Age of Sail

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Þorkell

Sloops I can see as having a shallow draft, but Galleons? A Galleon was a large multi decked vessel and square rigged. You know, like the friggin' Spanish treasure fleet used.

Perhaps Galley is meant here?

Also, rowing a full-size galleon is pretty much an exercise in futility. Ships that did combine some of the aspects of galleons and galleys did exist (see galleas), but unmodified, a galleon is harder to row than almost any other ship you could name.

[sjard]

Somewhere amongst my pile of game papers I have a few age of sail pirate type ships statted up.

So far I have a couple of types of Sloop (Bermuda and Jamaica),
A general Cutter,
A Brig,
A Frigate,
And I think, a Brigantine.

[shawnhcorey]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Also, rowing a full-size galleon is pretty much an exercise in futility. Ships that did combine some of the aspects of galleons and galleys did exist (see galleas), but unmodified, a galleon is harder to row than almost any other ship you could name.

The French did use criminal labour as rowers in their galleys but it was not for propulsion. It was to turn the ships quickly so their cannons could bear quicker. I'm not sure of the dates but I think this was for most of the 19th century.

[Pmandrekar]

Originally Posted by sjard

Somewhere amongst my pile of game papers I have a few age of sail pirate type ships statted up.

So far I have a couple of types of Sloop (Bermuda and Jamaica),
A general Cutter,
A Brig,
A Frigate,
And I think, a Brigantine.

Please do share. There are interested parties on the line.... :)

[Agramer]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

No, just no. Clippers are the culmination (and exageration) of the full-rigged ship. Nothing to do with schooners, not even the same number of masts.

there were full rigged schooners also,I was talking about hull shape more than about rigging(though both are needed for clipper).

[shawnhcorey]

Schooners where built for speed. As such they usually have fore-and-aft rigging. Clippers were built for hauling, the most cargo for the least crew (then as now, wages were the one cost easily controlled). As such, they were usually tall ships (masts on top of masts).

[Mark Caliber]

Originally Posted by Þorkell

Sloops I can see as having a shallow draft, but Galleons? A Galleon was a large multi decked vessel and square rigged. You know, like the friggin' Spanish treasure fleet used.

Perhaps Galley is meant here?

Yes, I double checked my data and you would be correct. I meant Galley, which were MORE obsolete than Galleon's (which the History of Pirates book indicates were terribly uncomfortable to sail in. But they did have the one redeeming quality of usually being loaded with hundreds of thousands of pieces of eight.)

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by shawnhcorey

Schooners where built for speed. As such they usually have fore-and-aft rigging. Clippers were built for hauling, the most cargo for the least crew (then as now, wages were the one cost easily controlled). As such, they were usually tall ships (masts on top of masts).

No there may still have been heavy haulers sudner sail in the 19th centuiry but the true clipper ship was built for sustained speed over long distances rather than maximum capacity.

It had a long streamlined hull and as much sail as you get manage without capsizing the ship (most of the time). A cargo hauler would have been much wider in the beam.

[fredtheobviouspseudonym]

Conway's "History of the Ship: The Advent of Steam" has some good entries on the mixed steam/sail era.

D. K. Brown, in his "From Warrior to Dreadnought", discusses the dramatic changes in warship technology over this time (1860-1906.)

Some general observations:

There were a fair number of clunky cargo vessels active in the 19th century not that much different in size, draft, or maneuverability from those 16th century galleons. Just remove the "castle" superstructures and you'll have an adequate approximation.

Also -- look up the "West Indiaman" ship -- probably a bark or full-rigged ship -- with a relatively small crew -- that would have been a standard

http://www.ageofsail.net/ has a variety of ships' information that could help you determine proper statistics.

Note that it was not until the early 1870s that the fuel efficiency of steam engines improved to the point that it made sense to use such in merchantmen. These ships retained sails for good economic reason. If you used low efficiency steam engines you had to carry so much fuel to get anywhere you couldn't carry much cargo. Also, steam engineers were rare and hence highly-paid; so labor costs were cheaper with sail.

This changed with the introduction of the triple-expansion reciprocating steam engine c. 1873-79. Also, more people had learned steam engineering so wages dropped somewhat.

In the Caribbean, you'd have steam liners going from the big ports in Europe and the US to Havana, Maracaibo, Veracruz, and Kingston. You'd also have smaller sailing and perhaps auxiliary steam vessels going from these Caribbean ports to the smaller ones. Finally, you'd have small coastal schooners and sloops carrying people and small cargoes between the cays and small ports.

So, depending on the sort of campaign you plan, you might want to have statistics obtained or devised for a large liner, a smaller sailing ship with an auxiliary steam engine, and a small sloop or schooner.

The "Warrior to Dreadnought" book has some statistics on small naval patrol vessels. These are RN, but not too dissimilar to French, Dutch, Spanish, or others that would have patrolled the Caribbean.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by Mark Caliber

Yes, I double checked my data and you would be correct. I meant Galley, which were MORE obsolete than Galleon's (which the History of Pirates book indicates were terribly uncomfortable to sail in. But they did have the one redeeming quality of usually being loaded with hundreds of thousands of pieces of eight.)

Galleys continued on because it was often more economical to load thirty guns aboard thirty craft and have them do thirty different missions then to load thirty guns on one craft for one mission. Galleons were largely for powers that had interests on the other side of the world, and hence needed large ships to get their with lots of guns on them to protect them on the way.