Wind ships create their own demise
January 4th 2007 19:06
Square rigged
In their day, square-rigged ships were the most technologically advanced forms of transport on the planet. Not only were they fast, recording speeds of over twenty-four knots on regular runs, but also they were energy efficient. Travelling around the globe, using only the power of the wind and that being harnessed by the muscles of men fed on salt "horse" and hard biscuit, they could actually run to a fairly accurate timetable. Carrying cargo, passengers and explorers as well as huge guns as an aid to warfare, they plied the seven seas for centuries, improving with almost every new ship built.
If they were so efficient and so fast why did they go into mothballs? The advent of the steam ship driven by coal was the start of the rot. At first steam ships were half sail half steam. They used the efficiency of sail when possible but then when the wind was against them they used steam. For every ton of cargo they had to carry a ton of coal. Not too efficient! However if they could refuel in ports say on the way to Australia or the West Coast of America then they were in with a chance.
Shipping companies started building their super tankers of the day. Huge iron built square-rigged ships over two hundred and fifty feet long with bowsprits extending another fifty feet. Masts scraping the sky at over one hundred and sixty five feet from the deck. Main booms eighty feet in width weighing over four tons. Fully loaded with three thousand ton of high quality Welsh coal it had a combined weight of over four thousand-ton. When unloaded they would have to take on ballast just to move off the wharf, else they would topple over with the massive masts and booms they carried.
So now the wind ships carried fuel for the steam ships. This fuel was stockpiled in major ports all over the world. Many people were to become very rich with these fuel depots. But you don't become rich without foresight. Imagine the thinking and risk involved to decide to stock pile so much fuel around the planet. Just financing the purchase of the coal, the distribution and storage in foreign ports. Then hoping that shipping companies would beat a path to your door.
Of course as the technology improved to build the square-riggers, so it was also used to improve their opposition. Steam ships became more efficient and less reliant on sail but wind-powered ships sailing the same direction as steam powered ships were still faster!
Today technology is looking at turning the circle. Huge tankers are being fitted with experimental kites to harness the power of the wind. There is some success with this and the same ships are using the currents of the world, discovered and mapped by wind ship skippers to assist their giant hulls to move through the water with a modicum of efficiency.
The days of the square-rigged behemoths is over. They created their own demise by carrying the very fuel that their replacements could not. All that is left is the romance of these ships and some few memories of sailors sitting in nursing homes dribbling gruel down their chins. "Romance! Bah, it was hard work for hard men. Cold, wet, hungry, scurvy even into the early twentieth century, frozen on one sea and boiled on another."
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Comment by katyzzz
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Great history story, well told.
Those vessels will never lose their visual appeal even though they have lived out their usefulness as cargo vessels.
Good picture, great story.
katyzzz