Sea Shorts (or Wet Pants) (or Soggy Britches)

Last updated:  04/16/08

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1. The magnetic north pole is located several hundred miles from "true north," and the same is true for the south magnetic pole with respect to "true south."
2. For navigation purposes, the difference between the magnetic and geographic poles is termed variation.
3. Errors caused by magnetic influences that are close to the compass are called deviation.
4. In the late 1600s, the French captains of French Ships of the Line used to cut away the fancy sculpture on the sterns of their ships to lighten them for sea and battle. It would appear that the captains had interesting explanations of to how their adversaries could shoot so well as to hit figures on both sides of the stern in such a perfect way.
5. In the late 1600s, the French naval hero, Abraham Du Quesne, created a special ship called a bomb ketch which had its foremast removed and its construction built more heavily. It was designed to deliver 200 pound mortar bombs on the pirate town of Algiers. It worked.
6. The first tall ship gathering, OpSail, was in 1964 and drew a number of the world’s greatest surviving sailing ships. It was the beginning of the growing interest that we see today.
7. In the 1600s, a typical ball fired from the largest guns mounted on ships of the line weighed 48 pounds.
8. The oldest pictures of boats are from Egypt in about 3400 BC.
9. Out of Columbus’ three ships, the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria, he liked the Nina best, but he didn’t like the lateen sails and had them changed to square sails bent to yardarms.
10. The ships we know now as "clippers" came to us in 1845, the first of which was constructed by John W. Griffiths and went by the name of Rainbow.
11. The last naval battle in which galleys were actively employed was fought at Matapan in 1717.
12. One of the foremost master shipbuilders known to history was the renowned Phineas Pett, a man from an old shipbuilding family, who built the English Prince Royal in 1610.
13. The triple-decker Sovereign of the Seas was remarkable in many ways. The ship, built for Charles I of England by Phineas Pett in 1637, was the first ship reputed to carry royals (the sail above the topgallants), was the most richly decorated ship of the time (believed to have been gilded by master carver Gerard Christmas), had the first round stern and was the biggest ship at the time (not to be outdone for another 150 years). It was called "The Golden Devil" by the Dutch.
14. The foe that defeated the Sovereign of the Seas in 1696 was an overturned galley candle that sealed her fate. She went up in flames, not down in battle.
15. The century in which there were the least developments for the ship was the 17th.
16. The word yacht most likely came from the Dutch word jacht which meant small, swift-sailing vessel. A jacht was presented by Amsterdam, Holland, to Charles II in 1660. He liked it so much, he had a flotilla built and raced them. Hence, the name yachting came into play.
17. The gilding on English ships in the 1600s was mostly yellow paint. The only true gilding (gold) was on the royal arms.
18. The studding sail came into use as early as 1549 on Scottish galeasses and into prominence around 1660.
19. The most famous clipper ship of all times still exists in Greenwich, England. She is the Cutty Sark built in 1869 by Hercule Linton.
20. Eighteenth century English ships of the line retained the long mizzen spar instead of shifting to a gaff in order to use the spar as a spare yardarm if one was damaged in battle. These ships also introduced the flying jib on a jib boom extended beyond the bowsprit.
21. In 1847, the Grand Banks Schooner of Newfoundland came along. The one we usually think of is the Elsie, designed by Thomas F. McManus at the end of the 19th Century.
22. The steering wheel began to replace the whipstaff in the beginning of the eighteenth century and was used exclusively on American frigates.
23. During Prohibition, a man named Bill McCoy, took his schooner from Bermuda to the island of St. Pierre, off the coast of Newfoundland, on business which was filling his boat with excellent rum, sailing the cargo north, and selling it to buyers who smuggled the bottles into the United States. His rum was so good, they used to call it "the real McCoy", and that’s where the expression came from. He was caught, spent nine months in jail and resumed business with another boat. His new name, in Al Capone’s books, was Black Dog.
