"Windward Performance of Sailing Warships" Topic

For anyone not familiar with the work of Sam Willis …..

Go here – PDF link

B

Somewhat of a prat who rails against the jargon of a specialized field he wishes to study. Seriously? That's what you DO as a historian, you learn the terms for the field you are in. While the bulk of the article was interesting, his diatribes at start and finish were poorly done.

But I am biased… I studied Japanese history (with all its particular and specific language) and then Nautical history/archaeology (with their own hosts of terms). And I've seen the jargon in all the other fields of history I studied along the way. So I have no sympathy for a er who says it should be bouiled down to pablum for writers outside the field to understand. NO! Suck it up and do your homework, outside writers!

Thanks for sharing this Blutarski -- it's excellent. I especially appreciate his care to separate modern from AOS connotations of terms like "tack." Our familiarity with fore-aft rigs distances us from the AOS warship's experience.

Sergeant Paper –
I did not see Willis railing against the period jargon. Rather, I saw him clarifying its nuance for the layperson. To the uninitiated, the phrase "two points from the wind" would inevitably be very misleading. The Age of Sail has a vast body of archaic terms and phrases unknown and indecipherable to a casual modern reader.

Cursd Captain -
I agree fully. Tacking a large sailing ship of the line was by no means a trivial exercise.

B

Thanks, Blutarski – very interesting reading and I see nothing that deserved the vehemance of the first response.

Sam Willis is not an 'outside writer' – given the date of the article it is admittedly early in his career but anyone with an interest in our subject will have come across his later books.

… and having met him face to face, he is a really nice chap !

The references to Harland/Myers "Seamanship in the Age of Sail" to understand the complexities of shiphandling only further recommend that excellent book too.

Those sets of rules that make you roll to complete a tack rather than blithely assume you are going to succeed exactly how you plan it every time are absolutely correct, if exasperating when it all goes wrong !

Best wishes,

Mark Barker

Hi Mark,

You and I are obviously kindred AoS spirits.

I fully agree that tacking must be treated on the wargame tabletop as a lengthy and, to a degree, uncertain maneuver. In the movement mechanics of my own rules, there is always a risk of missing stays and then potentially going into irons, and, even if a tack is perfectly executed under ideal conditions, it will consume 5 turns (about 5-10 minutes time equivalent). Players whose exposure to AoS gaming originates from other rule systems often question me on the point. I first cite Boudriot, who quoted an average of 10-15 minutes for a French SoL of the AMR period to execute a tack; then I refer them to Harland to gain an appreciation of the true complexity of the maneuver. The hardest AoS gamers to convince are the ones who have done a bit of sailing in a dinghy or some such on nice sunny summer days; they think tacking is as simple as putting the rudder down and swinging the boom over. Grrrrrrrr!

Another problem (and please forgive me in advance for what follows – no offence intended) is that, according to the old Victorian triumphalist school of British naval history, no British man of war ever missed stays or went into irons ….. which creates a very misleading sensibility among modern readers.

….. and I myself would very much like to meet Mr Willis in order to thank him for the valuable contributions he has made to the study of one of my favorite historical topics.

VBRgds / B

Sam Willis has sailed in square rigged ships as well as studied the period using primary sources in most of his works, so I think he knows his business.

Just finished his book on the Glorious First of June, It is the best book I have read on the challenges of fighting a fleet action in the age of sail, and I have read a lot of them.

A good historian can take antiquated sources and put them together so a modern reader like myself can understand, and then references the period sources to back it up. Sam is a master at this.

Harland's book was just republished last year and does the same service to me. Clear text on a lost art so that I can understand. I have copies of some period works like Steele' s and Levery, but Harland serves just fine. Anyone wanting to know how a square rigged ship works only needs this book. It may not be available again as Harland is getting on in years and not many are interested in this stuff anymore.

Sam was nice enough to credit me in the preface to that book, and far more generously than my contribution deserved.

He is meticulous not only in giving his sources (as shown in the article itself) but also those people he consults, whether they are historians or not.

Would that all naval historians were so open …

Mark

Some are. Steve McLaughlin and John Brooks for example.

B

I used to be acquainted with an ex- US Coast Guard guy who had trained on the Eagle and later served as the ad hoc sailing master of the Frigate Rose during the time it was operating out of Bridgeport CT on vacation adventure cruises. He had some interesting things to say about the ins and outs of tacking a ship – not enough wind was a problem, too much wind was a problem, a big swell was a problem, a clumsy crew was a problem, bad timing/coordination was a problem.

B

The Eagle sail training manual is a fascinating read.

It all seems to come down to numbers of people and practice, practice, practice.

Mark

Charles W Morgan tacking. The swing through the wind took about 3 to 5 minutes. She is bluff bowed and an 1840 design. There are other videos on this. This appears the most complete. I believe she is close to Cape Cod in ideal sailing weather.

YouTube link

dantheman – Thank you very much for that youtube link, which I had not seen before. Very interesting indeed.

A couple of observations -

> As you noted, the video clips appear to show only the (key) midpoint of the tacking maneuver where the ship passes her head through the eye of the wind; the masthead flags are a telltale here, showing the wind direction relative to the ship. The initial turn up into the wind and the later falling off of the ship onto the new tack to fill her sails and resume forward movement were omitted – probably for the sake of brevity.

> The CWM is rigged as a three-masted bark (mizzen carrying fore & aft sails only), as opposed to a fully square-rigged three-masted ship. Details, I know.

> Go here -
link
- for a map of her 2014 cruise.

> Wherever the tacking was filmed, I agree that conditions were excellent: smooth sea, no swell and, judging from the afore-mentioned masthead flags, a nice breeze.

It is IMO just a miracle that this ship has survived and been able to put to sea again 170+ years after her launch. Once again, thanks for sharing.

B

This is a fascinating thread, especially as I think about future revisions to my sailing rules.

How do we think the tack would be different if Charles W. Morgan indeed carried a third square-sailed mast, assuming it was turned just as quickly? My guess is that it would be slower against the wind, but faster paying off or backing astern, away from the wind.

Another key historical variable that matters here are the jib sails, which were seldom used on large ships before the 18th century, as far as I could tell. These are helping CWM turn her bow -- and the wheel, also circa 1700, is turning her rudder better than a whipstaff would have. I haven't seen any footage of a restored pre-1700 ship tacking.

here though is attractive footage of the San Salvador, which was cruising off California (where I live) last month.

YouTube link

Cursd – Nice video of San Salvador starting a wear.

Re CWM – I don't disagree with your assessment of the difference in tacking between bark and square-rigged ship. Once the ship gets pointed into the eye of the wind, it is her headsails (those of her foremast + jib(s) that do the work of pushing her head over toward the opposite tack. During the time taken for the bow to fall off onto the new tack, the square sails of the main and mizzen masts start in the wind shadow of the foremast's sails and are then either slightly backed or "ashiver" (unable to draw wind for forward propulsion) until the ship is once again pointed at least 6 points from the compass source of the wind. To the extent that I understand the mechanics of the tacking maneuver, I do not see a bark rig posing a disadvantage.

B