When were the first ships built?
People probably used logs to float across rivers. These were
the first boats. Ships large enough to sail the open sea were first made in
Egypt 5000 years ago.
Logs tied together made a canoe. Reeds tied in bundles would also
float. We know that the Ancient Egyptians made reed boats because pictures of
them have been found in tombs. But such craft (shown in the picture) were only
safe for river travel.
They built long, slender galleys for war and broad,
slower-moving cargo ships for trade. Oars were used to drive the ship along
when there was not enough wind.
The sailors kept in sight of land. They had no maps or
compasses to navigate with.
When were fully rigged
ships used?
Most early ships had one large sail. By the 1400s ships had
three masts carrying several sails. These were the first ‘fully-rigged’ ships.
A ship’s rig is its arrangement of sails. The first seagoing
vessels usually had a single square sail, although some had a triangular or
‘lateen’ sail instead.
As ships grew larger, extra sails were added. Square and
triangular sails were found to work well together. By the 1400s the
three-masted carrack had appeared. This was the first fully-rigged ship. It was
steered by an astern rudder, replacing the older steering oar.
After the carrack came the galleon. As ship design improved,
extra sails were added for greater speed. By the 1800s the fastest clippers
could sail at 39 kilometres an hour (21 knots).
When submarines were
first built?
Since ancient times, sailors have dreamed of travelling
beneath the sea. But not until 1801 did an inventor make a submarine craft. It
took years to develop the submarines of today.
Amazingly, a kind of submarine was tried as early as 1620,
though it was little more than a watertight barrel. IN 1775 an American one-man
submarine called Turtle tried to sink a British warship.
But the honour of building the first submarine goes to Robert
Fulton of the U.S.A., whose Nautilus of 1801 could stay underwater for four
hours.
However, it was not until the 1890s that navies finally accepted
submarines, thanks to the work of another American, John Holland. His submarine
set the model for the craft used in the World Wars I and II. It had petrol
engines for surface travel and electric motors for moving beneath the waves.
When were the great
days of sailing ships?
For thousands of years sailing ships ruled the seas. Their
greatest days came in the 1700s and early 1800s. This was the age of the great
wooden battleships and the graceful China clippers.
By the 1500s the shape of the sailing ship had become
settled. For the next 300 years, it did not change very much. However, there
were many improvements.
The greatest warships of the days of sail were 100-gun and
74-gun battleships. These wooden ships had cannons ranged along their sides. In
battle, they sailed alongside one another, firing broadsides of cannon balls.
Ships like these fought at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805.
In the 1840s came the last and most elegant of all sailing
ships-the clipper (shown in the picture). Its task was to carry tea from China
to the USA and Britain. It was built for speed and could sail 650 kilometres
in a day.
To reach port first (and so get the highest prices for their
cargo), the tea clippers sometimes raced one another across the oceans. As well
as tea, clippers also carried wool from Australia.
Although fast, the clippers (like all sailing ships) relied
on favourable winds. In time, these graceful ships gave way to the steamship,
which could keep up the same speed, day and night, whatever the wind.
When did the first
steamships sail?
Just as sailing ships reached their peak, they were
challenged by a new rival steamer. The first steamships took to the seas in
the early 1800s. Soon they ruled the waves.
Pyroscaphe was built in France in 1783. But the first
practical steamboats were the U.S. Clermont of 1807 and the Scottish Comet of
1812. Both had steam engines driving paddle wheels.
In 1819 a small steamer called Savannah sailed across the
Atlantic, although it only used its engine for part of the way.
In the 1840s the screw propeller began to replace the paddle
wheel on steamships. I.K. Brunel’s steamship Great Eastern (1858) had both
screws and paddles. It was built to sail all the way to Australia without
taking on extra coal for its boilers.