The Santa Maria, the Niña and the Pinta
The Santa Maria, the Niña and the Pinta The most famous ships that ever sailed the seas The Niña, shown in the foreground, was the smallest of the three, but in her Columbus returned to Spain after the Santa Maria was wrecked, and the captain of the Pinta seemed tempted to prove unfaithful.
A Large Egyptian Ship of the 18th Dynasty
The overhanging bow and stern were common on most early Egyptian ships, and the heavy cable, stretched from one end of the hull to the other and supported on two crutches, was used to strengthen these overhanging ends.
On The Banks
To sell the great quantities of fish they dragged up from the Banks or nearer home, foreign markets must needs be found. England and the European countries took but little of this sort of provender, and moreover England, France, Holland, and Portugal had their own fishing fleets on the Banks.
A Peruvian Balsa
These “boats” are really rafts made of reeds.
An Outrigger Canoe
Sometimes these canoes have an outrigger on each side, and sometimes they carry sails.
A 13th-Century English Ship
The Viking influence is still easily traceable in this ship, but the forecastle and the sterncastle have put in their appearance. Also the hull is heavier than and not so sharp as in the earlier Viking ships.
A 16th-Century Dutch Boat
It was on boats of this type that the jib seems first to have been used. To-day in Holland one sees a similar boat, called a schuyl, which is almost identical with this, except that it utilizes a curved gaff at the top of the mainsail.
A Birch-bark Canoe
In many parts of the world savage people have learned to build light frames over which they have stretched the best material available to them. The Indians of North America commonly utilize birch bark.
A Black Ball Packet
Ships of this type carried the transatlantic passengers of the early part of the 19th Century. Because of the demand of the owners of the Black Ball Line and of its competitors, America, where these lines were owned and where their ships were built, developed the designers who ultimately gave the world the clipper ships.
A British East Indiaman
These merchant ships, which sailed from England to the Far East, were almost as much like warships as they were like merchantmen. They were finely built, but they took their time on their voyages out and back.
A Corvette of 1780
This ship shows the new sail plan overcoming the old. The masts carry topsails, topgallantsails, and royals, and what was formerly a lateen sail on the mizzenmast has become a spanker. Furthermore, while the ship carries jibs, she has not yet parted with her spritsails.
A Galleon of the Time of Elizabeth
The extremely high stern and the low bow shown in this drawing are about as extreme as any in use during the period when high bows and low sterns were thought to be good design.
A Greek Trireme
These warships were about 120 feet in length, and the sails and spars were taken down and sent ashore if battle was expected. The oars were operated by slaves.
A Mediterranean Galley
This ship is of the type used long after the Middle Ages. Several men pulled each oar and all the oars were in one bank.
A Phœnician Bireme
Despite the fact that the Phœnicians did more with ships than any other ancient peoples before the Greeks and Romans, little is known of Phœnician ships. They developed the bireme, an oar- and sail-driven ship with two “banks” of oars, and circumnavigated Africa.
A Roman Ship
Although this ship was small the Romans built many that were not surpassed for 1,700 years, and it was not until the 19th Century was well advanced that the larger Roman ships were greatly surpassed in size.
A Viking Ship
These ships were developed by the Norse sea rovers for use in war, and as the seas they sailed were generally rough their ships had to be seaworthy. The result was a type that still leaves its mark. The seaworthy whaleboats of to-day are very similar in shape.
A Whaling Bark
With a lookout at the masthead these ships cruised all over the earth in the first half of the 19th Century.
An African Dugout
In this boat the builders have hollowed out the log but have not otherwise changed it. It is a present-day counterpart of boats known and used long before the dawn of history.
An early 16th-Century Ship
This ship, while similar in many respects to Columbus’s Santa Maria, has made some advances over that famous vessel. The foremast is fitted to carry a topsail in addition to the large foresail shown set in this picture. On ships somewhat later than this one a small spar was sometimes erected perpendicularly at the end of the bowsprit, and a sprit topsail was set above the spritsail which is shown below the bowsprit here.
