Age of Sail

Europeans have traversed the oceans in search of destiny. The Vikings were perhaps the most adventurous when they sailed across the Atlantic Ocean to sail up the Schuylkill River of the future Philadelphia well before Vasco da Gama and Columbus ventured out over the horizon from Spain and Portugal. The whole world was revealed and the age of sail grew into an enormous adventure to spread western civilisation.

From the beginning of the idea of Empire, England attained supremacy over any other rival on the high seas. When France was defeated in the Seven Years War on 1763, communications and trade were by British controlled oceans or seas for the duration of the Pax Britannica and for most of that era, by sailing ships.

From 1763 the design of sailing ships remained largely stagnant and the subtle changes from mid 19thcentury when tea clippers, then the fastest sailing ships, the hull shape and sail infrastructure took on a sleeker image helped by the introduction of iron hulls and greater spread of sail. The transition from sail power to steam driven vessels was surprisingly gradual as the steamships needed to allow space for their coal fuel whereas a sailing ship could use almost all of her hull for cargo.

A visit to the Cutty Sark in dry dock at Greenwich, London would reveal what was essentially an empty hull with only a modest cabin for crew on the deck. Up until the 1930’s, sailing ships were common on the trade routes and, as a five-year old, the author can recall a visit to his birthplace Bunbury, Western Australia, of the sailing clipper Lawhill in 1946.

The dominant two themes of sail during the Pax Britannica were trade and war. Trade dominated the political purpose of the British Empire and war delivered a stable and enormously prosperous century to sustain continual growth of its industrial revolution. The ships of trade and those of war were complementary as many trading ships were armed for protection against pirates and war ships often carried an element of supplies to remote garrisons of the Empire.

The trading routes across the oceans became highways of sail but they were limited by wind, weather, tides and currents so their economy was reduced as steam became more profitable. Nevertheless, sailing ships spread power, trade, wealth, people, knowledge and culture, generally western civilisation, creating a sense of togetherness of the many distant peoples that we now recognise as the British Commonwealth

For England, the ‘Age of Sail’ was a boon and the onset of the First World War ended the Pax Britannica as a universal force. The iron/steel and steam ships grew to be huge of hull and weapons, matched by cargo vessels and the new concept of ocean liners. The Age of Sail ended in the early 20^thcentury but it had provided the foundation for the greatest empire the world had ever seen.