The Sailing Ship of the Line

Is a Northern Invention

This is a continuation of Naval History following on from: "Heart of Oak"

Though the Sailing Ship of the Line began life as an English, or at least northern, invention, it would be wrong to suppose that it remained our monopoly for long. As soon as its efficiency was proved, it was copied-and that is invariably what happens with armaments. but-it was not only copied; it was improved, and not necessarily by us.

This holds true of ships. Our lead-certainly a great lead, but it did not last long. But we were well served as to shipbuilders during most of the seventeenth century, The Famous Pitt family and Sir Athoney Deane certainly being the men with the greatest ideas.

During the mid-century Anglo-Dutch wars it is not altogether easy to compare the relative merits of English ships and those of Holland, because each side was building, for different purposes and to suit different coasts.

The English "State" ships-and, after the Restoration, the "Royal Navy" ships-were true warships designed all but exclusively to fight the Dutch and to guard the Channel routes and the Atlantic approaches. They were stoutly built vessels of deep draught which could take a great deal of punishment as well as give it.

Heart of Oak

Dutch Ships were designed differently

The dutch ships on the other hand, were of lighter build and of shallower draught, designed as they were to be at home in the shoal waters around Holland, and, later after the Dutch wars, to engage in trade with India or the East or West indies, especially an East Indiaman.

In the rough give-and-take of the principle actions, all near our shores, the English ships came off best, and, as we had only a few commitments far afield, it may be concluded that we still led. At any rate in one respect-the superiority of British to other oak trees-the Dutch tacitly admitted our superiority by using British timber whenever they could get it.

But the French became our serious rivals both as shipbuilders and sea-users, there was a different story to tell. They soon equalled us, and then surpassed us. What is more, during most of the eighteenth century they kept well ahead; and we, struggled a long way behind them.

We wallowed in our feelings of deep satisfaction derived from our achivements; our superior prowess in seamanship and fighting, and did not even attempt to catch up. We contrived from time to time to capture enemy ships, and were always pleased to incorporate them into our fleets, promoting them often to the status of flagship.

Things were so bad towards the middle of the century that so great an authority on ships as Admiral Charles Knowles was compelled publicly to declare that "one of their ships of 52-guns is near as good as our 70-gunners." This critisim, it is true, was leveled partly at our guns, which were much lighter than those of the French.

We had a lot of catching-up to do

But it comes back in the end to the build of the ships that carried the guns. Ours, a committee appointed for the purpose pronounced, were not big enough to carry heavier ones. The nearness, of the lower deck to the water in English ships often made it impossible to use the heaviest tier at all, when the French could do so with ease.

After this we did learn from foreign experience, and to copy in our new ships some of the better features of the enemy's; though throughout the century we never looked like catching them up. Nor was it only the French who excelled us. The Spanish whom we rightly despised as seamen, undeniably produced better ships than we did.

This was true as early as 1740, when three British ships, of 70-guns each, had the utmost difficulty in capturing a single Spaniard of the same nominal force; not so much because of the fighting qualities of her crew as because they found it so very hard to come up with her, and found her so well equipped and strong, when at length they did so.

And it remained true in the time of Nelson, who had a very high opinion of the Spanish ships but was quite rude about their performance.

"I know," he wrote in 1795, "the French long since offered Spain peace for fourteen ships of the line; fully stored. I take for granted not manned, as that would be the readiest way to lose them!"

The superiority of our enemys' ships was not due, to superior shipbuilding skills. Our shipwrights were probably, at all periods of "wood," the best in the world. Spain, thought so, because, over a long period, practically all the master shipwrights of that country were Britons.

Tradition let the English down

Where did the fault lie? Largely, in the over-reliance upon tradition and in confusion of thought which failed to distinguish between ship-building and ship-designing.

The former long and wide experience of master shipwrights who were, as often as not, the sons and grandsons of shipwrights, who were usually honest, industrious, and gifted craftsmen with a fine professional pride.

Such people, are liable to pre-conceived ides; they are almost certain to be hidebound conservatives. "What was good enough for our fathers is good enough for us," is most likely to have been their motto.

Ship design, on the other hand, is a science in itself, and a very obscure one at that. The successful ship-designer unquestionably needs for success an inventive brain, a much higher standard of education than the actual builder, and a much wider outlook. And he must be supportive or approve as acceptable the idea proposed, and be of help and remain calm and confident, as well as being financed and encouraged.

It is here that we went wrong. There was for long, no demand for such a person; no recognition even of the fact that he was necessary. This was not so in France.

From the time of Colbert in the late seventeenth century onwards, the logic of the French mind recognised that Science might be made to turn the scales against sheer workmanship and numbers.

Naval Architecture, became a whole-time profession across the Channel long before we even dreampt of such a thing. This is the true explanation of why the French, were holding a position of increasing status or influence.

The dangers were realised

We awoke at last to the dangers of our inferiority, but it was only towards the end of our long wars with France that we began to make any leeway, and even then we moved slowly.

Naval Construction as a profession began in England only in 1810, When a School of Naval Architecture was opened in Portsmouth.

Then, with a perverseness which somehow seems thoroughly English in its illogicality, we abolished it altogether in 1832, and between that date and 1864 introduced-and scrapped two more similar establishments.

Several years later an institution appeared which has managed to survive to this day, under a variety of names and in a variety of places.

The Royal Corps of Naval Constructors, the modern form of it, dates only from 1883. Since then we have been able to hold our own, and more, with our rivals overseas.

It is providential that we contrived to put our own "design" house in order before the great ship-revolutions of the nineteenth century came along.

The best craftmanship in the world, unaided by Sience, clearly could not have begun to design a modern battleship.

The continuation of this Naval History will be: "Warship and Merchantman"

Northern Invention Warship and Merchantman

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