"Age Of Sail" Questions

Hi All,

I want to devise a meaningful, real-world-based Tech tree for the Age Of Sail, e.g.:

• What technological advances enabled the building of caravels and carracks?
• Ditto galleons (and galleases?)
• Ditto Ships Of The Line

Even if not as Techs, I'd like to work in relevant technologies such as the devising of a mechanism to determine longitude at sea (a Small Wonder granting +2 ship movement?)

Any and all thoughts are extremely welcome.

Thank You,

Oz


PS - Thoughts for non-European ship techs are also very welcome, such as the early Asian use of compartmentalized hulls.

-O.

i think it was all the knowledge of sail dimesnsions, material qualities of sails, knowledge of strong winds locations, harvesting of waterproof materials, also caravels and especially carracks seem to be older so a degree of contact with oriental civilisations also brought new knowledge...

For the caravel and carrack the most important technological innovation which went into their development was the switch from clinker hulls (where the planks overlap each other) to carvel hulls (where the planks are flush to the ribs). The sternpost rudder was also an important development, although it occurred slightly earlier.

Galleons developed from carracks which were lower and elongated giving them better stability and hydrodynamic efficiency, but I don't know how you'd represent that.

Ships of the Line weren't built that differently than galleons, the main differences being in sail plans and tactics. I'd say that the development of broadside tactics would be a good tech required for Ships of the Line, especially if you have smaller types such as frigates as well.

Caravel was a creation of Infante Dom Henrique at Sagres naval school, he mixed the Arab sail with the Barca sail to give birth to the triangular latin sail that could sail against the wind by swinging diagonally forward.

The ships innovation was not only in the sails (only ship at the time able to deal with reverse and crossed winds) but also in it´s building technique, making the ship much lighter, able to be manned by little crew, but still having a good cargo capacity.

Carracks or Nau´s are the heavy ships of the XV century, they have triangular and round sails, large castle in the rear and front, heavy guns and large number of troops and feature the first double hulls in history of sailing, making the ship much harder to sink. Their hull was also curved, giving it very good maneuverability in engagments and it´s guns were set to fire at water level, allowing gun shells to "ski" in the surface and hit enemy vessels where the water would flow in quickly sinking them rapidly. Their goal was to look slow and surprise the attackers with large amounts of fire and fast maneuvers.

What you have are two development threads for sailing ships, that of Northern Europe, with the requirement of surviving in the North Sea and North Atlantic, still the nastiest area of ocean for weather in the World, and that of Southern Europe, influenced by the more benign climate of the Mediterranean. The Vikings played a major role in the Northern European area, and in their Knorr had a vessel quite comparable to the caravel in terms of weatherliness and cargo capacity. In the Med you have a more constant wind pattern, more benign weather, more constrained sea area with land always near, with your major hazard being piracy and warfare. The more constant wind patterns put a premium on being able to sail close to the wind, and lead to the development of the lateen rig. The two threads basically merge in Portugal and Spain, which is why those countries led in ship development from about 1400 to 1500 or so. The other major factor in ship development was the fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453, which put them and the Venetians in control of the Spice trade. Having said all of this as a background, now let us look at what this means in terms of a tech tree. (Note: Oz, I said that I would get professorial on you.)

The Viking Long Ship was basically an amphibious transport and not really a warship, although it was used as one at times (see Rogers, Naval Warfare Under Oars for some accounts of Norse sea fights). The Knorr was the cargo ship, and as already said, comparable to the caravel for seaworthiness and cargo capacity. By 950, the Norse were making direct sea voyages from Norway to Iceland, generally running done parallels of Latitude, and also making it to Greenland and North America. They apparently had an instrument to determine the height of the North Star above the horizon with reasonable accuracy to allow this to be done. This ability to determine Latitude was also a key factor in the expansion of Portugal and Spain. (Navigating in the Southern Hemisphere is a bit harder, although the Polynesians did work it out.)

What you need essentially is three tech trees. One for the Vikings and Northern Europeans, a second for the Portuguese and Spanish, and a third for the Mediterranean area.

For the Vikings, you have the Tech Latitude, which gives the Vikings the Knorr (caravel equivalent), and say a Small Wonder, Western Voyages, with a +2 ship movement and ability to travel safely at sea. This Wonder should NOT go obsolete. After this, a Tech called Northern Shipbuilding, which allows the Northern Europeans to build the Cog, a slow cargo ship with good capacity, good defensive ability, but poor on offense, and sinks in the ocean. Both these techs should be allowed to be traded. You probably also need a tech to allow for the building of the Long Ship, prior to the Knorr, say Clinker Shipbuilding.

