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Although the types of the Ottoman ships in the age of sail are well known to historians, sources on their technical characteristics are notably limited when compared to their counterparts in western Europe. While Ottoman archives usually offer rich inventory accounts, harbor logs and fiscal records, direct technical evidence such as plans, sketches or hull lines drawings are scarce. A recent research of Russian archives has provided new evidence of 18th and 19th century Ottoman ships. This study presents a multi-view hull lines drawing of an 18th century cargo ship kept at the Russian Navy Archives in St. Petersburg. Notes on the drawing suggest that the ship serving the Ottoman navy was captured by Russian forces and then documented through a detailed scaled drawing. The drawing can arguably be the oldest actual plan of a çekeleve or a sacoleva type ship of the period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims at understanding the evolution of the administrative methods devised by the Spanish monarchy to interact with regional private initiative for the production of warships. It also aims at understanding the practice of financing naval shipbuilding in the royal shipyards of Spain and Spanish America by public contribution, in the form of both credit and voluntary donations. These processes were largely influenced by the need of both political systems to perform efficiently in war. This article addresses the relationship between the state and local entrepreneurs and examines the reach and objectives of the Habsburg and Bourbon naval administrations, seen as variants of the 'contractor state'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using diverse sources, including archaeological evidence, this paper scrutinises the technology of the ordinary British Atlantic merchant ship, assessing continuity and change during the formation and development of the Atlantic empire (1600–1800). The paper argues that observable continuities and changes in rig, in hull design, and in defensive armament were responses to risks posed to owners, builders, and crews. I state that ‘risk mitigation’ was the main policy of the actors involved in the business, thus suggesting an innovative research path to assess decisions to innovate and decisions not to. This can thus contribute to a better understanding of Atlantic and technological history, as well as to an understanding of risk mitigation as a driving force in business and technology, beyond the more commonly used concept of disruptive innovations. Naturally, changes did take place, and investigate why that is helps us understand the continuity more fully, and ship technology more fully. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the early seventeenth century, the construction of galleons and high seas warships became an essential strategic concern for the king of Spain, even more so than in the previous century. In 1603, Philip III ordered the establishment of a Committee for the Building of Ships (Junta para la Fábrica de Navíos), which signed several contracts (asientos) with private individuals to build squadrons and ships. What were the shipbuilding conditions outlined in contracts signed under the auspices of such a committee? By addressing this question, this research note sheds light on the shipbuilding strategies of the Spanish Crown before the Twelve Years’ Truce (1609–1621). The notes are part of an ongoing research project on the Spanish Empire’s political restructuring of shipbuilding policies during the first half of the seventeenth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This comparative overview assesses physical and cross-border factors behind wartime wooden shipbuilding in North America’s Pacific Northwest. Local resources, government procurement arrangements, private companies running shipyards, and types of workers building standard ships to a variety of designs are considered. Wooden shipbuilding, from a programme perspective, was soundly managed but delivered ships too late to have any real impact on the First World War. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Late medieval shipbuilding in Catalonia followed the Mediterranean trend in adopting a frame-first shipbuilding principle with planking placed edge-to-edge. The predetermination of frame shapes using moulds had modified the construction process, as seen in the 11th-century Serçe Limanı vessel with the use of a series of moulds, and 13th-century Culip VI, with the use of a master mould, rising square and rule. Between the 13th and 15th centuries all known Mediterranean shipwrecks were built using the master-mould method, but other factors caused variation in the construction process-not the principle-as exemplified by the 14th-century Les Sorres X built with two overlain keel timbers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article draws upon a wide ranging combination of historical traditions, documentary history and archaeology to demonstrate that Tangaloan-rigged Tongan tongiaki and hamatefua voyaging canoes were of mixed autochthonous Melanesian and intrusive Tangaloan descent, and that the Micronesian-rigged drua/kalia and camakau/hamatefua voyaging canoes which succeeded them in Fiji and Western Polynesia were developed from them as an outcome of Tongan adoption of the Micronesian rig in the 18th century, and the corresponding transfer of voyaging canoe construction from Samoa to Fiji. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SUMMARY: The Dutch East India Company shipZuiddorp(also known asZuytdorp) met its demise in 1712 at the base of steep cliffs along the Western Australian coast. Material from the shipwreck includes an extraordinary example of a caryatid herm from the ship’s stern counter. A recent study of this sculpture and the pigments found on its surface demonstratesZuiddorp’s archaic stern construction and adornment, which is more of a late 17th-century, than an early 18th-century, Dutch Indiaman. This paper discusses the results of this study and emphasizes how the smallest pieces of evidence can broaden our understanding of contemporaneous regional Dutch East India Company shipbuilding practices. