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Ships and Shipbuilding, the types and construction of any large buoyant type vessel in which people travel or transport goods over the surface of the water. The term boat usually denotes smaller vessels, but no criterion of differentiation is generally accepted. The term shipbuilding is applied to the construction of large vessels. See also Boats and Boatbuilding.
Early societies used rafts, skin- or bark-covered canoes, and dugout canoes for water travel. In the most advanced type of early vessel a wooden framework of ribs and longitudinal pieces was covered with a skin of thin wooden planks. Modern types of ships used in Europe have developed for the most part from the early boats used by the Egyptians and other Mediterranean peoples.
The earliest known Egyptian ships employed a wood framework covered with wood planking and were large enough to accommodate at least 20 oarsmen and to carry a cargo of several head of cattle or an equivalent weight of goods. The first pictorial records of these galleys date from as early as 3000 BC, and ships of this type were probably in use for some time before that date. Ships illustrated in early Egyptian paintings were equipped with a double mast, joined at the top, from which sails were hung. In later types, a single mast was used and the sails were hoisted by means of rollers at the top of the mast. Steering, in all the early Egyptian vessels, was accomplished by means of one or more steering oars or sweeps that projected over the stern of the vessel. When more than one oar was used in steering, the steering oars were attached to each other and were directed by means of a single steering arm or tiller.
The most able shipbuilders of ancient times were the Phoenicians (2000 BC), who constructed not only merchant vessels capable of carrying large cargoes, but also warships larger and more effective than any built by their contemporaries, the Egyptians and the Aegeans. The Phoenicians' most significant contribution was the "round boat"-a broad-beamed ship that depended principally on sails rather than oars and provided a much larger cargo-space than the narrow galleys. Phoenician round ships traveled the Mediterranean and beyond: to Britain (for trade in tin), and probably far south along the African coast.
Phoenician shipbuilders are also credited with developing bireme and trireme galleys in which the oars were arranged in two or three banks. Multibanked galleys are a matter of scholarly dispute. Some authorities, who doubt that the quinquiremes of the Greeks and Romans actually had five banks of oars, suggest that the term means merely that five rowers were assigned to an oar.
Although no evidence remains, the framework of the Greek galleys supposedly was made of naturally curved timber, or crooks, in a manner similar to that used in present-day shipbuilding. A superstructure was built at the after end of the deck to house and protect the captain and officers, and at the forward end of the ship the deck was also raised to form a structure called a forecastle. Other features of the Greek galley included a series of rope girdles that were strung around the sides of the ship in a fore-and-aft direction and arranged so that they could be tightened by levers at the rear of the vessel. These girdles served a double purpose: They strengthened the ship against the shock attendant upon ramming another ship in battle and also functioned as a longitudinal truss. The galleys were also equipped with one or two masts for sailing, but sails were not used when a galley was engaged in battle. The crew of a Greek warship was made up of approximately 220 men, most of whom were oarsmen.
The Romans developed many different kinds of warships over their long period of Mediterranean dominance, notably galleys that employed bridges for boarding enemy ships and some that carried catapult artillery. For commerce the Romans built ships of up to 53.4 m (up to 175 ft) in length and about 14 m (about 45 ft) in breadth and depth. Even larger ships are believed to have been built for transporting obelisks from Egypt to Rome. These large cargo ships were rigged with square sails on three masts and may have carried a topsail above the mainsail on the mainmast.
The final development of the Roman warship was the dromond, a swift galley with one or two banks of oars, which was used in the 5th century AD. During this period and later, warships were improved by the addition of various forms of protective coverings, such as leather and vinegar-soaked cloth, to guard against the incendiary and explosive missiles that had become a part of naval armament.
Concurrent with the improved Roman galleys were the highly efficient long ships, which were oceangoing vessels propelled by both oars and sails, developed by the Vikings and Danes in Scandinavia. The smallest class of these ships, called snekkja, had about 30 oars, and larger classes had 64 or even more. The remains of a snekkja, found in a burial mound in Norway during the latter part of the 19th century, was 23.8 m (78 ft) in length, 5 m (16.5 ft) in width, and slightly under 1.8 m (under 6 ft) in depth. The round ship, or skuta, which was primarily a sailing vessel that could also be rowed, was used in Viking expeditions to Greenland and Iceland, and also by the various Scandinavian kings who invaded the British Isles. This type was adapted by the Saxons, notably under Alfred the Great, for defense against raiders.
Contributed by: Howard I. Chapelle
"Ships and Shipbuilding," Microsoft® Encarta® 97 Encyclopedia.
© 1993-1996 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
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Last Revised: July 19, 2006 07:29 PM.
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