Four masts good? Six masts better!

[Jim Bow]

702AB7AF-A3F6-429B-A2D5-AA1E60FFD6FE.jpg

[Paul Pless]

sunday, monday, tuesday, wednesday, thursday, friday, saturday . .

[JayInOz]

Some gnarly old fingers on the number one sail maker

[heimlaga]

It became generally known at the time that anything larger than a 5master was just too large. The wooden hull became too pliable and everything worked loose and leaked.

The Thomas W Lawson had a steel hull but she was very difficult to manouver. Too large for her type of rig.

[George.]

Not to mention poor performance on anything but a broad reach.

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

Five masts, ship rigged with royals, steel hull and spars, full width deck house with wheelhouse on top, Jarvis brace winches - just about perfect:

[Paul Pless]

Five masts, ship rigged with royals, steel hull and spars, full width deck house with wheelhouse on top, Jarvis brace winches - just about perfect:

i tried to post this pic earlier this morning but was stymied by the forum software
she would've have been amazing to see under full sail

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

Yes, indeed. Actually one can get quite close because there is a cruise ship which uses her sail plan, although it’s not as pretty.

https://www.starclippers.com/en/

There is a good account of her end here:

https://youtu.be/JLFQq4ZHjnM

The Master of the British ferry which collided with her was found alone to blame (this is quite rare on collision cases) had his Master’s certificate cancelled and blew his brains out with a revolver in a pub.

[Paul Pless]

indeed, she has her moments, at the right angle and in the right light
she would be more romantic to me with a dark hull and no painted gun ports
given that, i could almost forget the passenger cabin superstructure

[Paul Pless]

I'm sure you guys have seen the Irving Johnson "around the horn" thing ? whoa. THAT was a ship. Where ya gonna get people to run it nowadays ? Or a captain who knows what he's doing ?

where ya gonna get the people indeed?

[Paul Pless]

the photo that really gets me is of garthsnaid round cape horn





she was later dismasted off one of the australian capes and her wreck converted to that of a coal hulk

[skuthorp]

I read somewhere that the annual crew fatality rate in those big square riggers was 15% PA. (over all that is)

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

I read somewhere that the annual crew fatality rate in those big square riggers was 15% PA. (over all that is)

Some ships more than others: the “Grace Harwar” was a notorious killer, but the “Cutty Sark” only killed two, iirc. They were washed off the jibboom off the Horn in Captain Woodget’s time. He noted that it was the only time he had known her to put the jibboom under.

[Besserwisser]

It became generally known at the time that anything larger than a 5master was just too large. The wooden hull became too pliable and everything worked loose and leaked.

Zheng He's treasure ships had nine masts; seems they went okay.

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[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

Zheng He's treasure ships had nine masts; seems they went okay.

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My friends in China’s shipbuilding industry tell me that a certain amount of grade inflation has taken place in the accounts of the ships used in Zheng He’s voyages.

[Dave Hadfield]

That picture epitomizes for me "square rig, close-hauled".

close-hauled square rig.jpg

[Besserwisser]

My friends in China’s shipbuilding industry tell me that a certain amount of grade inflation has taken place in the accounts of the ships used in Zheng He’s voyages.

They aren't alone, scepticism is rife and with good reason - as I've said a thousand times, humans exaggerate. But perhaps the scepticism is a little cheap and easy too given no-one is going to dig the voyage photo album out of the attic.

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[Besserwisser]

And then there's this to thicken the plot...

Historians were skeptical of accounts describing the size of these ships until, in 1962, workers on the Yangtze riverfront found a buried wooden timber 36 feet long (originally a steering post) beside a massive rudder. It was the right size to have been able to steer a ship of 540 to 600 feet in length, and the right age — dated at 600 years old — to be from one of Zheng He’s ships.

https://www.khanacademy.org/humaniti...ion/a/zheng-he



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[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

The limits on the size of a wooden hull are absolute whether Chinese or European shipbuilding methods are used. Physics is the same everywhere. Seppings’ use of diagonal metal bracing helped a bit, but not much.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Seppings

[George.]

So if it was possible to have 600-foot sailing ships, how come no one else ever used them?

[heimlaga]

The Schooner Wyoming was 350 feet long on deck as the is generally recognized as too long for her wooden construction. She had diagonal straps. The old Chineese ships didn't so they were certainly shorter. Though their tonnage may possibly have been in the same order of magnitude as old time Chineese junks were beamier than the sleek Wyoming.