I will post more for the Portuguese/Spanish and the Mediterranean Area in a little while, as this is getting a bit long.

of course the vikings had amphibious ships

Balam-Agab said:

For the caravel and carrack the most important technological innovation which went into their development was the switch from clinker hulls (where the planks overlap each other) to carvel hulls (where the planks are flush to the ribs). The sternpost rudder was also an important development, although it occurred slightly earlier.

Galleons developed from carracks which were lower and elongated giving them better stability and hydrodynamic efficiency, but I don't know how you'd represent that.

Ships of the Line weren't built that differently than galleons, the main differences being in sail plans and tactics. I'd say that the development of broadside tactics would be a good tech required for Ships of the Line, especially if you have smaller types such as frigates as well.

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RickFGS said:

Caravel was a creation of Infante Dom Henrique at Sagres naval school, he mixed the Arab sail with the Barca sail to give birth to the triangular latin sail that could sail against the wind by swinging diagonally forward.

The ships innovation was not only in the sails (only ship at the time able to deal with reverse and crossed winds) but also in it´s building technique, making the ship much lighter, able to be manned by little crew, but still having a good cargo capacity.

Carracks or Nau´s are the heavy ships of the XV century, they have triangular and round sails, large castle in the rear and front, heavy guns and large number of troops and feature the first double hulls in history of sailing, making the ship much harder to sink. Their hull was also curved, giving it very good maneuverability in engagments and it´s guns were set to fire at water level, allowing gun shells to "ski" in the surface and hit enemy vessels where the water would flow in quickly sinking them rapidly. Their goal was to look slow and surprise the attackers with large amounts of fire and fast maneuvers.

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Thank you, Gents

timerover51 said:

What you have are two development threads for sailing ships, that of Northern Europe, with the requirement of surviving in the North Sea and North Atlantic, still the nastiest area of ocean for weather in the World, and that of Southern Europe, influenced by the more benign climate of the Mediterranean. The Vikings played a major role in the Northern European area, and in their Knorr had a vessel quite comparable to the caravel in terms of weatherliness and cargo capacity. In the Med you have a more constant wind pattern, more benign weather, more constrained sea area with land always near, with your major hazard being piracy and warfare. The more constant wind patterns put a premium on being able to sail close to the wind, and lead to the development of the lateen rig. The two threads basically merge in Portugal and Spain, which is why those countries led in ship development from about 1400 to 1500 or so. The other major factor in ship development was the fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453, which put them and the Venetians in control of the Spice trade. Having said all of this as a background, now let us look at what this means in terms of a tech tree. (Note: Oz, I said that I would get professorial on you.)

The Viking Long Ship was basically an amphibious transport and not really a warship, although it was used as one at times (see Rogers, Naval Warfare Under Oars for some accounts of Norse sea fights). The Knorr was the cargo ship, and as already said, comparable to the caravel for seaworthiness and cargo capacity. By 950, the Norse were making direct sea voyages from Norway to Iceland, generally running done parallels of Latitude, and also making it to Greenland and North America. They apparently had an instrument to determine the height of the North Star above the horizon with reasonable accuracy to allow this to be done. This ability to determine Latitude was also a key factor in the expansion of Portugal and Spain. (Navigating in the Southern Hemisphere is a bit harder, although the Polynesians did work it out.)

What you need essentially is three tech trees. One for the Vikings and Northern Europeans, a second for the Portuguese and Spanish, and a third for the Mediterranean area.

For the Vikings, you have the Tech Latitude, which gives the Vikings the Knorr (caravel equivalent), and say a Small Wonder, Western Voyages, with a +2 ship movement and ability to travel safely at sea. This Wonder should NOT go obsolete. After this, a Tech called Northern Shipbuilding, which allows the Northern Europeans to build the Cog, a slow cargo ship with good capacity, good defensive ability, but poor on offense, and sinks in the ocean. Both these techs should be allowed to be traded. You probably also need a tech to allow for the building of the Long Ship, prior to the Knorr, say Clinker Shipbuilding.

I will post more for the Portuguese/Spanish and the Mediterranean Area in a little while, as this is getting a bit long.

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Here's to professorial!


Thank You,

Oz

Ozymandias said:

Here's to professorial!


Thank You,

Oz

Click to expand...

Thank you for the kind words, Ozymandius.

Now, on with the lecture.

With respect to the Portuguese and Spanish, a few things need to be kept in mind. There is strong suspicion that the Basques of Spain and the Portuguese were fishing on the Grand Banks off of Newfoundland by about 1470 or shortly thereafter. Given that, they may have landed on Newfoundland, if for nothing else than fresh water and wood for cooking. However, firm documentation is lacking, and given that I have not found someone more closed-mouth than a fisherman about his favorite fishing spot, I do not think any ever will be located. A lot of the Portuguese exploration records have never been found either, as there is also suspicion that they may have reached the east coast of Brazil before the Spanish reached the mainland of South America. Again, no hard data available. The Portuguese also started probing down the African coast before Prince Henry systematized the efforts, and gave them solid backing. The focus was to locate a sea route to the Orient, bypassing the Turk and Venetian control of the Spice trade. The caravel, possibly based on a deep sea fishing boat design, in combination with the lateen rig from the Mediterranean, was a very good ship for that. Once they got there, they developed the Carrack as a long-range cargo ship, big, with lots of capacity, but not terribly fast.

Up until 1492, the Spanish were focused on driving the last of the Moslem Moors from Spain, which was completed with the conquest of Grenada in 1492, the same year as Columbus' voyage. With that accomplished, and with a lot of unemployed soldiers, Spain began looking for new areas to expand in, the New World clearly being one possibility. With the discovery of Columbus, the Spanish needs a new type of ship, larger than the caravel and nao ( the type of Santa Maria), with more range and better seaworthiness, similar to a carrack, and so the Galleon was developed.

Based on this, what you might want to think about for the Portuguese and Spanish is as follows. Give them both a Deep Sea fishing tech, which gets them the caravel. Once they have that, the Portuguese can build Henry's Navigation School, a Wonder with +1 Movement, and safe sea travel. After the Deep Sea Fishing tech, then you have the Exploration tech, which gives Portugal the carrack and the Spanish the Galleon and they both can build the Small Wonder of Navigation School, a +2 on movement, and maybe some other goodies as well. Keep Magellan's Voyage in the mix too.

More later.

timerover51 said:

More later.

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Small point: Portuguese Galleons were constructed mainly for military purposes, max ammount of troop carrying and guns, making the Carrack over time the cargo transporter and Galleons it´s gun escort. Spain focused on max. cargo capacity and left it to an all purpose vessel, both fighting and carrying treasuries. The Galleon was not necessarily a better ship than the Carrack, it´s main advantage, was that it was cheaper and easier to build, the Carrack however could be sucefully manned by much lesser crews in number, and could adapt easier to wind changing conditions.

Portugal also used logistic ships that followed the armada, like the Batel (cargo vessel and river explorer) and Bergantim (small ship with oars and latin sail, for amphibious operations).

And yes, there are maps and documents guarded in Lisbon´s Torre do Tombo that chart the America´s before the arrival of Colombo´s, he was also an Alentejo born portuguese who emigrated because the portuguese king wanted to allocate resources in consolidating the route to India and only after start exploring the America´s. The "Stone of Dayton" is a portuguese landmark in northern america that reflects the presence of portuguese explorers in the region years before Colombus discovery of the caribeans.

Similar stones were found Australia, nowadays Darwin region and other places in Africa and South America.

Balam-Agab said:

For the caravel and carrack the most important technological innovation which went into their development was the switch from clinker hulls (where the planks overlap each other) to carvel hulls (where the planks are flush to the ribs). The sternpost rudder was also an important development, although it occurred slightly earlier.

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Ships built by the Romans and Greeks were also carvel-built, but using mortise-and-tenon construction to very firmly lock the side planks together, with a wooden treenail used to secure the mortise and tenon. The change in the caravel and later ships was to shift from the very time-consuming and expensive mortise and tenon construction to securing the planks directly to the ribs, making the planks fit as tightly to each other as possible, and then packing oakum and tar into the space between the planks.