An Egyptian Boat of the 5th Dynasty
The double mast, shown in this drawing, was in common use in Egypt about 3000 B. C. It is occasionally to be seen on native boats in the Orient to-day.
An Egyptian Ship of the 12th Dynasty
It is possible that ships of this type were able, under ideal conditions, to make a little headway, while under sail, against the wind. It was not for many, many centuries, however, that sailing ships were able definitely to make much headway in that direction.
An Eskimo Kayak
These small canoes are made of a light frame covered with skins.
An Eskimo Umiak
This boat is structurally similar to the kayak except that it has no deck. It is a larger boat, and will carry heavy loads and perhaps as many as a dozen people. It is made by covering a frame with skins.
The Red Jacket
The clipper ship that made the fastest trip across the Atlantic ever made under sail. Her record from Sandy Hook to Rock Light was thirteen days, one hour.
Seating Arrangement of Rowers in a Greek Trireme
While there were other arrangements that were sometimes used, this seems to have been much the most common. The slaves who operated the oars were chained in place, and in case of shipwreck or disaster were usually left to their fate.
The Amaranthe
A British warship of 1654. This ship is an excellent example of the ships that were in use just before the jib began to put in its appearance. The lateen sail on the mizzenmast is similar to the one used on the caravels, but both the rigging and the hull are greatly refined as compared with the ships of the time of Columbus.
A Freighter Tied Up to a Pier
The lines shown running from the ship to the pier are often used in slightly different arrangements, but always it is advisable to run lines diagonally in order that slight movements of the ship away from the pier may be checked gradually and without breaking the lines. Furthermore, this arrangement prevents movement ahead or astern.
A Gloucester Fisherman
Such schooners as this are common in the New England fishing fleets. They are seaworthy and fast, and probably the men who sail them are the greatest seamen of our time.
A Great Lakes Freight Carrier
This type of ship is eliminating the whaleback on the Great Lakes, and is used largely to transport ore and grain.
A Hudson River Steamer
The passenger steamers of the Hudson are large, speedy, and are capable of carrying thousand of excursionists.
A Mail Liner
These ships, while somewhat smaller than the biggest ships and not quite so fast, are perhaps the most popular of passenger ships, for their rates are not so high as those of the great ships, and their accommodations are more or less comparable.
A Map of the Port of Cape Town
Table Bay is open to the force of north and northwest winds. Before the bay could protect ships from the frequent storms blowing from these directions a series of breakwaters had to be built, in the lee of which ships could anchor.
A Map of the Port of Liverpool
While Liverpool is much smaller, so far as mere area is concerned, than New York, it handles about the same amount of freight. Freight ships load and unload in the tidal basins while passenger steamers use floating landing stages.
A Map of the Port of Marseilles
In this case the city grew up practically without a harbour. Finally a breakwater was erected parallel to the shore in order that ships might be protected from the sea.
A Map of the Port of New York
The Lower Bay has not yet been developed, but about the Upper Bay and along the Hudson and East rivers hundreds of piers are in everyday use. While New York is a huge port and while it can continue to grow for many years it has numerous disadvantages, one of the chief of which is the absence of a belt line railroad
A Map of the Port of Rio de Janeiro
Rio Bay is probably the finest in the world, but mountains paralleling the coast form a handicap to the easy transportation of goods inland.
A Mississippi River Stern-wheeler
A Modern Destroyer
This type of ship was originally designed to protect the larger ships from torpedo boats, but now that duty has been eliminated by the elimination of torpedo boats, and destroyers have many uses with the fleets to which they belong.
A Modern Super-dreadnaught
Which carries the heaviest type of guns, and is protected by heavy armour. Its speed is less than that of cruisers.
