Pilot protector
A pilot schooner is a schooner used as a pilot boat , i. H. a pilot's sailing ship .
In the age of sailing ships pilots were widespread, as only a few captains were ready to enter ports with larger ships, at night or in bad weather conditions. Particularly fast, agile and seaworthy sailing ships were required as pilot transfer ships, for which the two-masted schooners were used. They were the successors of the pilot cutters and galiots still in use in the middle of the 19th century . Due to the often unavoidable heavy weather, the boats were usually built particularly robust and stable (capsize-proof), especially for notorious areas such as the North Sea. Several former pilot schooners are now used as ocean-going yachts. The pilot schooner No. 5 Elbe, for example, crossed the Atlantic thirteen times.
A pilot schooner was in use in the Chesapeake Bay , on the American east coast between Virginia and Maryland , as early as 1730 - that is, still under English colonial power. In 1823 the wealthy Boston merchant, opium smuggler and philanthropist John Perkins Cushing is said to have won the first recorded yacht regatta in the USA with his 60- foot pilot schooner Sylph .
In Germany pilot schooners were used on the North Sea coast from 1855 on the Elbe, Weser, Ems and Jade. In 1929, all pilot schooners remaining in Germany were retired and replaced by machine-powered vehicles.
Sail-powered pilot boats have been used in the United States for a much longer period of time. At the time of the Great Depression , had been serving as the pilot schooner in Germany, bought the pilots of San Francisco in the schooner California (ex Zodiac , again today Zodiac ) a new sailboat. Older pilot protectors were also still used; For example , the rigging of Gracie S., also operating at the port of San Francisco, was changed somewhat in the thirties, despite the long-standing engine , in order to simplify the sailing maneuvers; in San Francisco, pilots were often under sails until World War II. In Boston the pilots even bought a new sailboat in 1941 , the Roseway , which was built as a regatta- capable fishing boat . The last active pilot schooners in the USA were the Zodiac in 1972 in San Francisco and the Roseway in Boston in 1971/1972 (according to the company, not until 1973).
Claim: Chesapeake Bay pilot schooner as the origin of the Baltimore clippers
Geoffrey M. Footner, author of a book on the Chesapeake Bay pilot schooners, argues that the famous Baltimore sea-going clippers evolved from the early Chesapeake Bay pilot schooners (from 1730 onwards) around 1790. Accordingly, he certifies that these pilot schooners were also used by some navies , for example, with increasing size, in the American War of Independence (1775–1783) on a pirate voyage from the North American east coast and for transporting goods to the Caribbean and for transporting weapons on the way back .
Footner also referred to the later Baltimore clippers as Chesapeake Bay pilot schooners, whereupon he attributes their participation in the war of 1812, their international success and their influence on boat building in the USA and other countries to these pilot schooners. The theses are, however, controversial, as the early boats from Virginia and Maryland are usually only seen as intermediate stages and the origins of the Baltimore clippers in England in the 16th century (see article Baltimore clippers ).
See also
Former pilot protectors:
- Albatross (ex Albatros ) Dutch pilot schooner, the sinking of which as a youth training ship wasfilmed in1996 as " White Squall "
- Atalanta , German pilot schooner
- No. 5 Elbe , German pilot schooner
- Gracie S. , American pilot schooner
Individual evidence
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↑ Parrott (2003) repeatedly emphasizes the stable (overturning) construction of the North Sea pilot schooner and attributes the later capsizing of the Albatross (ex Albatros ) to the increase in sail area after her active service:
Daniel S. Parrott (2003). Tall Ships Down. The Last Voyages of the Pamir, Albatross, Marques, Pride of Baltimore, and Maria Asumpta. Camden, Maine: International Marine / McGraw-Hill. - ↑ a b Summary and assessments of Geoffrey M. Footner's Tidewater Triumph: The Development and Worldwide Success of the Chesapeake Bay Pilot Schooner on the author's website ( Memento of the original from August 20, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (accessed March 18, 2008)
- ^ Tom Cunliffe & Adrian Osler (2001). Pilots. The World of Pilotage under Sail and Oar. Vol. 1. Pilot Schooners of North America and Great Britain. Wooden Boat Publications. ISBN 978-0937822692 (p. 240; engl.)
- ^ Tom Cunliffe & Adrian Osler (2001). Pilots. The World of Pilotage under Sail and Oar. Vol. 1. Pilot Schooners of North America and Great Britain. Wooden Boat Publications. ISBN 978-0937822692 (p. 137; engl.)
- ↑ History of The Roseway , on the pages of www.worldoceanschool.org ( Memento of the original from June 30, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (accessed March 18, 2008)
further reading
- Tom Cunliffe, Adrian Osler: Pilots. The World of Pilotage under Sail and Oar. Vol. 1 .: Pilot Schooners of North America and Great Britain. Wooden Boat Publications, 2001, ISBN 978-0937822692 (English)
- Geoffrey M. Footner: The Development and Worldwide Success of the Chesapeake Bay Pilot Schooner. Mystic Seaport Museum and Tidewater Publ., 1998, ISBN 978-0913372807 (English) ( Summary of the author's thesis that the Baltimore clippers actually emerged from the pilot schooners of the Chesapeake Bay )
