Ships... Old large sailing ships. Are the skills still there

[drivin_me_nuts]

Having come back from the hotel at BTaP, there were a number of pictures of landscapes, seascapes etc.

One of them was a picture of a large ship, maybe a clipper and then another of a warship of the late 17th century.. and they got me thinking.

Do the skills still exist to be able to sale these ships? Could a crew today go on to a large sailing ship from 'back then' and be able to handler her/it well? Or over the years, have some of those skills fallen into disuse? Just curious really. I know noting about ships, other than the pointy end tends to generally go forward. More interested to know if the skills still exist. Do they?

Cheers.

[shouldbworking]

Still a few of them out there - no idea if theyve changed the mechanics of the rigging though - with modern elf and safety routines I imagine it would be problematic having all the safety ropes and harnesses to have people strolling out across a yard every time a sail needed setting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tall_ship

[Taffer]

If you're talking about Royal Navy crews, then no - the RN was one of the first navies to make the leap from sail to steam - other than small yachts used for adventure training, the nearest thing to a military sailing ship in this country is TS Royalist, which is used by the Sea Cadets. Many foreign navies still stick their trainees on large sail training ships for a while though (Russia, Poland and Colombia operate some of the biggest ships). If you gave them something like HMS Victory, they'd have a fair go at sailing the ship, but being able to 'fight' the ship would be a different matter.

If you're talking merchant navy, then there are plenty of tall ships in operation - despite having modern crew comforts onboard (running fresh water, electricity, etc.) the business of setting the sails hasn't really changed much over the years, and there are plenty of people about with the knowledge of how to sail these things.

PH recently did a Sunday Service in partnership with the Jubilee Sailing Trust, which operates two tall ships (STS Lord Nelson and STS Tenacious) designed to be crewed by a mix of able-bodied and disabled people. Why not sign up for a day sail or a longer trip and see how it's done? Have a look at http://www.jst.org.uk or contact PHer Legmaster (Ops. manager at the JST) for more info. about the Trust. I've done a few short trips working on the oily bits of these ships - the flappy white things on the masts still confuse me! Good fun though!

[anonymous-user]

tall ships are surprisingly easy to sail because its not a one man job, collectively you would just need a very good knowledge of the different sails available and how they operate. they are slow and slow to manoeurve so everything must be considered in advance. pretty much anyone with some sailing experience could get one in the right direction and making progress, you would need a very experienced crew to fight one however. In the days of Trafalgar, Nelson and the like were responsible for the strategy, the boatswain et al were responsible for getting the ship to the right palce at teh right time...

[don4l]

There are many old vessels out there which are sailed in the traditional way. Most of them do have a modern diesel engine, but the engines are rarely used.

A couple of links:-

http://www.sailtraininginternational.org/vessels

http://www.matthew.co.uk/design.php


Don
--

[DamienB]

I spent a week on the JST's Tenacious earlier this year, and it was absolutely fantastic - went on knowing precisely zero about sailing and came off wanting to know a lot more but by that time I was at least semi-competent at pulling on ropes to make the flappy bits go in the right direction. The skills are certainly still there, and the tall ships only really need a core of a handful of people who know their stuff to guide rope monkeys like me.

All the hard work really pays off when you look up at the results.



And even a 4AM watch means you get to enjoy the sunrise like you simply cannot on land!



shouldbworking - the worst excesses of elf and safety are down to the idiots implementing the policies, not the basics of H&S itself - as the JST are sensible people, they run ships on a sensible basis. When up in the rigging your number one safety equipment is your brain - no.2 is your hands and no.3 is a safety harness that you can hook on to safety wires in various places. When you are actually climbing a safety harness is a hazard, not a help, so you only hook on when you are not going up or down.

I'd thoroughly recommend a few days on one of the JST's two ships - I wished I'd been on for 3 weeks, not just one!

[Legmaster]

drivin_me_nuts said:

Having come back from the hotel at BTaP, there were a number of pictures of landscapes, seascapes etc.

One of them was a picture of a large ship, maybe a clipper and then another of a warship of the late 17th century.. and they got me thinking.

Do the skills still exist to be able to sale these ships? Could a crew today go on to a large sailing ship from 'back then' and be able to handler her/it well? Or over the years, have some of those skills fallen into disuse? Just curious really. I know noting about ships, other than the pointy end tends to generally go forward. More interested to know if the skills still exist. Do they?

