Middle Era

Part 6 - Ships, chains, rope-walks and splices

In the later Mediaeval period, traders used their accumulating wealth to built bigger ships. These could carry more cargo for lower cost. The crew size was about the same and they could better survive bad weather and pirates, especially when they were fitted with small cannon. 

Traders reduced cost still more by forming consortia of like minded people to reduce piracy and theft, in a time before effective laws and police forces. These consortia also controlled competition to maintain prices, spread business risk by jointly financing productive assets like ships and helped one another following accidental losses; an early form of insurance. One of the earliest of these organizations was the Hanseatic League, a confederation of merchant city guilds in northern Germany that monopolized maritime trade in the Baltic from about 1180 until 1450 CE. The Hanseatic cities had their own legal system and operated their own armies for mutual protection.

Warships followed the same logic. Larger ships could carry more, and heavier, guns and could destroy an opponent at a distance without the risk of being boarded.

Ship design improved as more sails were added to ever taller masts and the traditional square sails were supplemented with triangular fore-and-aft sails, like jibs, that not only allowed boats to sail closer to the wind (upwind at an angle) but permitted the crew to turn or back-up the boat when it was not moving through the water (when the rudder was ineffective) and to make the helmsman job less strenuous by balancing the sail forces applied to the ship. These larger sailing ships required miles of rope to hold up the masts (standing rigging or shrouds and stays), for the running rigging (sheets etc. to hoist or control sails), for nets, for tying or securing loose equipment and for anchor lines.  HMS Victory launched in 1765, required 31 miles (50 km) of rope.

The rope was made in large quantities very long buildings called rope-walks as many sheets had to be long enough to run through sets of pulley blocks and anchor cable had to be at least 3 to 4 times the depth of water.  British Naval Rope was made in 1,000 feet (300 m) lengths.

From the Middle Ages, in Europe, rope was made in buildings known as rope-walks that became  long enough to make rope in 900 foot lengths. These were need for sheets and halyards as shorter ropes, joined by knots or splicing, would jam in pulleys.

The ropewalk at Chatham Dockyard in Britain, built in 1780,  was 1,135 foot long (346 m). At that time it was the longest building in Europe. Rope has been made there for 400 years and one of the earliest rope-making-machines, made in 1811, powered by a Boulton and Watt steam engine, is still in use.

Rope was often damaged or cut, particularly in battle, and require emergency repairs. Two sections of rope could be joined by a knot (typically a shroud knot, reef knot or a sheet bend) but this weakened the rope and it would also not run through a pulley block. For more permanent repairs sailors used splicing, where the ends of rope to be joined were unwound and braided together. This not only looked neater but it was much stronger. However, spliced rope would not normally run through a pulley block.

The term "rope" is used only until its purpose is decided. Thereafter it is called a 'line' or by a name referring to its purpose. For example a line used to raise a sail is called a halyard, lines to control sails are called sheets ( jibsheet, mainsheet etc).

Common twisted rope normally had three strands with a right-handed twist (right-laid) called a plain or hawser-laid rope. A four strand rope was known as shroud-laid indicating that it was used to hold a ships masts in position.

Cable-laid rope was a very thick rope used for anchoring or towing, made by counter-twisting together three hawser-laid ropes. These were sometime clamped to produce a tighter counter-twist making the cable almost waterproof, unlike other ropes that would become waterlogged and too heavy to lift, even with the aid of a capstan.

Rope was not only used for sailing ships. It was used to build the pyramids in Egypt and in 1586, Domenico Fontana lifted the 327 ton obelisk on Rome's Saint Peter's Square using rope with pulleys powered by 900 men and 75 horses.

A shroud knot is used to join two ends of laid (or twisted), multi-strand rope by unravelling the ends. They are stronger than a bend but less secure than a splice and were used to temporarily repair shrouds damaged in battle as they shorten the shroud less than a splice.

Early anchors were simply rocks or pieces of tree roots weighed down with rocks. The Egyptians started using lead blocks as these were denser than rock in water.  Iron anchors with wooden part were used by the Romans from 416 BCE.  The earliest anchor attached to a iron chain was made in Denmark in 950 CE but the practice was not common until the 19th century.

Until the winch was invented anchors had to be light enough for men to lift consequently most ship carried several anchors; the largest Triremes had more than 20. The ship of Kalmar, built in the 13th century, had a windlass to hoist sails and anchors and from this time anchors increased in size and weight.

In the 16th century a 1,000 ton ship carried 12 anchors but by the 18th century, a 100-gun warship carried 7 anchors, the heaviest being about 4 tons.