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Hornell's publications on 'native watercraft' form a unique 'library' dealing with boatbuilding and boat use. His quest for the origins of water transport, on the other hand, was unsuccessful. In a clarification of the issues involved, Hasslöf criticized Hornell's use of the term 'carvel' and proposed 'shell-first' and 'skeleton-first' as best able to characterize boatbuilding traditions. Those terms subsequently gave way to 'plank-first' and 'frame-first'. Certain north-west European vessels, each built in both those sequences, were identified by Hasslöf as a link between 'plank-first' and 'frame-first'. Such a transition would have been facilitated by the use of 'framing-first', a building sequence used in north-west Europe and in the eastern Mediterranean from the early 1st millennia AD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The survival of late medieval Mediterranean techniques to conceive and build ships and boats in Brazil was noted by John Patrick Sarsfield in the 1980s, but his study of the Valença shipwrights was interrupted by his untimely death in 1990. This paper summarizes Sarsfield's account of these shipbuilding techniques, examines that published by Lev Smarcevski (1996), and provides some preliminary results of the pilot stage of a project to further research traditional shipbuilding in Valença and the Baía de Todos os Santos region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2000, a well-preserved, c.21 m-long shipwreck, Doel 1, was found upside-down in a silted-up creek near the river Scheldt ( Belgium). An interdisciplinary research project was initiated, including 3 D registration of all timbers, wood species identification, dendrochronology and archaeobotanical analysis of the caulking material. Doel 1, of which 70% is preserved, displays the construction features of a cog. Unseasoned wood was used and dated by dendrochronology to AD 1325/26. Remarkable features include the symmetrical layout of the bottom planks, the atypical arrangement of the frames to the fore, and evidence of partial dissassembly of the ship after intensive use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Excavations at Yenikapı in Istanbul, Turkey, related to the Marmaray Project, have unearthed remains of Constantinople's Theodosian Harbour, including 37 Byzantine shipwrecks of 5th- to 11th-century date. Eight of these shipwrecks, six round ships and two of the first long ships, or galleys, to be excavated from the Byzantine period, were studied by archaeologists from the Institute of Nautical Archaeology. These well-preserved shipwrecks are an important new source of information on the maritime commerce of Constantinople and the gradual shift from shell-based to skeleton-based shipbuilding in the Mediterranean during the second half of the first millennium AD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Salvage excavations conducted in the Yenikapı quarter of the historic peninsula of Istanbul by the Istanbul Archaeological Museums 2004-2013 have brought to light the Theodosian Harbour on the Sea of Marmara. In addition to thousands of archaeological artefacts, a total of 37 shipwrecks dating from the 5th to the 11th centuries AD were uncovered, constituting the biggest collection of medieval ships uncovered at a single excavation site. The present article deals with 27 wrecks in the charge of the team from Istanbul University's Department of Conservation of Marine Archaeological Objects, consisting of 23 merchantmen and four galleys. The wrecks are presented with their general characteristics. The preliminary evidence from the Yenikapı wrecks regarding the development from shell-based to skeleton-based philosophy is discussed, and various building phases presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the debate over the presence or absence of keels in the construction of Egyptian ships of the dynastic period. It contains an analysis of ship representations and models dating to the 18th-20th dynasties of the New Kingdom ( c.1539-1077 BC) that provide evidence for the introduction of keels in Egyptian shipbuilding, and new archaeological material from excavations at Thonis- Heracleion that sheds more light on the question. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article attributes the declining competitiveness of the British shipbuilding industry from the 1930s to employers' slow and imperfect substitution of bureaucratic for craft conventions of work organization. An explanation is developed for this excess inertia. First, the article maintains that the interdependent nature of British employers' decision-making on matters of training and work organization tended to "lock-in" individual firms to a particular configuration. Secondly, it is shown how the uncertainty over the need for reform perceived by the majority of builders prevented the more progressive minority from using the industry's collective employers' association to coordinate a timely switch to a more bureaucratic convention. Thirdly, it is argued that once these obstacles were overcome, the process of achieving organizational reform was slowed or even blocked by a lack of trust between labor and management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Did ancient Mediterranean shipbuilders at the turn of the first millennium have methods to pre-design the shape of their hulls prior to the construction of the ship? If so, can these methods be identified? This paper proposes that ancient shipwrights were in possession of such design methods, based on geometry, that are comparable to the medieval and post medieval hull-design procedures called whole-moulding. These methods are well suited to be transformed into rules-of-thumb, therefore allowing the storage and transmission of accumulated knowledge. The implications of this proposal on the present understanding of the transition from shell- to skeleton-building are explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ship 17 is the first of 63 vessels from the submerged city of Thonis-Heracleion in Egypt to have been excavated. The peculiar constructional features of this ship, which dates to the Late Period (722-332 BC), allow us to argue for a previously undocumented type of construction that finds parallels in Herodotus' description of a Nilotic freighter known as a baris (History, 2.96, c.450 BC). The aim of this article is to outline the main characteristics and the possible sequence of construction of Ship 17. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Newport Ship is the most substantial late medieval vessel excavated and recovered in Britain in recent years. It was abandoned after extensive salvage, possibly following attempts at repairs to the hull. More than 23 m of the clinker-built ship were recovered, along with significant artefact and environmental assemblages. Finds point to strong Iberian connections during the active life of the ship, which arrived in Newport in the Severn Estuary, after the spring of AD 1468. The dismantling and recovery of the ship has enabled detailed recording using innovative 3 D digital techniques and approaches to hypothetical reconstruction. Publication includes a digital archive hosted by the Archaeological Data Service, a substantial report and this article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the 1980s, the Bulgarian Centre for Underwater Archaeology, led by Dr Kalin Porozhanov, undertook limited work on a post medieval wreck lost off Cape Urdovize, near the town of Kitten. In 2000, the Institute of Nautical Archaeology and the Centre for Underwater Archaeology returned to excavate and record the shipwreck in detail. The largest and arguably most important artefact was the hull itself, as it is the first complete excavation of a Black Sea merchantman, dated to the late 18th or very early 19th century. This paper offers a complete and corrected description of the structure of the vessel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Fijian drua (also called kalia in Tonga and ‘alia in Samoa) are arguably the apex of Pacific naval architectural design and performance, built without metals, some over 100’ long, carrying complements of more than 200, capable of speeds of around fifteen knots and of sailing within four points of the wind. There is currently no single literature source for drua and the discourse on central Oceania’s sailing heritage has been overshadowed in recent decades by intensive research into eastern Polynesia vessels and voyaging. Amongst the scattered literature there is disagreement between authors as to the historical and pre-historical extent, ability and source of Fijian sailing culture. We collate and assess the known literature for drua, drawing out areas of commonalty and discord to place this within the context of culture, with canoe as focal point. We examine the unique role of the vesi loa (Intsia bijuga) growing on the limestone islands of the southern Lau Group, a boat-building material described as the titanium of the Pacific, as a magnet for master craftsman from Samoa, Tonga and Fiji and the resultant cross-cultural exchange that produced a craft that was arguably the finest performance hulled ship of her day. No great drua has been built in over a century. We conclude that the nature of the drua culture described requires a more generous assessment of Fijian voyaging ability and history than currently exists in the literature. Regardless of its design origin, the drua in its finished form was the product of a unique and indigenous cross-cultural collaboration that includes at least the societies of central and northern Oceania. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Lloyd’s Registers are an underexploited source for maritime history, particularly during the industrial revolution era. We provide a critical description of this source, then assess its completeness as a record of British and Irish shipping by an analysis of entries for ships named Albion between 1776 and 1840. We pursue the Albions by comparing the information in the Registers with that in Lloyd’s List, a contemporary maritime newspaper. These exercises show that the Registers are much less than a complete census of British shipping, and that systematic analysis of this source must contend with some discontinuities in its quality. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In 2000, the remains of a cog, Doel 1, were found in Doel, Belgium. Wood species identification of all ship timbers and smaller elements was performed. European oak was the dominant species, followed by alder that was used for the fairings. In total 150 ring-width series were recorded. The construction date was set at AD 1325/26 and the timbers proved to originate from forests along the rivers Elbe and Weser. For the bottom strakes a strict symmetrical layout was observed. The keel plank was hewn from a trunk with a slightly earlier felling date. Repairs were performed with high-quality boards, some with a southern Baltic provenance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Tektas, Burnu ship (440-425 BC) sank along a rough and desolate stretch of the Turkish Aegean coast. Archaeological excavation of the shipwreck site by the Institute of Nautical Archaeology at Texas A&M University resulted in the retrieval of hundreds of small fragments from the ship's wooden hull and its metal fasteners. Recent study of this artefact assemblage suggests that the coastal trader was built with pine planks and made-frames, and assembled by a shell-based construction method. Fasteners include pegged mortise-and-tenon joints and double-clenched copper nails, and the ship may have had laced extremities consistent with other contemporaneous shipwrecks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a literature review of the topic of shipbuilding, outlining the journal's coverage of the subject over its past 25 years of publication. A brief introductory explanation of the recent history of the international shipbuilding industry since the 1950s is given. Articles cited include works by maritime historians Simon Ville, Peter Neville Davies, and William Thiesen.