The problem with clinker building is that it required more timber for planking than a carvel-built ship. It did produce a ship less vulnerable to hull damage, but also a bit less water tight. It was used more in Northern Europe where there was still plenty of timber for ship building, and also where the hulls were more susceptible to hull damage from going aground with the tide. The tidal range in the Med is very small, while in the North Sea and North Atlantic tide ranges of 10 or more feet are common, and 20 foot ranges not unusual. A ship could easily be aground half the time that is was in port, and the hull had to take the beating.

Galleons developed from carracks which were lower and elongated giving them better stability and hydrodynamic efficiency, but I don't know how you'd represent that.

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I deal with it by giving the Galleon one more movement point than a carrack, normally giving the Galleon a movement of 4 and a carrack a movement of 3, along with better combat factors for the Galleon. Carracks get +2 hit points for being larger ships, and normally I give them 1 more carrying capacity point than a galleon.

Ships of the Line weren't built that differently than galleons, the main differences being in sail plans and tactics. I'd say that the development of broadside tactics would be a good tech required for Ships of the Line, especially if you have smaller types such as frigates as well.

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The ship of the line and the galleon were two totally different designs, the galleon still being a warship based on a merchantmen, while the ship of the line was a warship pure and simple. The ship of the line was longer, of deeper draft, and much more heavily built in terms of rib spacing and planking. The sail plan of a big galleon and a big Liner would not differ by much at all, although the Liner would have heavier and taller masts, stronger yards, and spread a larger area of canvas than galleon in order to achieve the same speed. The Ship-of-the-Line was actually developed before the concept of broadside tactics and line-astern line of battle was fully understood, as the basic ships were developed during the Anglo-Dutch naval wars of the mid 1600s. In the new Age of Discovery (World Map) scenario by Nexxo, he has two very useful Tech advances that pertain to the Ship-of-the-Line, Naval Ordnance and Shipbuilding. Naval ordnance supplies you with the heavy cast iron cannon needed to equip a Liner, while Shipbuilding is the skill needed to build such a large and long wooden ship. Both should be included as Tech Advances in a Age of Sail scenario.

For those scholarly types interested in getting more information on the development of the large sailing ship, I would recommend the following bibliography:

Bjorn Landstrom: The Ship and The Sailing Ship

Landstrom's books are magnificently illustrated and trace the development of the ship, both merchant and warship, throughout history.

Brian Lavery: The Arming and Fitting of English Ships of War 1600-1815

Lavery's work gives a detailed description as to what it took to equip a fighting ship in the Age of Sail.

E. Archibald: The Wooden Fighting Ship in the Royal Navy AD 867-1860

A magnificent work, well illustrated, showing the development of Royal Navy fighting ships, including costs at various periods and a brief but very good chronology of the Royal Navy to 1860.

Jac Coggins: The Ships and Seamen of the American Revolution

Probably the single finest work showing how wooden sailing ships were built and fought in well illustrated pages.

Richard Unger: The Ship in the Medieval Economy 600-1600

Unger looks primarily at the development of the merchant ship, and is also very good at covering the various ship building techniques. An extremely valuable reference, but a bit lacking in illustrations. For those, go to the Landstrom books.

Note: This bibliography could be MUCH, MUCH LONGER.

Ozymandias said:

Even if not as Techs, I'd like to work in relevant technologies such as the devising of a mechanism to determine longitude at sea (a Small Wonder granting +2 ship movement?)

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I assume you're thinking of for example Harrison's Chronometer? Needed tech could be clockwork. Or maybe the lunar distance method, which would require for example astronomy/advanced mathematics. Wonders could be obsoleted by Radio/Wireless - if such a tech is to be included in the scenario (would be very late in the "Age of Sail"-era).

More on longitude can be found in the wikipedia article History of Longitude.

Hope I wasn't stating the obvious......

What's so far posted is pretty much silent on the Indian Ocean, South China Sea & Pacific Ocean. Can't post much of anything off the top of my head, but have some resources available - such as The Archaeology of Seafaring in South Asia by H. P. Ray. Can tell you that they had multi-masted outrigger-stabilized ships of sufficient size to carry trade cargo & invasion forces. Made a tech icon with one - picture based on a temple bas-relief. Would have to look up the details on construction & navigation techniques.

Broadly what period are you looking for technical information about?