Cheers.

Great - a tall ship thread, about the only thing I can answer on here as I run two of them!

Firstly, whilst there's old ships, there's also a lot of new large sailing ships. Tenacious in the pics above is only 11 years old (great pics Damien - glad you enjoyed it).

The skilled staff are out there but they can be hard to find, not just for the experience, but because many of the tall ships are owned by charities so the wages are crap compared to 'normal' ships. My crew do it for the fun and not the salary (just ask Taffer!).

Most of my officers have the same international qualifications as those working on large commercial shipping, but the additional seamanship skills needed can only be learned with time onboard sailing ships. It's a very different type of sailing where the wind, tide & sea state is a much bigger factor than if you have a mahoosive engine to push you along at 20+ knots.

I'm biased, but sailing along with just the power of the wind pushing you along and dolphins playing in the bow wave, is something that everyone should experience before they die.

To give you an idea of if the large sailing ships still have a future or not, in 1956, 20 ships got together to race between Torquay & Lisbon, essentially to say goodbye to the era of sail. The annual tall ships races can now have over 100 vessels and are about the largest public events held, with many ports getting more than a million visitors to see the ships over a long weekend.

Anyone can sail on my ships, no experience needed and it's not just for youngsters. Just get in touch and I'll sort it out.

[drivin_me_nuts]

Thank you for all your replies. I've really enjoyed reading them. Just to know that these skills are still alive and more than kicking is something that gives me a warm fuzzy feeling inside (sorry!). I love to read about people's passions and interests.

I've never been on any boat other than a ferry (does that actually count!). I can imagine that it would be one of life's unforgetable experiences. I just have to resolve my fear of being in water and not seeing land........Umm, that would be a WIP for me!

Cheers.

[rhinochopig]

pablo said:

tall ships are surprisingly easy to sail because its not a one man job, collectively you would just need a very good knowledge of the different sails available and how they operate. they are slow and slow to manoeurve so everything must be considered in advance. pretty much anyone with some sailing experience could get one in the right direction and making progress, you would need a very experienced crew to fight one however. In the days of Trafalgar, Nelson and the like were responsible for the strategy, the boatswain et al were responsible for getting the ship to the right palce at teh right time...

Sorry but that's way way off truth - they're easy to 'sail' in a straight line with the wind behind you, but that's NOT sailing.

In anything like rough weather and/or where the wind is in a very unfavourable direction they can be an utter bd and require masses of skill to both skipper and crew.

[Legmaster]

drivin_me_nuts said:

I just have to resolve my fear of being in water and not seeing land........Umm, that would be a WIP for me!

Cheers.

As part of the service we don't drop folk in the water! Unless we're anchored off a Caribbean beach and you fancy a dip before the BBQ. It's all quite civilised these days.

Not seeing land is great as it means you are away from all the pointy rocky bits - ships don't like them!

So as that's adressed those two minor points, what's stopping you?

[rhinochopig]

Legmaster said:

drivin_me_nuts said:

I just have to resolve my fear of being in water and not seeing land........Umm, that would be a WIP for me!

Cheers.

As part of the service we don't drop folk in the water! Unless we're anchored off a Caribbean beach and you fancy a dip before the BBQ. It's all quite civilised these days.

Not seeing land is great as it means you are away from all the pointy rocky bits - ships don't like them!

So as that's adressed those two minor points, what's stopping you?

Where do you stand on sodomy and the lash?

[Legmaster]

rhinochopig said:

Where do you stand on sodomy and the lash?

Near the golden rivet normally...

[anonymous-user]

rhinochopig said:

pablo said:

tall ships are surprisingly easy to sail because its not a one man job, collectively you would just need a very good knowledge of the different sails available and how they operate. they are slow and slow to manoeurve so everything must be considered in advance. pretty much anyone with some sailing experience could get one in the right direction and making progress, you would need a very experienced crew to fight one however. In the days of Trafalgar, Nelson and the like were responsible for the strategy, the boatswain et al were responsible for getting the ship to the right palce at teh right time...

Sorry but that's way way off truth - they're easy to 'sail' in a straight line with the wind behind you, but that's NOT sailing.

