1. History of Ship Design
Or, Special Designs of Different Styles ofWooden Vessels
Kathryn Haenn
December 12, 2012
HC331: Sailing on a Sea of Songs
Final Paper

2. HAENN - 1
Sea Songs and Ships
“A hundred years is a very long time! O, yes, O! A hundred years is a very long time, a
hundred years, a-go.”1
As the song lyrics proclaim, a century is a long time. Yet the history of
the maritime industry has endured for several centuries primarily through the verbal tradition of
sea songs. Between the sea songs passed from master to apprentice and seamen’s journals, the
history of the sea has been passed down from sailor to sailor for longer than there is written
records. "The history of both ships and sea power is older than written records, some of the great
maritime nations of the ancient world being known to us only through the records of a later
period." 2
The age of sail may be over but the lessons we learned from building wooden ships
persist on in our modern building culture.
In the Golden Age of sail, there were many different styles of ships built all over the
world, and each had a different hull shape, design, and purpose that it was designed for. Several
examples of specialties of the day include the standard tall ships of the merchant variety, whaling
ships, and naval vessels to wage war against the pirates of the seas. Each variety of vessels
presented has several common aspects to a theoretical generic ship model, but each has several
components of its construction that are due to the specific occupation of the vessel in question.
With all vessel types in all of history, there is no such thing as a general ship, or a generic
body construction. All vessels have several key items that tie them together as ‘vessels’, to
including a watertight hull to carry personnel, a mode of propulsion, and a method of steering.
From these points, however, ships vary into categories, most broadly regarding the mode of
1
(Whall 1927)
2
(Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute 1952)

3. HAENN - 2
propulsion. There were three primary modes of propulsion in the 1800s, steam ships powered by
boilers, large sail ships, and human powered vessels, rowed by the crew. The mode of
propulsion employed by a vessel and her mission also dictated the shape the hull was going to
take as it was built, a characteristic that is very important in the ships’ performance on the water.
Hull shape of a vessel was primarily dictated by the mission of the vessel. A merchant
ship was a sail vessel with flat bottom and a wide beam, allowing for a large amount of storage
room and stability, perfect for a merchant vessel crossing the sea in search of trade goods.
Merchantmen were not, however, well suited for out maneuvering pirates, as they were ‘about as
maneuverable as half a watermelon afloat’3
. The round hull pushed the waves as opposed to
cutting through them. These maneuverability problems were exactly the provocation required to
lead ship builders in North America to design and build the different Clipper ships.
Clipper ships, like so many other facets of early American life in New England, were
fashioned after the cod fish. They had sharp lines that streamlined down beneath the waterline,
and leaned in to form a V shape at the bow to cut through the waves. With a thin deep keel for
stability, they had very little water resistance which allowed the vessels to be very good at their
primary mission – getting around on the sea and
darting around other vessels. Clipper ships were
America’s answer to British blockades after the
Revolutionary War. Possibly the best known
clipper ship, and certainly the fastest known to
official, properly authenticated records go, is the
“Flying Cloud”. Built in 1851 in East Boston by
3
(Wilbur 1986)

4. HAENN - 3
Donald M’Kay, she is credited with such remarkable passages as having traveled from New
York to San Francisco in eighty four days.4
“The Flying Cloud”
"The Flying Cloud was a Yankee ship of five hundred tons or more;
She could outsail any clipper ship hailing from Baltimore.
With her canvas white as the driven snow, and on it there's no specks.
And forty men and fourteen guns she carried on her decks."
"It's oft I've seen that gallant ship, with the wind abaft her beam,
With her royals and her stunsails set, a sight for to be seen,
And with the curling wave from her clipper bow, a sailor's joy to feel,
And the canvas taut in the whistling breeze, logging fourteen off the reel."5
While the clipper ships ranged across the sea, going far and wide trading goods and
outrunning the British and the pirates, whaling ships traveled the seas for months and months and
sometime many years at a time. British whaling ships sailed forth to hunt for the whales, but old
Scottish whalemen searched for the “whalefish”, and Dutch and German hunters went for
“walfisch”.6
Regardless of what the crew called their quarry, whaling ships were generally fast
vessels, but to hunt the whale, they needed small, portable boats they could lower over the side to
chase the whale in.
“The Whale”
"Overhaul, overhaul, on your davit tackle fall,
And launch your boats to the sea" - brave boys,
4
(Ashley 1926)
5
(Sanfillippo 2012)
6
(Ashley 1926)