Blue Monkey said:

What's so far posted is pretty much silent on the Indian Ocean, South China Sea & Pacific Ocean. Can't post much of anything off the top of my head, but have some resources available - such as The Archaeology of Seafaring in South Asia by H. P. Ray. Can tell you that they had multi-masted outrigger-stabilized ships of sufficient size to carry trade cargo & invasion forces. Made a tech icon with one - picture based on a temple bas-relief. Would have to look up the details on construction & navigation techniques.

Broadly what period are you looking for technical information about?

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I have not gotten to the Indian Ocean, South China Sea, and Pacific as yet. However, it does look like the Polynesians used twin-hulled outrigger-fitted catamarans for carrying colonists and cargo between the islands, so that would be one option for a Polynesian unit. Each hull did carry a mast, but there is no record that I am aware of for a multi-masted Polynesian outrigger canoe. There is evidence for twin-masted Malay proas fitted with outriggers. It does not appear that anyone in the Indonesian archipelago nor the Polynesians ever developed a vessel beyond the outrigger-equipped dug-out canoe.

The Native American tribes of the Pacific Northwest coast of North America did build some very large dugouts with a few additional planks to further build up the sides, with some of the large ones being 70 feet or more in length. They did have access to some of the finest shipbuilding timber in the world, and very large trees to work with. However, all of their canoes were paddled, with no evidence for masting at all.

The Native Americans of the Pacific Coast of South America basically used dugouts, supplemented by balsa log rafts, which is what Thor Heyerdahl based his Kon-Tiki on. The rafts were sailed and used for cargo carrying, but stayed near the coast.

China/Korea/Japan pretty much can be treated together, and I will get to them after covering the Mediterranean.

This is the original image from the Borobudur complex in Java:

This is Samudra Raksa - the reconstruction built & sailed from Java to Ghana in 2003-2004
Don't know the details of construction but it's clear from both images that it's some sort of planking technique rather than a dugout.


The Hokule'a - a "performance-accurate" reconstruction of a wa'a kaulua - which sailed from Hawaii to Tahiti & back using traditional navigational techniques. Current project is a circumnavigation of the globe. Ben Finney's research on traditional navigation techniques and vessels is worth looking into.

I'm no expert. Doesn't a double-hulled ship like a wa'a kaulua require a bit more sophisticated naval architecture than would a dug-out canoe?

Blue Monkey said:

Broadly what period are you looking for technical information about?

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Given variations in technology and technological development across the globe, it's ideally not about a particular bracket of years, but, rather, about the the technological advances which would enable a Civ to progress from one seafaring level to another (I know my initial question focused was Eurocentric, but [1] I had a feeling that others would add helpful views and [2] I was very much hoping for timerover51's POV )

Many Thanks Again To All,

Oz

Ozymandias & timerover51

Background.

Expanding upon what timerover51 wrote earlier, starting with clinker and carvel contruction techiques. The main reason for clinker being developed in northern Europe was because they primarily used oak for ship construction. Clinker was used because the planks were not sawn, but split lengthwise along the logs. Looking at the end of a log, the planks would split radially, looking like narrow pie slices. This gave the planks a thin edge and a thick one. When constructed together, the thin edge of one plank was attached to the thick edge of another, one overlapping the other. Since the planks were split, not sawn, their edges would be irregular, making edge to edge construction impractical for ship use. This method of construction was also used on land contructions, as well, and probably the use of it on ships post dated the use on land.

The reason why the oak was split is due to oak being such a hard wood. Cutting it was very tough work and dulled tools very quickly. Splitting planks dates back to the stone ages. Early metalurgy was also not capable of sawing oak without the tools dulling quickly, so plank splitting carried on right on through to the Renaisence, when metalurgy had advanced enough that iron tools were then capable of sawing oak without the frequent sharpenings. Previously, the tools dulled so quickly sawing oak, it was much more economical to use the splitting method, as wood was cheaper than the labor, and tools were also expensive comparatively.

In the Mediterranian, the primary woods initially used in ship construction were softwoods. These woods could be easily sawed or shaped into the sort of regular edged planks we are used to wood being cut into today. This is why carvel construction, with the planks laid edge to edge, not overlapping, got an early start there.

When carvel replaced clinker in the north, this took place during the first half of the 16th century, generally, and many older vessels were rebuilt with planking on their topsides. Ironically, in the Med, carvel was used for the main construction of the hull, but when they started adding superstructure, fore and stern castles, the sides of this superstructure was often partially clinker planked. By the end of the 16th century, carvel was used throughout in both the Med and in the north.

Another reason for the change over from clinker to carvel in the north was it was much more difficult to get a gunport lid to seal water tight with clinker planking. The English ship, the Mary Rose, built in 1511, was orginally clinker planked. Later, she was rebuilt so she could carry heavy cannon and her topsides were replanked in the carvel manner so gunports could be cut in her side for the heavy cannon. Cannon on the early ships were small and were mounted to fire over the edge of the gunwale. The fore and stern superstructure contained most of the guns, and many of these were trained inboard to shoot at boarders in the waist. .This put them rather high up in the ship, which precluded use of heavy cannon. These early cannon are loosely classed as "mankillers", while the later heavier cannon were classified as "shipkillers". The changeover from "mankillers" to "shipkillers" as main armament took place gradually during the 16th century.

Parallel to the clinker and carvel construction, there was also another aspect of ship construction which changed during the age of sail. Ancient ships were built by a method called hull first construction. The outside shell of the ship was built up first, with inner ribs and decking then inserted after. Modern ships are constructed frame first, where a frame is built up, and then the outside hull is then planked. By the 1500s, large ships were being built by the frame first method, while many boats and smaller ships were still built using the hull first method. Viking ships were built hull first, as were Roman and Greek galleys. Cogs and naos were usually frame first constructed.

During the middle ages, each European region had their own main types that were roughly cog like. The carrack developed from this type of ship as these got larger and additional masts were added. It's thought the caravel developed from a blending of Arabic vessels (dhow is an example well known) and local deep sea fishing vessels. The sleek hull shape of a caravel is similar to the Arabic vessels that were in use along the southern Med, the coast of the Iberian Penensula and in the Indian ocean. Galleons were a streamlining of carracks. Warship galleons gradually became ships of the line as the superstructure was lowered.

In other regions, I'm not very knowledgable. I do know the Polynesians used star navigation along with very detailed knowledge of tides, winds, flora and fauna. The ships of China could be very large. There was an expedition to Africa in the first quarter of the 15th century where ships as long as 400 feet carrying 6-7 masts were recorded as used.

Some ideas for Civilization.

In Civ there is no hardwoods and softwoods, just forest and jungle. If one wanted to use hard and soft woods as resource requirements, I think it could be done. Since in the game jungle is equatorial and forest is temperate, one could use jungle as softwood and forest as hardwood for a very rough divide. A better alternate is a resource for each could be created, or maybe use landmark terrain with their own individual hardwood and softwood resources. Before cannon were used on ship, using hardwood or softwood in the construction shouldn't make much difference in the ship's defensive strength. Obviousl, once cannon were introduced, hardwoods would make a ship more resistant to damage.

Ship lines.

Norse ship (need clinker const., hull first const., square sails, hardwoods) Generic northern ship.

Northern European cog (need norse ship, frame first const., hardwoods, iron or bronze)

Med. dark ages merchant vessel (need carvel const., hull first const., square sails, fore & aft sails, softwoods) Generic Med. vessel.

Med. cog (need Med. dark ages merch. ship, frame first const., softwoods, iron or bronze)

Carrack (need northern cog, Med. cog, adv. metalurgy, hardwoods, iron or bronze)

Deep sea fishing vessel (need clinker const., frame first const., square sails, hardwoods, iron or bronze)

Dhow (need carvel const., hull first const., fore & aft sails, softwoods) Generic Arab vessels.

Caravel (need deep sea fishing vessel, dhow, adv. metalurgy, hardwoods, iron or bronze)

Galleon (need carrack, caravel, hardwoods, iron or bronze)

I didn't work in advances for masts, sail plans (other than basic square and fore & aft), navigation advances and gun types. These could also have their own Civ advances and the ship types named above could be broken down into sub types to incorporate those advances. It depends on how much detail one wants to go into.

I don't have any ideas for ship lines for other regions, like Asia and the Pacific, I don't know enough about them. But for Polynesian vessels, maybe adv. star navigation and ocean reading advances could be used.

Correction:

The Mary Rose had not been clinker built, I had confused her with the Trinity Sovereign, the wreck of which has also been found. She (TS) was clinker built around 1488 and replanked in carvel style around the time Mary Rose was under construction.