24. The largest of all vessels built of wood was a clipper called the Great Republic launched in 1853. She was 325 feet long, 53 feet wide and had three masts. Her speed was never achieved because of a pre-maiden-voyage fire that caused her rig to be reduced.
25. An example of a large-sized schooner is the Thomas, W. Lawson. She was over 5000 tons, had seven masts with fore-and-aft sails and was 385 feet long by 50 feet wide. She sailed with a crew of sixteen. The masts were, fore, main, mizzen, jigger, kicker, spanker and pusher.
26. It was Joshua Humphreys of the USA who suggested the oversized frigates with many guns that could outrun ships of the line and survive heavy weather that resulted in ships like the USS Constitution.
27. The objective in sail warfare was to remain windward of it to either avoid conflict, control it and, eventually, win it.
28. One of the most famous pilot schooners (small sailing vessels that placed pilot captains aboard ships entering American inland waters, i.e., New York Harbor and the Hudson River) was the Edward F. Williams.
29. Captain Joshua Slocum was given a command as a joke. It was a small sloop in a cow pasture. He took the joke, rebuilt the boat as the Spray, and became the first person to sail, single-handedly, around the world. In 1909, he purposely sailed, at age 65, into wild southeast gale and vanished forever.
30. Captain Godfrey Wicksteed died in 1997 at the age of 98. He was a master mariner and ship-rigging advisor to the Cutty Sark Foundation. He began sailing before the mast on the barque Bellands in 1914, was Captain Alan Villiers first mate on the replica Mayflower, commanded the Joseph Conrad and worked aloft on the Cutty Sark until he was 87.
31. Sailing ships (that looked very much like the Chesapeake Bugeyes) plied Delaware Bay in the 1930s to save oyster beds from "other types of power". These were called oyster dredges.
32. The famous New York Yacht Club was founded in 1844 at a meeting aboard the schooner Gimcrack. As a result, a race involving three yachts led to a victory by Captain Samuel Samuels, former skipper of the clipper Dreadnought.
33. Early yacht racing evolved from friendly but intense competitions among yacht designers and designers of fast pilot boats in the mid 1800s.
34. The first large American yacht owned by a private citizen was Cleopatra’s Barge, a 191-ton ship built by Captain George Crowningshield, Jr. in 1816, who took her to Europe as evidence of the new American wealth. The yacht eventually ended up the royal yacht of Hawaii for King Kamehameha II.
35. A black cook named William Chapman not only knew how to cook meals on the early 1800s American yacht, Cleopatra’s Barge, he could also work lunar observations by three separate methods. He impressed the noted astronomer, Baron Franz Xavier von Zach considerably.
36. One of the first great yacht races involved the race of three schooners, the Henrietta, owned by James Gordon Bennett, the Fleetwing, owned by G. and F. Osgood, and the Vesta, owned by Pierre Lorillard, from Sandy Hook Lightship to the Isle of Wight on December 11, 1866. The Henrietta won by about nine hours.
37. It appears that a Florentine (someone from Florence, Italy) named Amerigo Vespucci sent his patrons, the Family de Medici, an account of four voyages to a new continent in 1504. It appears that America was named in his honor, but he did not name it. The naming seems to have been by a humanist poet named Matthias Ringmann. He referred, in some of his verse, to a place called Amerige or America. A mapmaker named Martin Waldseemuller put the name on some of his maps in around 1507. When Ringmann died in 1511, Waldseemuller dropped the name from his maps, but the name stuck.
38. The Rule of Thumb for navigation seems to have come from a Mexican navigator named Garcia de Palacio who used his thumb for calculations. He eventually evolved four Rules of Thumb that included calculations up to AD 2500.
39. There are no drawings or records defining the Mayflower. No one knows exactly what she looked like even though a replica was built and sailed by Captain Alan Villiers.
40. The story of American sail actually begins in Maine (then called northwesterly Virginia) in around 1607 with the landing of the Mary and John and the Gift of God which brought a master shipwright named Digby who later built the Virginia (of Sagadahoc) that sailed for twenty years and made many crossings. The rest is history.
41. The Gift of God that brought Digby to the Kennebec River in around 1607 was thought to be what was called a flyboat. This name most likely came from the Dutch vlieboot a boat of varying sizes that plied the Vlie River in Holland.
42. It is reputed that the Chesapeake Bay area was the first to produce distinctively American types of vessels because of the requirements of the plantation-crowded Bay and its supply and shipping lines.
43. Ever wonder what sails are which on a "square rigger?" If you start at the bottom, the last name of the sail is the level on the mast. Starting at the lowest, state the name of the mast itself plus the word "sail", for instance, mainsail, for the lowest sail on the mainmast. The lowest is just called a sail, the next is a topsail, then topgallant, then royal and then sky to total five levels. In the case of the sails on an actual mast, you have to apply upper and lower to topsail and topgallant.  In the case of the main, the order, from bottom (lowest) to top (highest) is:
    • Mainsail
    • lower main topsail
    • upper main topsail
    • lower main topgallant
    • upper main topgallant
    • main royal
    • main skysail
44. The sloop Fancy is supposed to be the earliest named vessel depicted in a picture (piece of art).
45. The first naval vessel of the independent United States to visit Europe was the brig Reprisal (16 guns) in 1778. She carried Benjamin Franklin to Europe and foundered on a ledge on the return voyage.
46. The first American frigate to actually go to sea was the Randolph (32 guns) commanded by Captain Nicholas Biddle. He and all but four of his crew were lost to the British Yarmouth (64 guns) when his ship’s magazine blew up in 1777.
47. An interesting coincidence in ship names comes from one of the early American brigs called the Andrew Doria and the superliner Andrea Doria that was hit by the Stockholm in the 1960 and sank.
48. Ever wonder which jib is which on a sailing ship?  Firstly, a jib is the foremost sail and is normally triangular.  In the case of jibs, the names, going from the ship itself, forward, are:
    • fore staysail
    • jib
    • outer jib
    • flying jib
49. Commander Gustavus Conyngham (an Irishman) was the most continuously effective naval officer in the war for independence. He was a privateer with a commission in the navy but was called a pirate by the British because he captured and held ransom, the King’s mail ship Prince of Orange. His ship was the Revenge.
50. John Paul Jones and the Ranger were called pirates by the British because of capturing the Drake in British waters and, with the Bon Homme Richard, the capture of the Serapis within sight of shore. The Serapis was a fifth-rate ship, the highest lost by the British by 1779.
51. On a sailing ship, any jib-shaped sail bent (attached) to a stay (supporting cable or rope) is called a staysail. Most of these can be seen flying between the masts.
52. When John Paul Jones and the Bon Homme Richard were in battle with the Serapis, it appears that the crazy French Captain Landais of the American frigate Alliance actually, according to Captain Pearson of the Serapis, sent a calculated, controlled broadside into the Bon Homme Richard, perhaps because of his derangement and his hatred of Jones. Shortly after, Landais sent another broadside into the stern of the Serapis. At that time, Pearson struck the colors.
53. Two women, Mrs. M’Dowell and Miss Mary Harley passed ammunition and powder aboard the American ship Planter when she was attacked by an unnamed French privateer in 1800; two gentlemen passengers fired their own pistols in the fight. Lloyd’s of London gave the two women elegant watches and the two men elegant swords for their troubles.
54. Nathaniel Bowditch, 1773 to 1838, is considered the father of American navigation.
55. The man attributed to saving Captain Stephen Decatur’s life in Tripoli was Reuben James, after whom a US Navy destroyer was named, was not really the man who sacrificed his life for the captain. It was Daniel Frazer, after whom no ship was named. Interestingly, Reuben James did volunteer to accompany Decatur in the ketch Intrepid to burn the captured frigate Philadelphia in Tripoli. It appears that in the battle for Tripoli on August 3, 1804, James Decatur, Stephen’ brother stepped aboard a prize ship he had taken and was killed. It is reputed that Stephen was after his brother’s killer when Daniel Frazer saved his life.
