Shipping Intelligence
PORT SAN FRANCISCO
TO MASTERS OF VESSELS.--Masters of all vessels arriving at this port will confer a favor upon the proprietors of this paper by preparing, for the Marine Reporter for the ALTA, who will board them on their arrival, a Report of their vessel, cargo, consignees, passengers, vessels spoken, and other matters of general interest. Upon their leaving for any part of the world they will be cheerfully supplied with files of the ALTA, free of charge, on application at the office, Sacramento street, below Montgomery.
Port and Starboard
Ancient ships had their rudders, or steering boards, on the right side of the stern of the ship. This gave rise to the Anglo-Saxon word steorbord, which means "steer side." When ships came into port to load and unload, they were tied up with their left sides closest to the dock to prevent damage to the rudder. Thus, the left side became known as the port side. Port used to be called larboard, from the Middle English ladeborde, which referred to the loading side of a ship.
Barque (Bark, Barquentine, Barkentine)
A barque is square-rigged at fore and main masts, and differs from a ship in having no top, and carrying only fore-and-aft sails at her mizzenmast.
She has at least three masts. All of them are rigged with at least three
square sails each, except for the sternmost one, which is rigged with
fore-and-aft sails.
The wooden three-masted barque was a common sight in the
port of san Francisco in the middle of the 19th century. A look through
Vessels In Port will give quick indication
of how important barques were in California's early development. Until
the fast, elegant clippers and huge steamers began arriving in 1850-1851,
barques, ships and brigs carried huge cargo loads from around the world,
as is exampled by the French barque Maria.
The typical cargo-carrier of the early 20th century was the four-masted
steel barque. The beautiful Japanese ship Kaiwo Maru, pictured left during a trip into San Francisco Bay, is a
four masted-steel barque now used as a training ship for the Japanese Navy.
Interesting to note that her seaman wore bright yellow safety helmuts, but climbed barefoot.
Brig (Brigantine)
A full-rigged brig is square-rigged at both her masts.
Hermaphrodite Brigantine
If a ship has two masts, the foremast square rigged and the main mast
fore-and-aft rigged, it can be called a hermaphrodite brig or a brigantine.
Calling it a brigantine is a bit wrong, because the true brigantine should
also have square sails on her main topmast. The brigantine must not, however,
have a main course, because then it is called a brig and does not belong
to the family of schooners since its main sail is not a fore-and-aft sail.
Clippers
Clipper ships, which were not of a specific design, ranged in size from
a few hundred tons to over 4000. Between one and four hundred were built,
depending on which ones you want to count as clipper ships.
Until 1845, cargo was transported in the world's oceans in slow, high-capacity
merchant ships: barques, brigs, and ships. When San Francisco opened up
to the world in the late 1840s, even before the Gold Rush, a booming economy
ensued and with it a taste for exotics, such as Chinese tea. Shipping
rates rose from $10 to $60 a ton. Suddenly it was profitable to build
and operate ships that looked less like cargo carriers and more like racing
vessels. Flying Cloud (pictured here and borrowed from a children's
book), raced the Hornet from
New York to San Francisco. The word "clipper ship" came from the fast
little Baltimore Clipper, dating back to the War of 1812. The biggest
of these, the Ann McKim,
weighed less than 500 tons. But in 1843 it got from New York to Canton,
China, and back with a load of tea in only 92 days. The Eastern seaboard
ship designers began building clippers as fast as they could, and for
ten years, the tall, elegant clippers ruled the high seas. They reached
14 knots and raced each other from port to port, sometimes with no more
than a new suit of clothing as the prize.
Dhou
Arabs had known since ancient times that they could rely on prevailing winds for long voyages beyond sight of land. The Portuguese were surprised to hear this, for they did not relish the idea of going to sea in an Arabian dhow.
It was a natural misapprehension. The Europeans did not understand the merits of the dhow as an oceangoing vessel—merits as distinct as those of their own larger ships.
The Portuguese had constructed their fleet expressly for the circumnavigation of Africa. Similarly, the Arabs had built theirs for use in the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea. They needed craft small enough to be light and maneuverable. The answer to their specific problem was the dhow. Usually constructed of coconut wood or teak, the hardest and most durable timber, the dhow was entirely seaworthy amid the comparatively mild waves of the Indian Ocean.
Its light bulk allowed it to travel with speed so that it could scud out of the path of threatening weather. Its triangular lateen sail was adapted to catch the slightest breeze and lend the ship maneuverability in treacherous coastal waters. The planks of the dhow were stitched rather than nailed, because nails were not common in Arabia.
Islamic shipwrights ingeniously fastened the planks to one another, and to the keel and ribs, with twisted cord. They caulked the hull with a heavy coat of mixed whale oil and pitch and rendered the vessel sufficiently watertight to keep the hold dry. Even perishable goods could be transported safely. The worth of the dhow is proved by its longevity. In addition, the Arabs knew how to get full value out of their ships. They were true scientists of the sea, experienced in navigation, meteorology and geography, adept at taking advantage of good sailing conditions on a regular seasonal schedule. Their dhows were not usually subjected to the oceanic battering that so often damaged the ships of less skillful navigators, those, for instance, who did not realize when the monsoon was about to change. Arab dhows held a maximum cargo of around 30 tons, then a fleet of 100 dhows could have transported the entire harvest up the Red Sea in early days. If the 3000 tons refers to the combined harvest then 50 dhows could have moved each harvest. If huge Roman merchant ships were involved, (500 tons each) then the entire harvest could have been moved with six huge grain transport ships.
