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Shipping Companies


Owners(1)

  • There were different levels of ship owners, from fishermen with crews of six to people who owned large caravels.
  • Often fishermen would not own a ship but instead skipper(rent) one.
  • Larger ships were more often owned by a few people or by institutions like a church or the crown. This was to protect one person from full losses if a ship was lost.
  • People usually were not ship renters as a livelihood, but instead would have stock in a few ships that would then hold different materials that they were trading.
  • Ships often would change hands by warfare, stealing or sale.
  • There is evidence that ships that were owned by single owners in the 1450s were more likely to use new technological advances because of less need for group decision-making.
  • Royal ships were not only used for warefare but also diplomatic missions and trade:
    • Between September 1413 and June 1416, Henry V of England (famous for owning ships) used his fleet:
      • 17.8% naval operations
      • 32.9% trading
      • 41.2% in harbor
      • 8.3% other (aborted voyages, etc.)

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Shipbuilders(1):

  • Shipbuilding guilds as a major economic institution did not exist. There were a few in London, but nothing like other merchant guilds. They were very poor and ill-organized.
  • Very few shipbuilders worked in England. In 1294-96 the records mention only 270 men for seven different sites working on royal galleys. In 1512 only 252 worked on Henry VIII's large ship in London, and those came from a number of different places in the country.
  • Some names of famous shipwrights are recorded, but no major histories of them exist. Apprenticeship was probably used, but nothing structuralized. The pay for the different men working on a ship grow in scale (from sawyer to caulker to shipwright) and there might have been a progression of people working themselves up to the top positon.
  • Some projects list a number of shipwrights but a few mention none.
  • This shows that shipwrights were not men of great importance or wealth in the Middle Ages even though they seemed very important to trade and engineering.

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Number of Ships and Sizes(1):

  • In 1359, in England, all ports totaled came to 151 vessels (of 10 tons or more). 134 (88.7%) of them were less than 100 tons. They held 5498 tons altogether.
  • Ian Friel gives the estimate of 1000-2000 vessels in 14th century England.
  • The English crown used the ration of 1:4, men to tonnage, to figure out how large the crew needed to be for a ship.
  • Most ships were less than 100 tons if not less than 30 tons. The large 200 ton vessels were most popular in 1430-1450.
  • Tonnage of ships recorded may have been under the real amount because the only way to get a real figure was to page the ship full, and often the captain would want to give a lower figure so as to be taxed less.
  • A ship in 1378 built for the crown had cost 142 pounds and was done in 40 days.
  • The time it took to make different ships changed very strongly by size. A 120 oar ship was made in 45 weeks, and a 26 oar ship was made in five. Some of this time may have gone into felling and transport of timber.

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Materials(1):

  • Royal navies could call on oak from royal forests and as gifts from subjects, so it was easier to get cheap materials.
  • Most shipbuilders seemed to take wood from lots of places (sometimes up to 40 different vendors, each with only a few pieces). It was very ad hoc and unorganized, as with ship merchant guilds. Timber was often transported from different areas in England instead of from one local grower.
  • Iron, on the other hand, was bought from one or two smiths, usually imported from Spain, and was much more expensive. For example, in 1337 a large Spanish shipment of iron consisted of 3.45 tons, each of a hundred weights (112 lbs). Each weight cost 11s. Half the cost of material and labor for a ship went into making nails.
  • Clinker-built ships were held together mostly by clench-nails. These were long metal nails (around 2.2 inches) and were expensive. 100 of them cost 15 pence in 1294-1313, 21 pence in 1313-1380, and 30 pence in 1399-1497.
  • Ships would also use treenails, wooden pegs that were much cheaper than clench-nails. 100 cost 9 pence in 1294-1330, 15 pence in 1399-1497. Skeleton ships could use treenails a lot more easily than clinker ships, therefore giving a cost benefit from changing from one type to the other.
  • Skeleton ships also used a lot more caulking between planks, with materials like rope, wool, hair or moss put in the crack and then coated with pitch or tar.
  • Often both types of ships would be coated in tallow (animal fat) since it was thought to make them go faster (in reality, made them much more smelly).
  • None of the tools needed were very expensive or specific to the trade. Most used were small axes, saws, chisels, rope, clay pots for pitch, and augers (to drill holes in boards).

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Docks(1):

  • Ships mostly built on large rivers. Therefore cities like London and Hull made good ports. There were only a few towns in England which had ports even though they were on the coast, since only a few had rivers.
  • There were no set docks in each town. It was arbitrary where they were made and were very temporary structures, and usually constructed very cheaply.
  • They were usually just carved out of whatever land was near a river, and sometimes not refilled afterwards, which was not appreciated by port towns.
  • The first permanent dockyard mentioned in the royal record was at Portsmouth in 1495.
  • Ships were first built on land and then either pulled or rolled on logs into the water. This depended on bringing the ship out at high tide in an area with no sharp rocks or shallows to entrap the boat.
  • In the 1330s 'tidal docks' began to be used. The ground was carved out near the river until it was below sea level and a wall was built on the river side and water pumped out. The boat could be made in this dry area and when done the wall could be broken and the area flooded so the boat did not have to be pulled anywhere. They were used most in the 1400s, although a number of ships were still being built on land.

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Sources:

  • (1)Friel, Ian. The Good Ship. John Hopkins University Press, Maryland: 1995. VM17.F75

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