foremast

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

As foremast or foremast at is called sailing ships a particular mast :

  • In schooners (two-masters, where the eighth (rear) mast is higher than the front or both are the same height) the front mast, whereby the term schooner mast is also common.
  • For ships with three or more masts, the foremost, regardless of which of the masts is highest.

Construction of a foremast

The foremast of large, traditional sailing ships usually does not consist of a single piece, but is divided into up to four parts (from bottom to top):

The sails driven on the foremast are called accordingly (from bottom to top):

  • Jib
  • Submarine sail
  • Forward upper topsail
  • Pre-undersail
  • Forward top sail
  • Vorroyalsail
  • Vorskysail (very rare)
  • Vormoonsegel (even rarer).

The yards (from bottom to top):

  • Vorrah or Vorunterrah
  • Submarine Marsrah
  • Forward Marsrah
  • Vorunterbramrah
  • Voroberbramrah
  • Vorroyalrah
  • Vorskyrah (very rare)
  • Vormoonrah (even rarer)

history

Roman trireme with a steeply inclined foremast

For millennia sailed sailing ships in the ancient open and inland waters with a single mast, the main mast . With the introduction of the foremast or foremast, placed in the forward area of ​​the ship between midships and bow , the multi-masted ship type was born. This made it possible to enlarge the sail area, which benefited both speed and sailing properties.

Two masters were demonstrably used for the first time in the northern Mediterranean area: The oldest example can be found on an Etruscan pyxis from Caere (Italy) from the middle of the 7th century BC. Pictured BC. The vessel shows a warship with a reefed main sail attacking an opposing galley using a foresail . A large foresail on an almost vertical foremast is shown in an Etruscan tomb painting from 475 to 450 BC. Reproduced BC. An artemon (one of the Greek words for the foremast, next to dolon and Akateios histos ), which comes close to the size of the main mast, adorns a Corinthian crater from the late 6th century BC. BC, but were generally content until the 4th century BC. BC Greek long ships with the main mast.

On Roman rowing ships , where the headsail is quite common, the mast was typically tilted over the bow at an angle of about 45 °, resembling the later bowsprit ; the small square sail seems to have been raised less for propulsion than as a steering aid. Although pictorial evidence is our most important source, evidence of fore masts can also be provided archaeologically by mast tracks that are too close to the bow for a main mast. On Roman ocean-going ships, the foremast developed together with the main mast into the standard rigging, which was supplemented by a mizzen mast on the largest cargo ships .

Roman freighter with angled fore mast and vertical main mast

Throughout antiquity , the height of the foremast as well as the mizzen mast remained well behind that of the main mast, but was still large enough to require all running gear to function. In late antiquity , the foremast lost most of its tilt and on some ships rose almost vertically into the air.

By the dawn of the early Middle Ages by running rigging in the Mediterranean shipping a profound change: the Latin sail , which was originally used on smaller Greco-Roman vessels, took the place of the ancient Rahsegels that disappeared by the 14th century almost completely out of the picture (while it remained predominant on Nordic sailors). The Dromone , the late- rigged main battle galley of the Byzantine Navy , most likely had two masts, a larger foremast and one amidships. The length of the foremast is estimated to be around 12 meters, slightly less than that of contemporary Sicilian war galleys.

Multi-masted sailors reappeared in the Mediterranean in the late Middle Ages . The size of the ships increased steadily and with the growing tonnage the need for more masts increased to ensure seaworthiness. In contrast to antiquity, however, the foremast was only introduced on medieval ships after the mizzen mast , which can be traced back to the middle of the 14th century. In order to balance out the sail plan , the next logical step was to add a foremast in front of the main mast, which is first shown on a Catalan ink drawing from 1409. With the establishment of the three-master in European shipping, driven by square and latin sails and controlled by a hinged stern rudder , the technical basis was given at the beginning of the 15th century to set off on the great voyages of discovery .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Lionel Casson : The Earliest Two-masted Ship. 1963, p. 109.
  2. ^ J. MacIntosh Turfa, AG Steinmayer: The Earliest Foresail, on Another Etruscan Vase. 1999, p. 295.
  3. ^ Lionel Casson: The Earliest Two-masted Ship. 1963, p. 111.
  4. ↑ See Emil Luebeck : Artemon 27 . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume II, 2, Stuttgart 1896, Col. 1448 f. Ernst Assmann : Dolon 3 . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume V, 1, Stuttgart 1903, Col. 1288 f. Emil Luebeck: Ἀκάτειος ἱστός . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume I, 1, Stuttgart 1893, Sp. 1158.
  5. ^ A b Lionel Casson: Two-masted Greek ships. 1980, p. 69.
  6. ^ Lionel Casson: The Earliest Two-masted Ship. 1963, p. 109.
  7. ^ Carlo Beltrame: Archaeological Evidence of the Foremast on Ancient Sailing Ships. 1996, p. 135.
  8. ^ A b c Lionel Casson: Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World. 1995, pp. 239-243.
  9. ^ Lionel Casson: Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World. 1995, pp. 243-245.
  10. ^ John H. Pryor, Elizabeth M. Jeffreys: The Age of the ΔΡΟΜΩΝ. The Byzantine Navy approx. 500–1204. 2006, pp. 153-161.
  11. ^ John H. Pryor, Elizabeth M. Jeffreys: The Age of the ΔΡΟΜΩΝ. The Byzantine Navy approx. 500–1204. 2006, pp. 238f., 244
  12. ↑ Lawrence V. Mott: A Three-masted Ship Depiction from 1409. 1994, pp. 39-40.

literature

  • Carlo Beltrame: Archaeological Evidence of the Foremast on Ancient Sailing Ships. In: The International Journal of Nautical Archeology. Volume 25, No. 2, 1996, pp. 135-139.
  • Lionel Casson : The Earliest Two-masted Ship. In: Archeology. Volume 16, No. 2, 1963, pp. 108-111.
  • Lionel Casson: Two-masted Greek ships. In: The International Journal of Nautical Archeology. Volume 9, No. 1, 1980, pp. 68-69.
  • Lionel Casson: Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995, ISBN 0-8018-5130-0 .
  • Lawrence V. Mott: A Three-masted Ship Depiction from 1409. In: The International Journal of Nautical Archeology. Volume 23, No. 1, 1994, pp. 39-40.
  • John H. Pryor, Elizabeth M. Jeffreys: The Age of the ΔΡΟΜΩΝ. The Byzantine Navy approx. 500–1204. (= The Medieval Mediterranean. Peoples, Economies and Cultures, 400-1500. Volume 62). Brill Academic Publishers, 2006, ISBN 90-04-15197-4 .
  • J. MacIntosh Turfa, AG Steinmayer: The Earliest Foresail, on Another Etruscan Vase. In: The International Journal of Nautical Archeology. Volume 28, No. 3, 1999, pp. 292-296.
  • Emil Luebeck : Ἀκάτειος ἱστός . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume I, 1, Stuttgart 1893, Sp. 1158.

See also

Ship mast

Web links

Wiktionary: foremast  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations