Keelboat
Keelboat ( German : "Kielboot") was a type of boat that was used in the first half of the 19th century on the rivers of the American West, in particular the Ohio River , the Mississippi River and the Missouri River . It is characterized by a very shallow draft with a large capacity, which was necessary on the very shallow, wide rivers.
Construction and drive
The boats had a length of 8–20 m, a width of 3–6 m, a depth of 1–1.30 m and a draft of no more than 80 cm, depending on the load. They differed from the previously common flatboats, which were derived from rafts, in that they had a continuous keel and were therefore also suitable for sailing against a substantial current. At the stern the helmsman was at the helm . In the middle, over almost the entire length and only a good meter narrower than the boat, a freight box was installed in which the cargo was transported. Particularly large keelboats sometimes had a stern structure under which a cabin lay.
The drive options of a keelboat were varied. Upstream they were mostly moved by means of human power by towing ; if this was not possible due to dense bank vegetation, they were pounded . For this purpose, narrow walkways were installed on both sides of the boat, on which the crew ran against the direction of travel and pushed the boat forward against the bottom with bars. A small keelboat could be moved against the current by six to ten men; larger ones could take up to 50 men. When the wind was favorable, a simple mast with a large sail could be erected, and a few oars were available on deep, wide sections, such as estuaries . Under favorable conditions, speeds of 30 km per day (18 miles) could be achieved, more typical was 20 km / day.
Since the boat was preferably moved on the inside of river bends, the so-called slip slope , both when towing and pinning , it was necessary to change banks at almost every bend. In strong currents, this was only possible with a substantial loss of altitude. Contemporary literature reports a stretch of river where the crew must move the boat 54 miles (86 km) to cover five miles (eight km) of the river.
The crews of the Keelboats were recruited almost exclusively from the French population of Louisiana and called voyageurs . Despite the hard work, they were poorly paid. A voyageur on the Missouri River made about $ 100 a year around 1820 and received a little over a kilogram of husked corn mixed with some kidney fat or tallow per day, as well as two cotton shirts, a pair of heavy boots, and a blanket per year.
commitment
Rivers were the first transportation routes in the American West, and keelboats played an essential role as a means of transportation in the first half of the 19th century. The first keelboat was built in 1792 by a shipyard in Pittsburgh , Pennsylvania and quickly prevailed over the previously common flatboats. With these only one trip was possible downstream, which led to the trade flows of the 18th century, that from the American cities in the east over the Ohio River and the Mississippi River to the settlements of the Spanish viceroyalty of New Spain as well as the French Louisiana and its capital New Orleans passed. In 1814 598 flatboats and 324 keelboats drove from Ohio to New Orleans and carried 88,350 tons of cargo.
The Missouri River was accessible with the keelboats and the fur traders could be supplied with barter goods and the skins could be transported in large quantities to the cities of the east. The major geographical expeditions on which the continent was explored also used Keelboats, such as the Lewis and Clark Expedition 1804/06 or the overland voyage of the Astorians , fur traders of the American Fur Company , on their way to the first American base on the Pacific coast at Fort Astoria in 1811.
From 1817 the first paddle steamers sailed the Ohio and Mississippi. In the 1830s steamships were built that were also suitable for the flat upper reaches of the Missouri. They replaced the Keelboats almost everywhere.
Large Keelboat of the Lewis and Clark Expedition , sketch by William Clark
Bird's eye view of the same boat
Lewis and Clark's Keelboat on a US coin
Web links
- Flagship — The Keelboat , website about Lewis and Clark's 1804 boat
literature
- Dietmar Kuegler, Freedom in the wilderness - trappers, mountain men, fur traders - The American fur trade , publishing house for American studies, Wyk, 1989, ISBN 3-924696-33-0
- W. Wallace Carson, Transportation and Traffic on the Ohio and the Mississippi Before the Steamboat , in: The Mississippi Valley Historic Review , Vol. 7, No. 1 (June 1920), pp. 26-38, doi : 10.2307 / 1886569
References
- ↑ Flagship
- ↑ Hiram Martin Chittenden, The American Fur Trade of the Far West , Francis P. Harper, New York, 1902, unaltered reprint of the 2nd revised edition from 1936 by Augustus M. Kelley, Fairfield, New Jersey, 1979, ISBN 0-678 -01035-8 , p. 62
- ↑ Kuegler, p. 24.
- ^ Carson, p. 36.
- ^ Carson, p. 35.