it did not have the hull or function of a cutter. (I think, but cannot prove, that this change to rig-based definitions began with yachtsmen and never really penetrated the world of working sail.) The obvious exceptions to the above are "brig"/"brigantine" and "schooner". Without delving into the differences between brigs, brigantines and hermaphrodite brigs, all three terms clearly related to rigs from far back in time, yet they were used for the vessels carrying those rigs, just as we would use them as type designators (rather than rig descriptors) today. "Schooner" was likewise used for a type defined by its rig from at least 1750 onwards, though I suspect that it originally (i.e. circa 1720) meant a particular type of vessel, developed on Cape Ann, which had the two-masted fore-and-aft rig. The term was only later (if unusually swiftly) converted into one for any vessel having such a rig, regardless of its hull form or function. It is also important to understand that a fairly small number of type-terms has been employed for a very large number of boat and vessel types. Nor were the terms used at all economically, so that two very similar types might have quite different names, with each of those names being also used for several very different boat types. (For the proof of this, scan through either March's or McKee's books on British inshore craft.) As one result of this complex evolution of nautical terminology, the latter 19th century saw the old term "sloop" applied to both a British warship too small to be commanded by a Post Captain (without consideration of the rig) _and_ to various types of inshore craft in New England which carried single jibs and gaff mains. The latter seem to have passed the term onto any sailing vessel with the jib/mainsail rig while the former led to minesweeping and escort vessels of the 1930s (smaller than destroyers but bigger than the later corvettes) which were eventually eclipsed by frigates. Lest it be supposed that those two forms exhausted the 1850-to-1950 usage of the term "sloop", there were others. The larger class of Brixham sailing trawlers, for example, were locally known in the early decades of the 20th century as "big sloops" even though they were dandy rigged (i.e. were modern yachtsman would call "gaff ketches") and had evolved from an earlier cutter-rigged type. That lengthy introduction is just a complicated way of stating that, before asking what a "sloop" was in 1650, one must first put aside all thought of what the term has meant in the last century or two. In particular, it is not worth asking either _what_ a "sloop" was, since the "sloop" types existed in the plural, nor how they were rigged, since there was no characteristic "sloop rig" for upwards of 200 years after 1650. As a word, "sloop" seems to be an Anglicization of the Dutch term "sloep" which itself shares a common origin with the English "shallop" -- "challupa" as the Spanish called them. Around 1650, all of those terms, and their equivalents in other languages, were applied to assorted rowing/sailing inshore fishing boats in various parts of western Europe. (The 16th-century Basque whaleboats were apparently called "challupas".) These boats would be lateen rigged if Iberian, lug rigged if English but perhaps sprit or even gaff rigged if from northern France or the Netherlands -- maybe with two masts if lug or sprit rigged. However, the term "sloop" seems already to have been applied (by the English) to larger vessels also. Specifically, they used it for some of the Dunkirk privateers -- rakish, undecked vessels somewhat between large boats and small warships, most likely with two- or three-masted square rigs but also with sufficient oars for movement in calm conditions. At a guess, such vessels had evolved from inshore boats (called "sloops", rather than "shallops", since they came from the Netherlands) and carried the Dutch version of the term into English usage. "Sloop" was also used in New England in the mid-17th century and again initially for Dutch vessels large enough to be used in the coasting trade. Whether those had the ship-like rigs of privateering sloops in European waters or the boat-like rigs of their fishing cousins is a matter for speculation alone. The colonies were operating vessels with single-masted gaff rigs in the later 17th century, as is confirmed by many illustrations. There is some evidence from written sources that at least some of those vessels were termed "sloops" before 1700, though it is likely that their owners still thought of them as sloops which happened to have single-masted rigs, rather than as sloops _because_ they had such rigs. To put all of that together, I guess that the short answer to Tom's question is that the term "sloop" had entered the English language by 1650 (though it had not by 1600) but exactly what the vessels it was used for looked like is as clear as mud. Trevor Kenchington -- Trevor J. Kenchington PhD Gadus@iStar.ca Gadus Associates, Office(902) 889-9250 R.R.#1, Musquodoboit Harbour, Fax (902) 889-9251 Nova Scotia B0J 2L0, CANADA Home (902) 889-3555 Science Serving the Fisheries http://home.istar.ca/~gadus