 Transit seen from two different perspectives; from an 1802 print | |
| History | |
|---|---|
| United Kingdom | |
| Name | Transit |
| Owner | R. H. Gower |
| Completed | 1800 |
| General characteristics | |
| Length | 130 ft (40 m) |
| Beam | 20 ft (6.1 m) |
Transit was the name given to an innovative sailing ship designed for speed by Captain Richard Hall Gower and built in 1800. Gower also designed two similar ships with the same name. He hoped to have his designs adopted by the British Admiralty but failed to achieve his aim.
All three Transits designed by Gower had fine lines at bow and stern, uniform frames mid-ships with concave and convex sweeps and a deep keel. Their length to beam ratio was unusually high, giving them a remarkable turn of speed. The foremast was square rigged while the other three or four masts were fore-and-aft rigged, barquentine fashion but carrying very simplified standing and running rigging. Each sail was equipped with a horizontal sprit that enabled it to be brailed up to its mast and deployed rapidly. Each mast carried three sails. The topmasts could be lowered and replaced from the deck, in the event the sprits were to fail in strong gales and had to be abandoned. The Patent granted to Gower in 1799 details his theory about the relationship between speed and the length to beam ratio, as well as details of many features of his novel form of rigging, which allowed almost all activities normally conducted aloft to be performed from the deck (including the replacement of damaged masts) ; thus only the foremast was fitted with ratlines.
At the instance of John Jervis, 1st Earl of St Vincent, the First Lord of the Admiralty, Transit was sailed against HMS Osprey in 1801. Osprey was a fast sloop of 383 tons (about twice the tonnage of Transit). Built at Northfleet like a French corvette, with an 80 ft 6 in (24.5 m) keel, she had the reputation of being very fast. Her length to beam ratio (at waterline) was probably less than 3:1. Transit with a length of 130 feet (39.6 m) and a length to beam ratio of 6.5:1 performed so well as to have been acknowledged the winner by the captain of Osprey. Despite this success Gower failed to get the support he needed to build a class of vessels to his patents.
The reasons given for the rejection of Gower's proposal included the observation that because of her deep keel she would fall over at low tide in many of the east coast ports from which she might have to operate and that the deck was so narrow that guns could not be arranged symmetrically on each side for fear of their recoil causing them to collide. By coincidence, but apparently unbeknownst to Gower, the very gun that he would have needed, the carronade, a short barrelled gun mounted on a slide fixed to the deck, was adopted by the Royal Navy less than a year before the test of Transit.
Gower wrote detailed and vivid accounts of the vessels and his experiences with the authorities. George Bayley, owner of the yard that built two of the Transits also gave an account of the vessels. Macgregor gives a description and illustration of the first Transit.
A sailboat or sailing boat is a boat propelled partly or entirely by sails and is smaller than a sailing ship. Distinctions in what constitutes a sailing boat and ship vary by region and maritime culture.
A sail plan is a description of the specific ways that a sailing craft is rigged. Also, the term "sail plan" is a graphic depiction of the arrangement of the sails for a given sailing craft.
A topsail ("tops'l") is a sail set above another sail; on square-rigged vessels further sails may be set above topsails.
Boat building is the design and construction of boats and their systems. This includes at a minimum a hull, with propulsion, mechanical, navigation, safety and other systems as a craft requires.
A cutter is a type of watercraft. The term has several meanings. It can apply to the rig of a sailing vessel, to a governmental enforcement agency vessel, to a type of ship's boat which can be used under sail or oars, or, historically, to a type of fast-sailing vessel introduced in the 18th century, some of which were used as small warships.
A barquentine or schooner barque is a sailing vessel with three or more masts; with a square rigged foremast and fore-and-aft rigged main, mizzen and any other masts.
The mast of a sailing vessel is a tall spar, or arrangement of spars, erected more or less vertically on the centre-line of a ship or boat. Its purposes include carrying sails, spars, and derricks, and giving necessary height to a navigation light, look-out position, signal yard, control position, radio aerial or signal lamp. Large ships have several masts, with the size and configuration depending on the style of ship. Nearly all sailing masts are guyed.
This is a glossary of nautical terms; some remain current, while many date from the 17th to 19th centuries. See also Wiktionary's nautical terms, Category:Nautical terms, and Nautical metaphors in English. See the Further reading section for additional words and references.
Square rig is a generic type of sail and rigging arrangement in which the primary driving sails are carried on horizontal spars which are perpendicular, or square, to the keel of the vessel and to the masts. These spars are called yards and their tips, beyond the last stay, are called the yardarms. A ship mainly rigged so is called a square-rigger.
