[Sca-cooks] OT-knots and medieval boats

[Jeff.Gedney at Dictaphone.com]

> Oh, please do! I have this set of similar articles, but these are hardly
> comprehensive and different viewpoints are always useful.

You got it.
When I finish it, I'll post it along. I will have it in MS Word format, for
printing, but would you prefer for me to send it as plain text, HTML, or
what?

> Seakeeping-p1-art (84K)  8/20/98    "Seakeeping", by Dom. Pedro de
Alcazar.
>                                        English naval power, 1450-1480. (1
of 2)
> Seakeeping-p2-art (99K)  8/20/98    "Seakeeping" (part 2 of 2)

I shall remember to read it... I think I missed that one!

> Some of the knots and how they are used was new to me, though.
Most people tie a lot more knots than they have names for, I have found.
( I teach the knots in the Boy Scout troop I work with. )

> > Square (Technically this is called a Reef knot in sailors parlance)
>
> This is precisely where some more explanation may be needed for many
people.
> I easily recognise a "square knot" while "reef knot" was unknown. Others
> may not recognise "square knot".

Reef knot IS a Square knot Stefan, the old "right over left and left over
right...
It got that name because it was used to tie off reef points on a sail
( this is a series of ties attached to a sail, and used to shorten it when
the wind blows hard, by reducing the sail area in this way, you reduce the
pressure on the sail cloth, rigging and spars, reducing the likely hood of
rigging failure or capsizing from the wind. Oddly enough the use of reefing
points was quite common in the early Viking era ships, but fell out of
general use some time in the Twelfth century, when the use of bonneted
sails was more common. (Bonnets are removable strips of sailcloth attached
to the bottom of sails. They are laced on when the wind is light, and
pulled off when the weather got heavier.)
Reefing points were not to be come common again until after period, except
for small single sailed craft.

> I can accept and handle jpegs and other drawing formats, if you are the
> copyright holder or have permission to use the drawings. I think these
> would definitely help folks visualize things.

The pictures I have are scanned from a book on the Osberg find, I do not
have copyright.
the book is
A. E. Christensen, et al., Osebergdronningens Grav. Schibsted, 1992.
The pictures were sent to me, as I do not have access to the book, and I
think it is in Norse anyway, which I do not read.

> "brailing" or "braiding"?
Brailing. this is a method of bringing together a number of control lines
to ease the stress at each one, so that if you pull on a line, you actually
spread the pull over several points. The Old Norse used Brailing lines and
leather reinforcing strips attached to the sail, since they generally used
a rather weak homespun linen for the sail cloth, and it was prone to
tearing or blowing out when the wind got strong.

> I have saved this message for the info on period knots, but I'd rather
> replace it with a complete article.

A more complete article will have to wait, I am afraid.
The one on boats is taking up the lion's share of my time.

> > Patron of the East Kingdom Nautical Guild of St Erasmus
> > Master of ye Wycked Bitche, a 49 tonne lugger, plying the coaster trade
out
> > of Yarmouth in East Anglia.
>
>
> Okay, landlubber question. Exactly what is the "49 tonne" referring to
> here? Weight of the vessel? Displacement? Maybe those two are the same?
> Or the wieght of the cargo it can carry? What does that work out to
> in size measurments? (other than rather small, although you did say
> "coaster").

OK, here goes:
In period, as a general rule, ships were rated by the amount of cargo they
could carry, this was not measured in weight, but in the number of tun
barrels of liquid she could carry. The Tun was generally 252 gallons,
usually, though the Spanish tun varied rather a lot, and could be as little
as 125 gallons- which made any Spanish estimate of the size of ships rather
suspect.

This should not be confused with the modern measurement of Tons, which is
actually the weight of water she would displace, when full. As any student
of Archimedes will tell you, this also happens to correspond to the total
weight of the ship, crew cargo and supplies.

This was one common period measure of ships capacity, another is the number
of "Chaldrons" of Coal, Bales of cloth, or bushels of grain she could
carry. All were used rather interchangeably, and all referred to the only
measurement that really mattered to a merchant seaman, how much bulk cargo
could she carry.

"Tonnage" was actually an estimate - based not on actual usage, but on the
ships dimensions, according to a formula recorded by Master Matthew Baker,
a famous ( perhaps the most famous ) Elizabethan shipwright.
The formula used by Baker is recorded as : (LOA x W x D)/100 ( - length
overall (in feet) x maximum width (in feet) x total depth of hull(feet)
divided by 100 )

Because it required nothing more than the gross overall dimensions,
measurement in Tonnes became the generally accepted standard, and the other
measurements are infrequently used, except the Chaldron. That measurement
was generally limited to the traffic moving through NewCastle on Tyne or
the port of Tynesmouth, where "NewCastle coal" or "sea coal" (because it
originally was gathered up as it washed ashore after a storm) was mined and
shipped all over England, and to France. Coal was a staple of the
"coasting" Trade, along with Salt, Salted Herring, "raw" cloth, and Grain.
"Coasting" is basically short range shipping practiced along the coasts and
waterways of England.

Since Tonnage was based on an estimate, it was not a firm measure.
Depending on how she is packed, the size of the hold as constructed, and
what other gear she carries, a ship of 49 tonnes may be able to carry
anywhere from 30 to 52 tonnes worth of cargo.
49 tonnes in 1594 (the period of the Bitche) is a mid sized craft, though
100 years earlier she would have been considered quite large. She works out
to about 35 feet long, 14 feet wide, and 10 feet deep, - 4 foot below water
(or "draft"), 6 foot above the waterline (or "freeboard"), though fully
loaded those may values reverse. Pretty "beamy" (wide compared to length) -
like most merchant ships of the day, rather a lot like a bath tub.

OBFood content (to Make Papa Gunthar happy):
The primary cargoes carried by coasters of the East Anglian region are
Grain and Salted herring, with salt, coal, wine and cloth stuffs. the salt
and wine were generally carried from France, and were generally traded for
in exchange for Salt Herring, and grain. The French appetite for salt
herring was the foundation of may a Tudor era fortune.

Personally I can't understand why. The stuff makes me gag.

Brandu/Elias

Sources:
Friel, Ian, "The Good Ship: Ships, Shipbuilding and Technology in England,
1200-1520", British Museum Press, London, 1995
Gjessing, Gutorm, "The Viking Ship Finds", J. Petlitz Boktrykkeri Oslo,
Norway, 1955
Tryckare, Tre., "The Lore of Ships", Crescent Books, 1972
Williams, N. J. The Maritime Trade of the East Anglian Ports, 1550-1590.
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988.