Businesses that operate in acutely cyclical industries like shipbuilding are more dependent than most on the quality of the information flows that report the outcomes of their various decisions. This article, an extended version of the twenty-first Peter Davies Lecture in Maritime Business History, examines the relationship between decisions to invest in fixed assets and long-term contract work in the shipbuilding industry and cost allocation practices on the way that operational success or failure is signalled, using internal data from the Vickers shipyard archive across the ‘trans-war’ period 1913–1924. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Despite a varied historical literature on the nineteenth-century royal dockyards, very little has been written about the health issues associated with naval shipbuilding or the healthcare facilities that were provided for dockworkers in the period. This article focuses mainly on the latter. Drawing on archival sources from the home dockyards, an examination is made of the duties and responsibilities of dockyard surgeons. These are found to have expanded considerably as healthcare provision became steadily more comprehensive. It is argued that as providers to a civilian workforce, the naval authorities were in the vanguard when it came to implementing perceived advances in medical practice. It is also contended, however, that while many dockworkers benefited as a result, this positive appraisal needs to be set against the more ambiguous aspects of the surgeon's role. Although surgeons treated the sick and injured, their growing prominence in other dockyard matters, such as retirement and the policing of sickness, is shown to have created tension in their relationship with the workforce. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of International Journal of Maritime History is the property of Sage Publications, Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article reports on post-medieval archaeological research being conducted on ship remains located along the Thames River in the greater London, England area. Nautical archaeological work related to the 19th century shipbuilding industry is presented at sites including Anchor and Hope Wharf. World War II-related archaeological evidence is also reported upon.

This article documents the participation of British and Irish immigrants in an ambitious programme of naval reform in eighteenth-century Spain. In so doing, it explores their integration in their new host country in the town of Ferrol, located in north-west Spain. This town grew up around the royal dockyard which was established there by the middle of the century. In this period, the government of the Spanish monarchy actively developed a policy to attract and import foreign labour for the dockyards in order to face serious competition with foreign countries, gain supremacy over the seas, defend the country and protect its interests abroad. The migration of technicians and craftsmen from British yards to Ferrol has been often analysed on the basis of foreign experience and technology for the development of the shipbuilding industry but little attention was paid to the internal structure of this immigrant population and to the nature of the motivating factors behind these individuals's decision to move to Spain. Based on this argument, this study addresses the presence of women in this migration process, analyses the incentives for migrating and considers the role of social networks as a channel for migration and integration. These issues have been dealt with using data from primary sources which provide a more complete picture to understand this migration to Ferrol and to study the identification and adaptation of immigrants within their new social and cultural environment. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Despite a varied historical literature on the nineteenth- century royal dockyards, very little has been written about the health issues associated with naval shipbuilding or the healthcare facilities that were provided for dockworkers in the period. This article focuses mainly on the latter. Drawing on archival sources from the home dockyards, an examination is made of the duties and responsibilities of dockyard surgeons. These are found to have expanded considerably as healthcare provision became steadily more comprehensive. It is argued that as providers to a civilian workforce, the naval authorities were in the vanguard when it came to implementing perceived advances in medical practice. It is also contended, however, that while many dockworkers benefited as a result, this positive appraisal needs to be set against the more ambiguous aspects of the surgeon's role. Although surgeons treated the sick and injured, their growing prominence in other dockyard matters, such as retirement and the policing of sickness, is shown to have created tension in their relationship with the workforce. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the article is to show that the Mutiozabal shipyard in Orio, Gipuzkoa, Spain, was using the tools and procedures of non-graphic hull-design methods into the latter 19th and early 20th centuries. These procedures allow a hull to be designed with a very simple set of tools: a template of the master-frame and some simple graduated gauges or graminhos. The plan of a 65- Burgos-foot (18.11 m) trading boat is used as the basis of the study. The nature of the templates and graminhos is shown in detail, as well as their use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on archaeological studies of Viking era boat building and repair at Sigtuna, Sweden. It states while the preservation conditions for organic matter are poor, a few wooden artefacts have survived while a larger number of iron artefacts have been discovered. It comments on the discovery of parrels which are used in ship rigging to hold yards to masts, as well as the discovery of clench nails. It mentions one well-preserved ancient anchor was discovered in 1961 above sea level.

We report recent fieldwork on an early-16th-century wreck in the Stockholm archipelago, Sweden. The discovery not only provides new insights into early carvel shipbuilding and its adoption across northern Europe but manifests the changing role of ships and the nature of power and agency in the process of state formation at the dawn of the modern world. © 2012 The Authors [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As part of a larger project promoting the development of historical dendrochronology in the Iberian Peninsula, ship-timbers from the Arade 1 wreck (mostly planking and framing elements), stored at the DANS/IGESPAR in Lisbon, were examined. Of these, 52 samples were identified as deciduous oak ( Quercus subg. quercus) and two as chestnut ( Castanea sativa). Of 24 timbers selected for dendrochronological research, 23 could be dated, placing the origin of the wood in western France and the felling of trees between AD 1579 and 1583. Their homogeneity suggests they are part of the original construction, which probably took place shortly after AD 1583. © 2012 The Authors [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of International Journal of Maritime History is the property of Sage Publications, Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)