56. In the time of President Jefferson, a unique gunboat innovation called a Hawkins Wheel was used. It was a wheel on which two guns facing in opposite directions. While one was fired, the other was loaded, and so on.
57. According to ISAF rules for 1997 through 2000, tacking, gybing, luffing and bearing away now have gone away. This means a boat is always on a tack regardless of wind direction.
58. The bulk of the "seaman" aboard Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry’s ships, Lawrence and Niagara, on Lake Erie in 1813 were actually Kentucky riflemen.
59. The United States produced three triple-decker 74-gun ships after the War of 1812, the Independence, sold out of service in 1914, the Vermont, launched in 1845 and retired in 1902, and the Ohio, in commission for sixty-three years and sold for commercial use in 1883.
60. The schooner was the first topsail ship in America to have all sail handling from the deck as opposed to aloft. The Sea Flower, a pink-stern schooner (pointed) with a nock staysail bent to a topmast jumper stay, was one of the first in 1836. This type of boat was eventually called an Eastport Pinkie.
61. One of the last large schooners, one of the Palmer schooners, was sunk in the First World War by a U-boat.
62. A real-life American pirate named Charles Gibbs, who served on the Hornet and Chesapeake, took to piracy in 1831. He was subsequently caught and hanged with his partner, Wansley.
63. The first American drydocks were used in 1833; the first ship into the maintenance facilities at Gosport Navy Yard (later called Norfolk Navy Yard in Virginia) was the Delaware, a 74-gun, triple-decker.
64. The largest first-rate ship ever to enter the American Navy was the 130-gun, triple-decker, Pennsylvania, in 1837. In 1861 she was burned along with the frigate, United States, and nine other vessels at the Norfolk, Virginia, Navy Yard to prevent the ships falling into the hands of rebels.
65. Seven years before Commodore Perry visited Japan, Commodore James Biddle visited Japan in 1846 with the Vincennes and the Columbus. After trading cordialities, over one hundred Japanese boats towed the American ships out of the harbor and watched them leave peacefully assured that no more would return.
66. Older packet designs had length to width ratios of 3 to 1. The clipper ships had ratios of a low of 4.5 to 1 to a high of 6 to 1. The schooner Thomas W. Lawson (seven masts) had an incredible ratio of 8 to 1.
67. The clipper ship genius is unquestionably Donald McKay of East Boston, Massachusetts. Second is William H. Webb who produced fewer ships but made them just as well and just as fast. McKay’s ships took three of the twelve documented incidents of ships going faster than 18 or more knots. Of the twelve, nine were McKay’s. One of the fastest, the Sovereign of the Seas, with his brother Lauchlan McKay as master, logged 22 knots (410 miles per day) on two occasions. The fastest is McKay’s Champion of the Seas with a record of 465 miles per day.
68. Both clipper developers, Donald McKay and William Webb learned their trade from Isaac Webb, William’s father. McKay worked for $2.50 per week and, in his indenture agreement, agreed to have nothing to do with taverns, playhouses or matrimony.
69. A ship at its best was agreed to have, "yards braced well up with all plain sail drawing, full and by."
70. John C. Stephens, Commodore of the New York Yacht Club, sent the America, a pilot schooner built by William H. Brown, owned by George Steers, to Cowes in England for a race. The captain was a pilot captain named Dick Brown. She won the race in 1851. When the then Queen, Victoria, viewing the race from her royal yacht, asked an aide, "and who is second?", she was told, "Your Majesty, there is no second."