@ Stratchthepitch

I would be a bit careful characterizing jungle as softwood and forest as hard wood. Teak and Mahogany are two of the finest woods for wooden ship building, and both are tropical in origin. While much of the temperate forest is what is typically called hardwoods, made up of deciduous trees, sailing ships were dependent on conifers, generally referred to as softwoods, for masts, yards, and naval stores like turpentine and pitch. The Yellow Pine of the Southeast US is also a very good shipbuilding wood, and was used heavily by the Confederate Navy in the building of its ironclads.

With respect to the Northern use of clinker building, the side planks were first tied to the ships rib with withes, and then riveted together. The ribs were in place first.

Likewise, Dhows were never used in the Mediterranean, and would only have been seen by the Portuguese after reaching the Indian Ocean. They had to be developed sometime prior to roughly 1420, independently by the Portuguese. (For an interesting account of a sailing voyage from Aden down the East Coast of Africa and then to Kuwait, see Alan Villiers "Sons of Sinbad".)

@ Blue Monkey

I would be happier with using the carving as a basis for ship development if there was evidence of a sustained tradition of using that type of vessel in Indonesia, but you really do not have one. That might easily be a vessel from Indian, as the carving was done during a period of Buddhist dominance (and Indian influence) in the islands.

As for the twin-hulled canoe, the key advance was the development of the outrigger, as that was really used nowhere else. A twin-hulled canoe is essentially a canoe with the outrigger replaced by another hull, and a superstructure added connecting the two. As a side note, dugout canoes are still made and used heavily in the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific.

timerover51 said:

I would be a bit careful characterizing jungle as softwood and forest as hard wood. Teak and Mahogany are two of the finest woods for wooden ship building, and both are tropical in origin. While much of the temperate forest is what is typically called hardwoods, made up of deciduous trees, sailing ships were dependent on conifers, generally referred to as softwoods, for masts, yards, and naval stores like turpentine and pitch. The Yellow Pine of the Southeast US is also a very good shipbuilding wood, and was used heavily by the Confederate Navy in the building of its ironclads.

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I didn't mean jungles were softwoods and forests were hardwoods, I was just using an expedient to get some sort of hardwood-softwood division for Civ use. The way forest and jungle are distributed on a Civ map, it seemed like a possible idea for smaller scale maps, like Europe and the Med. If one were ti use hardwoods and softwoods as required resources in a Civ mod, then specific resources would have to be created for hard and softwoods, since I don't think terrain can be used as a required resource for either advances or units in the game.

timerover51 said:

With respect to the Northern use of clinker building, the side planks were first tied to the ships rib with withes, and then riveted together. The ribs were in place first.

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What you are describing there is the practice once ships were being built deeper in the north, such as cogs and hulks. What I described was accurate for the earlier ships loosely classed as Norse ships. That hull first building style was used throughout northern Europe up to the middle ages. After the first couple of strakes were added to the keel, a few ribs were added, but these were not proper ribs, but supports to hold the planks while they were being attached together. This is why I separated the style of plank use from that of hull construction, since both northern and southern Europe started by using a hull first method and later gradually evolved this into the frame first method. There was an inbetween stage, where ships were constructed using the hull first method till the first few plank strakes were installed, then the ribs were added, followed by the rest of the planking. For the Norse ship construction, this site provides a good description. Also it has an interesting description of how the logs were split into planking.

http://www.regia.org/Ships1.htm

This site also has some good information and illustrations:

http://home.online.no/~joeolavl/viking/norse-shipbuilding.htm

timerover51 said:

Likewise, Dhows were never used in the Mediterranean, and would only have been seen by the Portuguese after reaching the Indian Ocean. They had to be developed sometime prior to roughly 1420, independently by the Portuguese. (For an interesting account of a sailing voyage from Aden down the East Coast of Africa and then to Kuwait, see Alan Villiers "Sons of Sinbad".)

Click to expand...

Using the term dhow was unfortunate and less accurate than I had hoped. I could only remember that name and xebec, and I knew xebecs were more recent, developed after the caravel. I had read of the theories of caravel development a while ago where it was thought ships in use off the west African coast and southern Med. were an influence in caravel development, but I couldn't remember the name of these ships. So I went with dhow. One can find a discussion of the ships I should have named at this site (Ozymandias, they go into some detail on caravel development and I think answers your question of about caravels):

http://nautarch.tamu.edu/shiplab/01George/caravela/htmls/Caravel%20History.htm