European crews may have paled at the thought of sailing to India in a dhow, but Ahmad ibn Majid did not. He regaled his new acquaintances with sagas of the sea as the Arabs had seen it from the rails of their ships—as he himself had seen it. Islamic naval tradition extended to their home waters. Arab warships had coursed the Mediterranean Sea, and one Arab admiral, Tariq ibn Ziyad, had given his name to Gibraltar. The Rock was originally known as Jebel Tariq (meaning "Mount of Tariq") and later was corrupted by usage into Gibraltar. Another Arab admiral, Asad ibn al-Furat, had landed invading armies on Sicily and even on the Italian mainland at the Po River. But most of all, Ahmad ibn Majid spoke of the Arab conquest of the Indian Ocean. He mentioned the triad of sailors who had pointed the prows of their ships out of the Persian Gulf in the tenth century and helped to blaze the shoreline route to the Indus River: Muhammad ibn Shad-han, Layth ibn Kahlan and Sahl ibn Aban. He referred to bold sea captains who had braved the Indian Ocean along the shortest path to Calicut in Hindustan and then turned author to recount their experiences in writing: Al-Maqdisi, Al-Marwazi—and Ahmad ibn Majid. Apprentices of the trade studied everything from star patterns over the Indian Ocean to dockside conditions at Calicut. Ibn Majid remarked: "Did you know that we sail beyond Ceylon to China? I myself have made the trip many times, and perhaps I may without immodesty note that I have written a couple of books about it. But our longest tradition of distant voyages links us with the land of the tiger and the elephant."
Ibn Majid read The Wonders of India by Buzurg ibn Shahriyar. It was good advice for the book abounds in dramatic voyages to the subcontinent, in storms and shipwrecks along the way, in the salty lore of the sea. Some critics believe that Ibn Shahriyar may have influenced the anonymous literary genius who first spun the tales of Sinbad the Sailor.
Early in their history, the Arabs living on the littoral of the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea had learned that they could make a profit by hazarding their lives on the deep waters beyond their shores. Seafaring families grew rich from transoceanic commerce. Splendid emporiums arose wherever trading ships came to dock—Aden, Zanzibar, Madagascar. The dhows carried incense, gold, pearls, glass and ornaments of every variety. They returned with their holds full of perfume, spices, silk, cotton cloth, diamonds and teakwood. There was also a brisk exchange of animals—leopards for peacocks, and such.
Ship
A full-rigged ship is square-rigged throughout: She has three masts with
tops, and carries at least three square sails on all three masts. Most
also have a small gaff sail on the sternmost mast. Even though most people
refer to any large vessel as a "ship," strictly speaking only full-rigged
ships are ships.
Illustration and text from The Young Sea
Officer's Sheet Anchor: Or a Key to the Leading of Rigging and to
Practical Seamanship, Darcy Lever, Dover Press, 1998.
"The Names of the Sails are derived from the Masts to which
they are attached; thus the Foresail is named from the Foremast,
the Mainsail from the Main Mast, the Main Topsail from the Main
Top Mast, &c."
(b) The Fore Topsail
(c) The Fore Top-gallant Sail
(d) The Fore Top-gallant Royal
(e) The Fore Studding Sail
(f) The Fore Topmast Studding Sail
(g) The Fore Top gallant Studding Sail
(h) The Mainsail
(i) The Main Topsail
(k) The Main Top-gallant Sail
(l) The Main Top-gallant Royal
(m) The Main Topmast Studding Sail
(n) The Main Top-gallant Studding Sail
(o) The Mizen Topsail
(p) The Mizen Top-gallant Sail
(q) The Mizen Top-gallant Royal
(r) The Spritsail
(s) The Spritsail Topsail
The Fore Topmast Staysail
The Fore Staysail
The Main Staysail
The Main Topmast Staysail
The Middle Staysail
The Main Top-gallant Staysail
The Mizen Staysail
The Mizen Topmast Sail
The Mizen Top-gallant Staysail
The Driver or Spanker and the Mizen brailed up
Sloop
A sloop has one mast, fore-and-aft rigged.
Topsail Schooner
Schooners are a family of ships and must have at least a foremast and a mainmast. Schooners are the vessels most commonly used today by recreational sailors and are seen at any given time on San Francisco Bay.
A topsail schooner has no tops at her foremast, and is fore-and-aft rigged
at her mainmast. She differs from a hermaphrodite brig in that she is
not properly square-rigged at her foremast, having no top, and carrying
a fore-and-aft foresaill instead of a square foresail and a spencer. The
San Francisco National Maritime Museum's 80-foot Alma, built on the shores
of San Francisco Bay in 1891 is a scow schooner: a wide, flat sailing
boat with gaff-rigged sails. At the turn of the century, scow schooners
moved the kind of heavy cargo that trucks carry today. They criss-crossed
the Bay and sailed up into the Delta delivering hay, salt and bricks.
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