A small collection of working notes on ships of the age of sail: how they were rated, how they were rigged, and what the terms in old logbooks actually mean. The notes are kept for personal reference and are updated when time allows.
From the middle of the eighteenth century the larger navies sorted their ships by the number of carriage guns. The rate decided the size of the crew, the pay of the officers and the place of the ship in the line of battle.
| Rate | Guns | Gun decks | Crew |
|---|---|---|---|
| First | 100 and more | 3 | about 850 |
| Second | 90–98 | 3 | about 750 |
| Third | 64–80 | 2 | 500–650 |
| Fourth | 50–60 | 2 | about 350 |
| Fifth | 32–44 | 1 | 200–300 |
| Sixth | 20–28 | 1 | about 150 |
The seventy-four, a third rate with two decks, turned out to be the best compromise between weight of broadside and sailing qualities, and formed the backbone of most battle fleets until steam.
A ship in the strict sense carries three masts, all square-rigged: fore, main and mizzen. Each mast is built up of a lower mast, a topmast and a topgallant mast, and each section carries its own yard and sail. Reading from the deck upwards on the mainmast: main course, main topsail, main topgallant and, in light weather, the royal. Staysails are set between the masts, jibs on the bowsprit, and a gaff spanker on the mizzen helps the ship to hold her head to the wind.
Standing rigging holds the masts: shrouds to the sides, stays forward, backstays aft. It is set up taut with deadeyes and lanyards and tarred against the weather. Running rigging works the sails: halyards hoist the yards, braces swing them, sheets and tacks control the lower corners, clewlines and buntlines gather the canvas up for furling. A first rate carried some forty kilometres of rope in all.
A square-rigged ship could not lie closer than about six points — sixty-seven degrees — to the wind. Close-hauled she made heavy leeway; with the wind on the quarter she was at her fastest, since every sail drew and none was blanketed by another. Running dead before the wind was slower and made the ship roll.