Stays are ropes, wires, or rods on sailing vessels that run fore-and-aft along the centerline from the masts to the hull, deck, bowsprit, or to other masts which serve to stabilize the masts.
A Thames sailing barge is a type of commercial sailing boat once common on the River Thames in London. The flat-bottomed barges with a shallow draught and leeboards, were perfectly adapted to the Thames Estuary, with its shallow waters and narrow tributary rivers. The larger barges were seaworthy vessels, and were the largest sailing vessel to be handled by just two men. The average size was about 120 tons and they carried 4,200 square feet (390 m2) of canvas sail in six working sails. The mainsail was loose-footed and set up with a sprit, and was brailed to the mast when not needed. It is sheeted to a horse, as is the foresail; they require no attention when tacking. The foresail is often held back by the mate to help the vessel come about more swiftly.
The spritsail is a four-sided, fore-and-aft sail that is supported at its highest points by the mast and a diagonally running spar known as the sprit. The foot of the sail can be stretched by a boom or held loose-footed just by its sheets. A spritsail has four corners: the throat, peak, clew, and tack. The Spritsail can also be used to describe a rig that uses a spritsail.
A foresail is one of a few different types of sail set on the foremost mast (foremast) of a sailing vessel:
Captain Richard Hall Gower (1768–1833) was an English mariner, empirical philosopher, nautical inventor, entrepreneur, and humanitarian.
The Landguard Fort Lifeboat is an example of early attempts to design an unsinkable vessel. Several years before the foundation of the RNLI, Richard Hall Gower had been addressing the special problems of lifeboat design. Bayleys at Ipswich built one to his design, being paid for by public subscription initiated by Admiral Page. They launched her from the yard near Stoke Bridge in April 1821 and thoroughly tested her on the Orwell. She took station at Landguard Fort, South of Felixstowe. There is a plan of this vessel in Gower's "Original Observations".
A jackass-barque, sometimes spelled jackass bark, is a sailing ship with three masts, of which the foremast is square-rigged and the main is partially square-rigged and partially fore-and-aft rigged (course). The mizzen mast is fore-and-aft rigged.
The bugeye is a type of sailboat developed in the Chesapeake Bay for oyster dredging. The predecessor of the skipjack, it was superseded by the latter as oyster harvests dropped.
A herring buss was a type of seagoing fishing vessel, mostly used by Dutch and Flemish herring fishermen in the 15th through early 19th centuries.
The Edna E. Lockwood is a Chesapeake Bay bugeye, the last working oyster boat of her kind. She is located at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum in Saint Michaels, Maryland. She was built in 1889 at Tilghman Island, Maryland by John B. Harrison and is of nine-log construction, similar to the smaller log canoe, and was launched on October 5, 1889 for Daniel Haddaway, at a cost of $2,200. She worked for at least seven sets of owners from 1899 until 1967, and was then sailed as a yacht until donated to the museum in 1973. The museum undertook an extensive restoration of the Lockwood from 1975 through 1979, which restored the bugeye to its 1910 appearance with the "patent stern" that had been added sometime prior to that year. She is the last bugeye retaining the sailing rig and working appearance of the type. Her length is 53.5 feet (16.3 m), with a 15.25 feet (4.65 m) beam and a draft of 2.58 feet (0.79 m) with the centerboard up, and a maximum sail area of approximately 1700 square feet.
A zabra (zah-brə) was a small or midsized sailing vessel used off the coasts of Spain and Portugal to carry goods by sea from the 13th century until the mid-16th century; they were well-armed to defend themselves against pirates and corsairs. Early Iberian documentary sources, such as the Estoria de España, refer to their use by the Moros (Moors). From about 1500 onwards a fleet of zabras developed in the coastal trade of Cantabria on the Cantabrian Sea, and fishermen began using them to exploit the fisheries of Ireland and North America. These zabras were fast, square-rigged row-sailers with two masts; they were rowed with 14 to 18 oars and had a tonnage of between 20 and 60 tons. Their ratio of beam to length was 1: 3.75–4.0. The smallest zabras had only a half deck or a poop deck, but the larger ones were covered with a flush deck. Because of their excellent handling qualities, and despite their modest size, they were frequently used by the Crown of Castile for the transport of money and soldiers to Flanders, as well as in transatlantic voyages.
Plans of Transit vessels at The National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, England.
