galleon
The galleon was a mostly three-masted sailing ship type originally developed in Spain in the 16th century . Contrary to popular belief, the galleon is not a clumsy merchant ship, but rather a fast, agile and ocean-going warship for the era. Due to its superior military properties, the galleon was adopted by almost all seafaring nations in Europe and developed independently.
At the end of the 16th century and well into the 17th century, the galleon was the dominant type of warship and was built in very different sizes and designs. Typical for galleons is the Galion , a protruding platform on the bow of the ships that made it easier to operate the blind sail on the bowsprit . However, this feature was adopted from other types of ships of the 17th century, such as the orlog ships , the flute , the pinass ship and many more. Therefore these types of ships are easily confused with galleons.
Spread and use
Galleons were first common in Spain , Portugal and later in other countries as ocean-going war and privateer ships. The Spaniards used galleons, among other things, to transport troops and equipment to New Spain (America) and the Far East. Since the Spanish ships loaded with treasures were repeatedly exposed to attacks by English, French and Dutch pirates and privateers on their return voyage , the Spaniards switched to using large warships and well-fortified galleons as transporters. The Spaniards increasingly built very large galleons such as the Manila galleons for this purpose . It is due to this fact that the galleon is often mistakenly interpreted as a merchant ship.
At the same time, a much smaller type of galleon developed in England, the main task of which is to be viewed from a purely military perspective. These ships were very manoeuvrable and optimized for the use of the emerging long-range cannons. In 1588 these very different forms of the galleon met on the English Channel. The Spanish Armada was defeated here despite numerical superiority of the more agile English fleet, since the smaller English galleons were seaworthy and agile and could already bring their wide-ranging cannons at bay used. With the English galleons, the time of modern naval warfare began, which relies on superior artillery and naval combat over a distance.
At the beginning of the 17th century, the galleon had become so prevalent as a warship that the term galleon as a classification gradually fell out of use. The last ships that are still sometimes referred to as galleons are the English Prince Royal (1610), the French Saint Louis (1626) and the Swedish Vasa (1628). Then one went over to differentiating ships according to their size or their purpose, such as orlog ship , ship of the line or East Indiaman . Only Spanish ships that carried trade goods and treasures from the colonies to Europe were still called galleons in the 18th century . However, this term was no longer used to describe a specific type of ship, but rather every large Spanish ship that was underway in this function.
Development and characteristics
The origin of the galleon is obscure. The type of ship is likely to have arisen from the fusion of the fighting power of the large carracks with the good sailing properties of the smaller caravels in Spain or Portugal. Nothing certain is known about the origin of the word galleon itself. It is assumed, however, that the name derives from the Galion , which is an essential characteristic of the ship type.
Like almost all warships since antiquity, the great carracks of this time were strategically geared towards transferring land war to sea battles. It was essentially about boarding enemy ships and conquering them in close combat with a superior crew. Guns were only used to decimate the opposing team shortly before boarding the enemy. Just loading and firing these cannons took up to 30 minutes. Under these conditions, high fortress-like front and rear forts, which were difficult to conquer and from which the enemy could be shot, were important. However, these ships were very susceptible to crosswinds, difficult to maneuver and extremely heavy-duty. The carracks proved to be simply unsuitable for the emerging high seas use in the Atlantic between Spain and New Spain and far too expensive to build and maintain. With the construction of the galleon, these shortcomings of the carracks in use in the Atlantic were remedied by the following structural changes:
- By drastically reducing the superstructure, the wind resistance was reduced.
- With this reduction, the center of gravity of the ship also shifted downwards, which benefited the stability when sailing.
- Compared to the carrack, the galleons had a much slimmer hull. The length : width ratio of the galleons has been increased from around 3.0: 1 to 4.0: 1. With the associated reduction in water resistance, which was also achieved through a revised hull shape, the galleons were not only faster, but also more manoeuvrable and more stable than older forms of ship.
- Like the caravels, galleons had a flat or transom stern. This significantly reduced cracks and cracks in the strongly curved area of the planks at the stern of round gate ships in warm tropical waters. In addition, the Galion, a platform on the bow of the ship, made it much easier to operate the blind sail on the bowsprit .
Three-masted galleons carried square sails on the foresail and mainmast, and a latin sail on the mizzen mast . In the case of four-masted galleons, another Latin sail was added to the Bonaventurm mast . All galleons had at least on the advance buttons topsail , the larger also topgallants , on the bowsprit , a blind and later often a top blind.
When the early galleons were built, cannons mostly had small and different calibers and were not very accurate. Sea battles were decided in boarding combat, with the fighters on a larger and higher ship having a clear advantage. Therefore the older galleons (and the Spanish ones up to the Armada battle) were built a little more high, which made them clumsy and not yet as seaworthy.
When cannons, whose bullets could penetrate a ship's wall, prevailed towards the end of the 16th century, the times of the boarding warship were numbered. A ship with superior artillery could keep its opponent at a distance, so that its perhaps larger boarding crew was not even used. As a result, the galleons were built lower and were increasingly equipped with heavy artillery.
literature
- Peter Kirsch: The galleons: large sailing ships around 1600 . Bernard & Graefe, Koblenz 1988, ISBN 3-7637-5470-9 .
- Frank Howard : Sailing Warships: 1400-1860 . Bernard & Graefe, Munich 1989, ISBN 3-7637-5239-0 .
- Nelson, Arthur: The Tudor Navy. The ships, men and organization 1485-1603 . Conway Maritime, London 2001, ISBN 0-85177-785-6 .
See also
- Manila galleon
- San Juan Bautista (ship)
- Red Lion (ship, 1597)
- Batavia (ship, 1628)
- La Couronne (1636)
- Eagle of Lübeck
- Vasa (ship)
Web links
- university website about reconstructions of Iberian shipwrecks of the 16th century
- Page with a shipbuilding representation of a galleon from: Fernandez, Manoel: Livro de traças de carpintaria 1616. Facsimile, Lisboa: Academia de Marinha, 1989.