5. HAENN - 4
And launch your boats to the sea.7
Over time, there were many variations on the style of whale
boat; some had movable keels, though many had centerboards. The
majority of vessels had a sail of some kind, such as a loose-footed gaff
sail, or a club footed jib8
. For the crew of the whaleboat, however, the
hard work was in the rowing of the vessel. Though they sometimes had
help in the style of the boat, such as a hull that rounded suddenly for a
short section amidships to a depth of about four inches, which acted as
a pivot point for the vessel,9
rowing a whaleboat was hard work. The
rowers had many difficulties, as described in song lyrics such as “Paddles and Oars contend with
the spray”10
. "Now peak your oars a while"11
would have been a command that would have
allowed the rowers to take a break by settling their oars up and out of the way, waiting for the
whale to breach again. At the end of the day, however, the ship’s crews knew they were out to
sea with the real intent of catching whales to make a profit so they could return home rich men.
While few whalers ever made much money, a good crew was able to catch enough
whales to make a profit. Sometimes, luck was not on the side of the crew, and the vessel had to
return to port with little or no profit, but occasionally, a vessel would strike whale gold, such as
the tale of the ship the “Two Brothers” of New Bedford which went out to the Crozettes in 1840
and took twenty-two hundred barrels of whale-oil in only eight months.12
Such a profit could
7
(Whall 1927)
8
(Ashley 1926)
9
(Ashley 1926)
10
(Huntington 2005)
11
(Huntington 2005)
12
(Ashley 1926)

6. HAENN - 5
only come when the stars align for a Captain and he has both good luck with the whales and a
skilled and trained crew.
“The Bark Gay Head”
"We'll cheer my noble hearties
For the larboard boat and crew
Mr. Hazzard's their boat leader
He's a gentleman good and true
There's Hussy John and Taylor Dick
And a boatsteerer named Couch
And when they lower in their boat
The know what they're about"
The venture of whaling was both dangerous and cruel, dealing with large whales that
could easily demolish a boat and kill the men inside, as in the story of “The Whale”, or a whale
could tow a boat for many miles as it died, dragging the whaleboat behind it, attached to the
harpoons.
“The Whale”
"Now the boats were launched and the men a-board,
with the whalefish full inview;
Resol-ved were the whole boat's crews,
To steer where the whalefish blew - brave boys,
To steer where the whalefish blew."
"And when we reached that whale, my boys, He lashed out with his tail,
And we lost a boat, and seven good men,
And we never caught that whale - brave boys,

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And we never caught that whale."13
A good captain, however, was skilled at motivating his crew, and a good boatswain was
often a key part of that, as the man in charge of the whaleboat as it lowered, but also the
disciplinarian of the ship. If the crew respected the knowledge of the boatswain the vessel was
more likely to be productive and the men were more likely to jump right up to do their job if they
were motivated properly.
“The Wounded Whale (Dartmouth 1836)”
“Row hearties row for the pride of your nation
Spring to your oars let the raging sweat flow
And now for the blood let is have circulation
Foreward on your thwarts give way all you
know"14
“The Wounded Whale (Uncas 1843)”
"See how the boats advance gaily as to a dance
Floating like shadows across the blue sea strand
Up and give him some send both your irons home
Safely stern all trip the boat all clear he's
wounded
Wounded and sore fins and flukes in commotion,
Blackskin and oars contending in the spray"15
While, in many ways, life on a whale ship could be pleasant and unpleasant in turns, at
least while on land they were able to mildly joke about their situations, or at least let the
13
(Whall 1927)
14
(Huntington 2005)
15
(Huntington 2005)