However I wonder what the history is behind this giant rudder:

-An unknown large ship type (say 200 foot) with a giant rudder surface in proportion to the hull?
-An emperror with megalomania ordering a giant ship for which some parts were made by shipbuilders fully knowing that it would never sail?
-An old fake to show off the greatness of China? "The ship is at sea out of sight but come here and see the her spare rudder".
-A modern day fake to show off the greatness of China?

[Besserwisser]

I've no idea who Sarah Ward is (she does tell us, if that's any guide), but her project might be helpful...if the answers eventually surface.

Seems Sarah is in China, so maybe HR can be our spy.

"If wooden vessels are structurally unsound at this size; are the recorded dimensions of Zheng He’s ships incorrect? If they did exist, how and why, did the Chinese build and operate wooden vessels that were more than 40% longer and 65% wider than the largest wooden ships known elsewhere in the world?

"My new research seeks to address these questions and more. Traditional Chinese ship design and technology, and the evidence for it, will be re-examined to determine structural features unique to Chinese shipbuilding, and redefine the Chinese tradition. Plans of treasure ship will be reconstructed, modelled and hydrodynamically tested in a towing-tank using ship science approach. The results were published in early 2022, so please watch this space."

https://sarahward.org/zheng-he-treasure-ships/

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[George.]

The results were published in early 2022, so please watch this space

It's early 2023. Where are the results?

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

^agreed^

Dalian Maritime University… no need to say more.

That place was turning out yuppies, and not seamen, thirty years ago.

[Peerie Maa]

Years back I was loaned an excellent book on Zhèng Hé’s Treasure Ships drawing on archaeological and ethnographic evidence as well as archive sources suggesting that they went much further than the Indian Ocean.

[heimlaga]

This will probably be a matter of discussion for decades until someone hopefully finds evidence fr either one or the other.

[George.]

Zheng He's fleet, as large as it might have been and as far as it might have gone, seems to have been little more than a top-down stunt. Build some huge ships and go very far just to show how great you are - regardless of whether the ships are really suited for the voyage. You get lucky once and they don't catch a typhoon and sink.

To travel overseas sustainably you need bottom-up technological evolution and freedom to experiment and optimize. That is why in the end it was the Europeans that reached China, and not vice-versa.

[heimlaga]

I have spent an hour reading up a bit on those chineese treasure ships.

The rudder found was assumed to fit a 540-600 feet in lenght by the proportions of rudder are to hull lenght typical for a modern screw motor ship. Serious scientists mostly seem to agree that ancient Chineese ships had a way larger rudder for their hull lenght.
Two of the dry docks in which theese great ships were built still exist though in severely dilapidated condition. The wooden stocks are still there embedded in the mud.

What little fact there is all seems to point towards hull lenghts of 200-250 feet possibly though unlikely in some extreme case (maybe some chineese equivalent of the infamous Great Harry) approaching 300 feet. We are talking about ships the size of an European first rate three decked ship of the line in the early 1800-s. No meagre feat in the early 15th century.

[George.]

Europeans had ships as big as that 1500 years earlier.

[birlinn]

Eh?
Details, please, George.
Seagoing ships only- the Lake Nemo pleasure barges do not count.

[carioca1232001]

Post #32 seconded !

Not long ago on this Forum, there were posters suggesting that Chinese had been plying the sea-route to Europe long before the Europeans.

So why were sea-faring Europeans sighted in India only in the late 15 th century ?

[birlinn]

Some Chinese vessels seem to have reached Kenya.
Fragments of 9th century Chinese pottery have been found, with rather more traces of 13-15th Chinese ceramics.
I seem to remember a giraffe pictured on a Chinese painting of 1414.

[birlinn]

No songs like the old songs.

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

Anybody here have any experience sailing a junk-style hull in the ocean ? I never wanted one because they don't look sleek and pretty but now that I'm older than dirt, they do look comfy for liveaboarding ... how are they in an ocean ? They are okay in quiet waters, done that, but what about waves ?

I have not, but I will point out that one of the things that happened once European and Chinese seafarers had got into regular contact was the development of the lorcha . A lorcha was a European schooner type hull under a two or three masted Chinese sail plan. The lorcha was the everyday coastal trader of the Chinese coast and adjacent waters as far as the Philippines and Vietnam until the compound expansion steam ships displaced them.

I think that may answer the question…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorcha_(boat)

[Peerie Maa]

This is a very long Wiki, going into detail on the ships: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_treasure_ship