NavList:

   

Reply

It's clear that several subscribers to this list take an interest in the
sailing vessels of past eras. And there always seems to be much confusion
about the names of the various types and rigs of sailing vessels.

So when I came across a clear and succinct account of that complex topic,
in answer to a query sent in to another mailing list (MARHST-L) it seemed
worth reposting here for the benefit of NAV-L members. The author, Trevor
Kenchington, has agreed to this, so here it is.

Dr Kenchington also has an interest in astro-navigation, and I am pleased
to note that he has just joined the NAV-L list. So if anyone wishes to
comment or respond, they should do so to the list or to the author, but not
to me.

Here it is-

====================================

Tom Brady asked:

> So: what was a "sloop" in 1650, and how was it rigged?

To answer that question, it is necessary to explore the processes by
which the meanings of words evolve -- or at least the meanings of
technical terms in semi-literate communities.


The idea that vessel types should be defined by their rigs really only
appeared (in English) in the second half of the 19th century. Before
then, a lug-rigged boat (for example) might be termed a "lugger" because
she had a lug rig but that was her rig, not her type (which might be
locally known as a sixern, a coble, a punt or whatever). Working and
fighting vessels, then as now, had type names based on their function
and the hull form that went along with that function. Hence, there were
"whalers", "colliers", "frigates" and so forth.

Some rigs were so closely associated with particular function/form types
that the name of the type became transferred to the rig. "Cutter rig" was
one such that emerged in the 18th century. As late as the very end of
working sail in Britain, the spritsail rig used on Thames barges was
becoming known as "barge rig" (though the process was never quite
finished before diesel too over). It was these terms for rigs that
mutated into terms for rig-defined types, such that (after 1850) people
began to term a vessel
a "cutter" because it was cutter-rigged, even though it did not have the
hull or function of a cutter. (I think, but cannot prove, that this
change to rig-based definitions began with yachtsmen and never really
penetrated the world of working sail.)

The obvious exceptions to the above are "brig"/"brigantine" and
"schooner". Without delving into the differences between brigs,
brigantines and hermaphrodite brigs, all three terms clearly related to
rigs from far back in time, yet they were used for the vessels carrying
those rigs, just as we would use them as type designators (rather than
rig descriptors) today. "Schooner" was likewise used for a type defined
by its rig from at least 1750 onwards, though I suspect that it
originally (i.e. circa 1720) meant a particular type of vessel,
developed on Cape Ann, which had the two-masted fore-and-aft rig. The
term was only later (if unusually swiftly) converted into one for any
vessel having such a rig, regardless of its hull form or function.


It is also important to understand that a fairly small number of
type-terms has been employed for a very large number of boat and vessel
types. Nor were the terms used at all economically, so that two very
similar types might have quite different names, with each of those names
being also used for several very different boat types. (For the proof of
this, scan through either March's or McKee's books on British inshore craft.)


As one result of this complex evolution of nautical terminology, the
latter 19th century saw the old term "sloop" applied to both a British
warship too small to be commanded by a Post Captain (without
consideration of the rig) _and_ to various types of inshore craft in New
England which carried single jibs and gaff mains. The latter seem to
have passed the term onto any sailing vessel with the jib/mainsail rig
while the former led to minesweeping and escort vessels of the 1930s
(smaller than destroyers but bigger than the later corvettes) which were
eventually eclipsed by frigates.

Lest it be supposed that those two forms exhausted the 1850-to-1950
usage of the term "sloop", there were others. The larger class of
Brixham sailing trawlers, for example, were locally known in the early
decades of the 20th century as "big sloops" even though they were dandy
rigged (i.e. were modern yachtsman would call "gaff ketches") and had
evolved from an earlier cutter-rigged type.


That lengthy introduction is just a complicated way of stating that,
before asking
what a "sloop" was in 1650, one must first put aside all thought of what
the term has meant in the last century or two. In particular, it is not
worth asking either _what_ a "sloop" was, since the "sloop" types
existed in the plural, nor how they were rigged, since there was no
characteristic "sloop rig" for upwards of 200 years after 1650.


As a word, "sloop" seems to be an Anglicization of the Dutch term
"sloep" which itself shares a common origin with the English "shallop"
-- "challupa" as the Spanish called them. Around 1650, all of those
terms, and their equivalents in other languages, were applied to
assorted rowing/sailing inshore fishing boats in various parts of
western Europe. (The 16th-century Basque whaleboats were apparently
called "challupas".) These boats would be lateen rigged if Iberian, lug
rigged if English but perhaps sprit or even gaff rigged if from northern
France or the Netherlands -- maybe with two masts if lug or sprit rigged.

However, the term "sloop" seems already to have been applied (by the
English) to larger vessels also. Specifically, they used it for some of
the Dunkirk privateers -- rakish, undecked vessels somewhat between
large boats and small warships, most likely with two- or three-masted
square rigs but also with sufficient oars for movement in calm
conditions. At a guess, such vessels had evolved from inshore boats
(called "sloops", rather than "shallops", since they came from the
Netherlands) and carried the Dutch version of the term into English usage.

"Sloop" was also used in New England in the mid-17th century and again
initially for Dutch vessels large enough to be used in the coasting
trade. Whether those had the ship-like rigs of privateering sloops in
European waters or the boat-like rigs of their fishing cousins is a
matter for speculation alone.

The colonies were operating vessels with single-masted gaff rigs in the
later 17th century, as is confirmed by many illustrations. There is some
evidence from written sources that at least some of those vessels were
termed "sloops" before 1700, though it is likely that their owners still
thought of them as sloops which happened to have single-masted rigs,
rather than as sloops _because_ they had such rigs.


To put all of that together, I guess that the short answer to Tom's
question is that the term "sloop" had entered the English language by
1650 (though it had not by 1600) but exactly what the vessels it was
used for looked like is as clear as mud.


Trevor Kenchington


--
Trevor J. Kenchington PhD                         Gadus@iStar.ca
Gadus Associates,                                 Office(902) 889-9250
R.R.#1, Musquodoboit Harbour,                     Fax   (902) 889-9251
Nova Scotia  B0J 2L0, CANADA                      Home  (902) 889-3555

                    Science Serving the Fisheries
                     http://home.istar.ca/~gadus

   

Reply