71. The model from which the yacht America was designed was, most probably, the Mary Taylor built in 1949.
72. The story of the America, after her victory: She was sold in England in 1851, renamed the Camilla in 1853 and rebuilt at Northfleet in 1859. In 1861, she was resold in American and was used by the Confederate fleet under the name of Memphis. After being scuttled, captured and refloated, she was used by the Federal Navy under her original name, America. Sold in 1873 and again rebuilt, this time in Boston in 1880, she was used for cruising and racing until the outbreak of WWI. She was scrapped in 1940 following a fire.
73. A group of packets that looked very much like clippers were made in Maine and became the backbone of the sailing merchant marine in the latter days of sailing. These were called Down-Easters in around 1873. These ships were designed to trade with Europe and ply the coasts. There were no outstanding names in design or building, just about fifty builders who built the same types of ships for the same reason.
74. Alaska packers from the north wanted ships to do what the Down-Easters did. Therefore a number of Northwest Down-Easters were built to serve the Alaska Packers Association. The first built was the George Skolfield. Later, when they ordered steel ships, all were called "stars".
75. Captain Isaac Hull of the USS Constitution gave a model of the Constitution to the Salem, Massachusetts Peabody Museum (founded by the East India Marine Society in 1799) in 1813. It is still there for all to see.
76. Phineas Pett, the great English shipwright, was tasked by Lord Howard, the Lord Admiral, to make a miniature ship model of the Ark Royal for the prince. In March of 1604, the prince went on board the real ship, and Pett presented the model. The next day, Pett was sworn in as the Prince’s servant and appointed captain of the model. He also impressed the king’s other son, Charles who ordered Pett, after growing up and taking command, to build the Sovereign of the Seas.
77. The gilded parts of the Sovereign of the Seas were created by Gerard Christmas and his sons.
78. In old English shipbuilding, "rebuilding" a ship meant that a new ship was built with as many materials and elements of an older ship as possible.
79. The basic Dutch East Indiamen were built of various sizes and shapes but were eventually kept to 499 tons because, at the time, any ship of 500 tons or more had to carry a chaplain. The owners of the company did not want that added expense.
80. The name "schooner" supposedly came from Massachusetts shipbuilder Andrew Robinson who, in 1713, heard a woman admire his new ship and exclaim, "how she schoons." He picked up on the name, and called his ships schooners. The name stuck.
81. Many of the great bone models of ships came from prisoners on prison ships and in on-land prisons. They were allowed to keep all money they earned for anything they produced that was sold on the outside. Two examples are in the museum at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.
82. The little Ann McKim, built in Baltimore in 1832 may be the first true clipper ship. Others say it was the Scottish Maid, built in 1839 to sail between Aberdeen, Scotland and London, England. Even so, the first recognized clipper was the Rainbow, built by John W. Griffiths, and launched in New York in 1845.
83. The event that caused many a clipper to be designed, built and sailed was to compete in the "tea races" that brought tea back from the Orient. One particularly wealthy man, John Willis, commissioned Hercules Linton to make him a ship. The result was the Cutty Sark. Before she could compete, the Suez Canal was opened, and the route changed. Cutty Sark was moved to the wool trade in Australia. She still is listed as one of the fastest sailing vessels in history.
84. The masts of the Thomas W. Lawson were constructed with a 135-foot long metal lower mast on which a 58-foot pine topmast was stepped to total an overall mast height of 193 feet give or take a few.
85. The World of Model Ships and Boats states on Page 101, that the seven masts are: Fore, main, mizzen, spanker, jigger, driver and pusher. This is different from what was taught in the mid-1950s at Admiral Farragut Academy in Toms River, New Jersey (now a municipal park): Fore, main, mizzen, jigger, kicker, spanker, pusher.
86. The first royal yacht of England was built in Amsterdam for the Dutch East India Company and was brought by the Dutch Admiralty to England for presentation to Charles the Second on his restoration to the throne in 1660. She was named the Mary.