8. HAENN - 7
minstrels tell a tall tale about the lives they led. The irony of the tales is that the whale ships had
to be very sturdy to be able to do the job she did – especially on Arctic Whalers.
“The Old Hulk”
"When age has rendered some old hulk
Unfit for merchant use
She's sold at auction bought in bulk
Just for a whaling cruise"
"Down go the boats he first who can
On for the prize we dash
The hunt is up and every man
Bends to the buckling ash"16
As difficult as life on a whaling ship could be, life on a Naval Vessel in the 1800’s was
more frequently unpleasant than pleasant. While this can be attributed primarily to the mission of
seeking out enemy vessels and trying to sink them, naval vessels were rarely built for the
comfort of the crew, and often in those times there were men on board the British ships that had
been pressed into unwilling service of their country. The primary specialty of naval vessels,
however, was their reinforced hull and sides to help with protection against cannon shot and the
stress of firing cannons. Reinforcements however did not mean that the hull itself was rigid. In
fact, many of the frame built wooden ships shared a common weakness at the beginning of the
nineteenth century: lack of rigidity in the sides, allowing
the hull to flex, resulting in weakening the caulking and
leading to rot in the timbers.17
The practical solution to
this problem was introduced by an English man named
16
(Huntington 2005)
17
(Press 2007)

9. HAENN - 8
Robert Seppings. His design added diagonal stiffeners to make the ship more rigid. Made first of
timber, then of iron, the stiffeners added extra size and weight to the vessels, making them larger
and heavier, but better able to withstand a hull hit by cannon shot.18
Masts and other deck side
accruements were not as lucky however, and were still very vulnerable to being hit by grape shot
and cannon shot.
“The Warlike Seaman”
"The first broadside we gave to them which made them for to wonder,
Their main-mast and their rigging came a-rattling down like thunder,
We drove them from their quarter they could no longer stay,
Our guns did roar, we made so sure, we showed them British play."19
“The United States and Macedonian”
"Now chain-shot, grape and langrage pierce through her oaken sides,"
"Our enemy lost her mizzen, her main and fore-top-mast,"
The damages done to ships could be fairly extensive until such a point at which the vessel
would sink beneath the waves forever. This was a common fate of many ships during the 1800s,
as wars raged across the seas and pirates and privateers abounded, looking for treasure to make a
profit.
“The Nightingale”
"Our ship she may in Biscay bay be sunk beneath the tide.
If I should fall by a cannonball, or sink beneath the sea,"
As shown above, each type of ship had its specialties and pieces that made it unique as a
class and better able to perform the job it is designed for. Presumably a simpler solution would
18
(Press 2007)
19
(Sanfillippo 2012)

10. HAENN - 9
be to add many of these features to ships across the board to maximize ship capability. While a
good concept, such a sweeping reform would not suit many ship types. Whaling boats in a
simple stripped down version would be highly beneficial in any shipping situation as a life boat
capable of carrying the crew in the event that their ship was sunk, but the extra plating on a naval
ship would only serve to slow down and compromise a whaler’s ability to carry whale product
back to port. For these reasons and more, wooden hull vessels have become specialized to their
billets and abilities.
The specialty designs created for wooden hull vessels have served naval architects well
into the modern ship building days. The multitude of hull variants created over the years give the
designers an excellent baseline from which to try new hull forms. The Hawksnest style of half
hull modeling20
also allowed architects to create full hull models for testing in wave tanks – an
ability that was not around in the 1800s. While sailing ships built in the modern day are not made
from wood, but rather composite materials, many of the new styles have very obvious roots in
the sailing vessels of days gone by.
20
(Wilbur 1986)

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As a student of naval architecture and marine engineering, the knowledge of the life and
times of the sea farers that preceded my generation is very interesting. Having their knowledge
and even more general knowledge of how they lived and sailed is highly beneficial to making
decisions in the future. In our history as an industry we can find the path to the future through the
mis-actions of our predecessors. We can learn from their mistakes, especially concerning hull
designs and building materials, to make better educated decisions about the vessels we seek to
build. Students seeking deck licenses can learn variations on ways of how to run a vessel to
motivate your crew. Over all, learning the sea shanties, songs, and ditties has given my approach
to the industry a better knowledge of the historical culture and opened my eyes on the
importance of every man on the crew, from the wipers to the food handlers and the Captain.
In summary, the history of the shipping industry is rife with interesting knowledge and
songs that would interest anyone who might care to listen. Wooden ships are the past of the
shipping industry, and the information gleamed from them is our present and our future.

12. HAENN - 11
"The MAN-of-WAR's GARLAND”
"Come all ye valiant seamen, and each jolly tar,
And let us try our fortune on board a man-of-war;"
"We make our trumpets sound, boys, our colours we do hoise;
We make our great guns rattle in the taking of a prize.
We make our great guns rattle, and the smoke it turns to air;
We boldly face our enemies on board a man-of-war."21
21
(Sanfillippo 2012)

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