Two Ships From Different Eras

by Marcia Lee Jones

Title

Two Ships From Different Eras

Artist

Marcia Lee Jones

Medium

Photograph - Photography

Description

Traditional rigging may include square rigs and gaff rigs, usually with separate topmasts and topsails. It is generally more complex than modern rigging, which utilizes newer materials such as aluminum and steel to construct taller, lightweight masts with fewer, more versatile sails. Most smaller, modern vessels use the Bermuda rig. Though it did not become popular elsewhere until the twentieth century, this rig was developed in Bermuda in the seventeenth century, and had historically been used on its small ships, the Bermuda sloops.

Author and master mariner Joseph Conrad (who spent 1874 to 1894 at sea in tall ships and was quite particular about naval terminology) used the term "tall ship" in his works; for example, in "The Mirror of the Sea" in 1903. If Conrad used the term, it is fairly certain "tall ship" was common parlance among his fellow mariners in the last quarter of the 19th century.
A landmark use of iron occurred in 1843 with the construction of the gunboat USS Michigan, a vessel that served until the 1920s. The Michigan skirted the limits of the Rush-Bagot Treaty (1817), which declared the Great Lakes a nonmilitary zone. The iron Onoko (1882) and the steel Spokane (1886) served on the Lakes for over thirty years, far exceeding the average life of wooden vessels. By the twentieth century, iron was replaced with cheaper and stronger steel vessels, which continued to grow in size from the 1880s to the present day.

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October 18th, 2014

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