87. It was Charles the Second who, by racing up and down the Thames for fun, began the races at Cowes (the one won by the America later in the time of Queen Victoria). She was rigged as a gaff-head cutter with bilge boards for keels.
88. The oldest reputed yacht club in the world is credited to the Water Club of the Harbour of Cork founded in 1720. Its direct descendant is the Royal Cork Yacht Club.
89. The oldest yacht club retaining its original name and location is the Starcross Yacht Club founded in 1772 on the River Exe in Devon, England.
90. The New York Yacht Club was formed in 1844.
91. It is interesting to note that boats can be parts of other boats, but in the case of sailing ships of various sizes from various times in history including the present, some of these are:
    • Captain’s barge - a double-banked pulling boat with fourteen oars; had a mast and sail stowed aboard; usually carvel built.
    • Gig - a light, narrow, usually clinker-built rowboat, four/six-banked.
    • Dinghy - a small, open rowboat, usually clinker-built with one set of oars for tendering.
    • Yawl - (old term) used for ship’s boat with more than four banks of oars; sometimes had a small foremast and mizzen.
    • Skiff - a ship’s working boat, small, usually clinker-built; used for errands around harbor.
    • Lifeboat - a durable boat with installed provisions to be used if the primary vessel sinks.
    • Longboat - a long boat used, many times, to row a stilled ship out of trouble.
    • Whaleboat - a durable oared boat that could be towed at a high rate of speed for miles when attached to a harpooned whale.
92. The most senior yacht club in the USA is the Southern Yacht Club of New Orleans founded in 1849. It is the most senior, because the New York Yacht Club and Eastern Yacht Club of Boston, both founded before the SYC, were not in their originals places.  The SYC is still in the same place.
93. It is interesting to note that warships tended to set all ship’s boats adrift or tow them in battle and were used by both sides if either ship sank. This was done for survival reasons and to keep down the probability of splintered debris rendering the deck unmannable.  It is also interesting, that livestock was also floated free during battle and picked up later (assuming the vessel won the battle, otherwise, to the victor go the spoils).
94. The first man to sail a yacht around the world was Lord Brassey aboard his schooner Sunbeam in 1877.
95. Yachting became part of the Olympics in 1900.
96. Standing rigging on a sailing vessel includes all spars, masts, ropes and cables holding up the rig plus the related hardware. The running rigging includes all the ropes, blocks and tackles, sheets, guys and other lines that control the sails.

97. Morse Code System - This system for communicating at sea is no longer used extensively, but is still applied, particularly by those who are familiar with it.  Just for your information, here are the codes.  Table 1 provides the letters; Table 2 provides numbers.  Long sounds are indicated with a dash; short sounds by the dots.

    Table 1. Morse Code System - Letters

    Letter	Code	Letter	Code	Letter	Code
    A	· -	J	· - - -	S	· · ·
    B	- · · ·	K	- · -	T	-
    C	- · - ·	L	· - · ·	U	· · -
    D	- · ·	M	- -	V	· · · -
    E	·	N	- ·	W	· - -
    F	· · - ·	O	- - -	X	- · · -
    G	- - ·	P	· - - ·	Y	- · - -
    H	· · · ·	Q	- - · -	Z	- - · ·
    I	· ·	R	· - ·

    Table 2. Morse Code System - Numbers

    Letter	Code	Letter	Code	Letter	Code
    1	· - - - -	5	· · · · ·	9	- - - - ·
    2	· · - - -	6	- · · · ·	0	- - - - -
    3	· · · - -	7	- - · · ·
    4	· · · · -	8	- - -· ·

98. Corinthian, in sailing, means amateur.
99. The yacht Britannia was the yacht of King George V of England. She was scuttled at sea when he died. That’s quite a tribute.
100. The U.S. Energy Policy Act defines alternative fuels as the following:
     
     Green Diesel
     Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG)
     Compressed Natural Gas (CNG)
     Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG)
     Biodiesel (B20)
     Electricity
     Hydrogen

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