A Modern Venetian Cargo Boat
This is hardly more than a barge, with a sail plan of a modified form, somewhat suggesting the lateen rig common in the Mediterranean, and something like the lug sails common in French waters.
A New York Harbour Ferry
While these double-ended ships are large, they do not compare in size with the liners. Yet they carry hundreds of thousands of passengers to and fro across the Hudson and the Upper Bay.
A New York Harbour Lighter
Lighters take various forms and perform various tasks. European lighters are more likely to have pointed ends. American lighters very often have square ends. Occasionally they have engines of their own, but generally they depend on tugs for power.
A Reconstruction of One of Caligula’s Galleys
This luxurious ship was built on Lake Nemi, Italy, during the reign of the Emperor Caligula (37-41 A. D.). It sank to the bottom at some unknown period, and has often been examined by divers, for it is still in a fair state of preservation. It is 250 feet long, and its equipment was of the most luxurious kind. Suggestions for its recovery have been made, and it is possible that the lake, which is a small one, may be drained in order to study this old ship and another one that is lying near it.
A Scout Cruiser
This ship is one of the Omaha class, built after the World War for the U. S. Navy.
A Sextant in Use
Sextants are used to measure the elevation of celestial bodies—the sun, moon, or stars—in working problems in latitude and longitude.
A Ship on the Ways
While a ship may look large on the water, she looks gigantic when on land. The great hulls and the collection of scaffolds and machinery in a shipyard are always a source of surprise to the visitor who is unfamiliar with the construction of ships.
A Ship’s Log
The mechanism at the top is fastened on the ship’s rail, and a line with the rotator shown below at its end is allowed to trail in the water astern. The passage of the rotator through the water causes it to turn, the line is twisted, and the log is made to register the miles travelled.
A Steam Frigate—the U. S. S. Hartford
Which was used in the American Civil War by Admiral Farragut.
A Steam Yacht
Unfortunately the type of yacht pictured here is less common than formerly. These are being replaced by yachts with less graceful lines, differing from this in many respects but perhaps most noticeably in having a perpendicular bow and no bowsprit.
A Submarine
A Torpedo Boat
About the time of the Spanish-American War these boats were common in the navies of the world. Now they are eliminated, and their successors are the torpedo-boat destroyers, now called destroyers.
A Tramp Steamer
Perhaps the hardest-working machine ever designed by man, and undoubtedly the most romantic of all steam-driven ships.
A Tug Boat
The bows of these boats are often protected by pads to which much wear often gives an appearance of a tangled beard.
A Turret Steamer
These strange vessels are comparatively rare, and seem to be passing away entirely. The turret steamer falls into almost any category. It is built in order to save money on certain port and canal dues and other taxes, and its appearance is perhaps the weirdest of that of any ship, save, perhaps, the antediluvian whalebacks once so common on the Great Lakes. Below the water line these turret steamers are much the same as other freighters, but from there up they are vastly different. Just above the water line their sides are turned in until they are almost a deck. These “decks” run forward nearly to the bow and aft almost to the stern. But the central portion of the ship from bow to stern is raised ten or a dozen feet above these strange side “decks,” which in reality are not decks at all, but only sections of the sides of these strange hulls.
A Whaleback
A strange type of cargo steamer once common on the American Great Lakes, but gradually disappearing.
An Airplane View of the U. S. S. Langley
An airplane carrier. In order to build the great flying deck the funnel had to be led to the port side, where it projects only slightly above the deck.
An American Coasting Schooner
Square-rigged ships have largely disappeared because, among other things, their crews were large. These schooners, which sometimes have four or five masts, can be handled by small crews and consequently are able to continue to vie with steam.
An American Intermediate Liner
Ships of this type were developed during the World War.
An English Warship of the Time of Henry V
By the time this ship was built hulls had grown considerably in size over what they had been at the time of William the Conqueror, and the era of lavish decoration was well under way. The numerous decks of this ship were not unusual for the time.