Page 350 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol IV

sailing ships 1651

(a galley with three banks of oars, a sail, and a large bat- these vessels exhibit shell-first construction, rather than
tering ram on the bow just at the waterline), which could frame-first construction, which would become the stan-
damage and sink enemy ships. The trireme had a single dard during the high Middle Ages.
mast and sails that were square rigged, but during battle Byzantine ships continued Greco-Roman building
rowers were used for maneuverability and control. The practices, including mortise-and-tenon joinery of the
Greeks used the trireme at the Battle of Salamis in the planks, as evidenced by the Yassi Ada shipwreck of the
Saronic Gulf in 480 BCE, when the Athenians defeated a seventh century CE, excavated by George Bass in the
larger Persian fleet and won the Persian Wars. 1960s. The earliest known clinker boat, the Nydam
Researchers have found Roman merchant ships in boat (310–320 CE), is of northern European origin and
abundance in the Mediterranean and Black Seas; more is about 23 meters long with a double-ended hull, a fea-
than four hundred wrecks have been identified. Roman ture that the Roman historian Tacitus mentioned as
merchant ships relied exclusively on sail power and were characteristic of Scandinavian boats in the late first cen-
used to transport all manner of goods, including wine, tury CE. These early Scandinavian boats were rowed
olive oil, marble, and grain. The majority of merchant rather than sailed; sails were not introduced in Scandi-
ships were single or double masted, with square sails, navia until around the seventh century CE. With the
and sometimes a triangular topsail on the main mast.The introduction of the sail the true Viking age began; Scan-
second mast, in front of the main mast, was rigged with dinavian sailors traveled throughout the North Sea and
a smaller steering sail called the “artemon.” These were Baltic Sea and eventually ventured as far as North Amer-
medium-sized ships that could haul a cargo of around ica and the Black Sea.The Norman invasion of England
300 metric tons. Most impressive in the Roman mer- in 1066 CE, long after the Viking raids had ceased, was
chant fleet of the first and second centuries CE were the carried out using longboats (large oared boats) in the
navis oneraria (transport ships) that carried grain from Scandinavian style.
Egypt and north Africa to the Roman port of Ostia, Beginning during the twelfth century in the northern
sometimes 1,200 metric tons in a single voyage. European towns of the Hanseatic League (a league orig-
The earliest northern European planked boats date inally constituted of merchants of free German cities), a
from 1217–715 BCE.They were relatively small river craft, new kind of sailing vessel was created. The cog was a
about 14 meters long, called “Ferriby” and “Brigg” round merchant vessel with high sides, built for
boats. They were discovered in the Humber hauling cargo. Cogs included high structures
River in Yorkshire, England, and have a called “castles” both fore and aft to
complex sewn-plank joinery.The ear- house archers or gunners to help
liest Asian evidence of planked protect the ships from raiders. Sin-
construction dates to 50 BCE.The gle masted, square rigged, with a
Hjortspring boat, discovered in a large centerline rudder in the
peat bog in Denmark, dates to stern, cogs required only a small
300 BCE and is constructed of crew to handle. By the twelfth cen-
plank with lashings holding the tury inexpensive, machine-sawn
boat together and overlapping planks, made possible by the
strakes (continuous bands of hull hydraulic sawmill, replaced split
planking or plates on a ship). wood planks, and large ships that
Experts think this boat was a fore- A sailing ship in the style used took advantage of this plentiful
runner of the clinker (overlapping by fifteenth-century European supply of planks appeared. Larger
plank) Scandinavian craft. All of explorers. cogs were built with more masts,