In anything like rough weather and/or where the wind is in a very unfavourable direction they can be an utter bd and require masses of skill to both skipper and crew.

fair point, i havent sailed one in rough weather but i did say that as a collective, a knowledge of sails would be vital... i was always under the impression that in bad weather it was preferable to sail with bare poles rather than risk damage in a ship like this?

[rhinochopig]

pablo said:

rhinochopig said:

pablo said:

tall ships are surprisingly easy to sail because its not a one man job, collectively you would just need a very good knowledge of the different sails available and how they operate. they are slow and slow to manoeurve so everything must be considered in advance. pretty much anyone with some sailing experience could get one in the right direction and making progress, you would need a very experienced crew to fight one however. In the days of Trafalgar, Nelson and the like were responsible for the strategy, the boatswain et al were responsible for getting the ship to the right palce at teh right time...

Sorry but that's way way off truth - they're easy to 'sail' in a straight line with the wind behind you, but that's NOT sailing.

In anything like rough weather and/or where the wind is in a very unfavourable direction they can be an utter bd and require masses of skill to both skipper and crew.

fair point, i havent sailed one in rough weather but i did say that as a collective, a knowledge of sails would be vital... i was always under the impression that in bad weather it was preferable to sail with bare poles rather than risk damage in a ship like this?

It depends whether we are talking about sailing now in a modern square rigger or whether the skills exist to sail one as it would have been, i.e. a tea clipper navigating Cape Horn without the benefit of a large marine diesel to fall back on. In the latter example, the skill-base is marginal I'd wager, as tall ships are simply too valuable to be put in these situations so the skills of being able to work in storm force winds with a severe deck angle just aren't practised. That said, the basic skills certainly exist and you could train a crew up to man one as a working vessel should the need arise.

My father was skipper of the 'Comrade' - a Humber Keel - for 30 odd years and has consulted on many re-rigs and restorations of sailing barges and ships, and his view was that square rigged vessels can be a pig to sail when the wind and weather are against you.

One of the problems with a square rigged vessel is that they have a far more limited wind angle in which they work when compared to say a sloop rig. But I don't think anyone can argue about the sheer majesty of something like the old tea clippers

[Simpo Two]

rhinochopig said:

But I don't think anyone can argue about the sheer majesty of something like the old tea clippers

I built one of these! http://www.historicships.com/TALLSHIPS/Constructo/...

[don4l]

drivin_me_nuts said:

I've never been on any boat other than a ferry (does that actually count!). I can imagine that it would be one of life's unforgetable experiences. I just have to resolve my fear of being in water and not seeing land........Umm, that would be a WIP for me!

Cheers.

One of my unforgetable experiences was thew first time that land dissappeared from view. We were in a small 24' Westerly Centaur, so you might not have liked it. Visibility was about 10 miles, and there were no other boats visible.

I felt a great sense of freedom. For the first time in my life there were no rules, no yellow lines, no police, no traffic lights. It was exhilarating.

As night fell, the clouds started to dissipate, and by 2:00am, the Milky Way was resplendant in its glory. Later, as dawn approached, the stars were gradually all extinguished. Only Venus remained, sitting directly over Cherbourg as if she were guiding us in.


It was more than 20 years ago, and I can remember it as clearly as if it was yesterday.


Don
--

[rhinochopig]

don4l said:

drivin_me_nuts said:

I've never been on any boat other than a ferry (does that actually count!). I can imagine that it would be one of life's unforgetable experiences. I just have to resolve my fear of being in water and not seeing land........Umm, that would be a WIP for me!

Cheers.

One of my unforgetable experiences was thew first time that land dissappeared from view. We were in a small 24' Westerly Centaur, so you might not have liked it. Visibility was about 10 miles, and there were no other boats visible.

I felt a great sense of freedom. For the first time in my life there were no rules, no yellow lines, no police, no traffic lights. It was exhilarating.

As night fell, the clouds started to dissipate, and by 2:00am, the Milky Way was resplendant in its glory. Later, as dawn approached, the stars were gradually all extinguished. Only Venus remained, sitting directly over Cherbourg as if she were guiding us in.


It was more than 20 years ago, and I can remember it as clearly as if it was yesterday.


Don
--

...at about which time you hear a bang, the boat heals over 40 degrees, and you find a periscope chopping its way through your hull