Re: big ships (was Re: Cos-B: 30 Years On...)
- From: Pat Flannery <flanner@xxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2005 14:48:26 -0500
Henry Spencer wrote:
Which left the way clear for a handful of small, poor, squabbling nations
in a cultural backwater to send out scruffy men in rickety, leaky little
ships to conquer the world... for money, not for pride and curiosity. Diversity and competition and greed lasted, where central planning and
noble motives faltered and failed.
The Chinese approach to the use of the trading fleet was interesting- rather than send out exploratory vessels and then follow up with trading vessels, they made a large fleet that worked like a small trading city afloat; the big ships to carry the goods, smaller subsidiary ships to carry animals, food, fresh water, and defend the fleet.
Given the huge size and extremely wide beam of the big ships, they must have been slow indeed, no matter how many masts and sails they had on them- I'd guess around five knots on an average day, and maybe seven if you had a good wind dead astern.
The whole fleet heads slowly along, trading with each port of call, and then returning with its booty.
What's missing is the obvious adjunct to this sort of operation- it doesn't set up trading colonies as it goes, but simply sails home again.
BTW- the size of the ships was picked for a very particular reason- they are 44 zhang, 4 chi or 444 chi (10 chi equals one zhang) in length- "4" was a sacred number in China: the Earth had four corners, China was thought to be bordered by four seas, there were four seasons of the year, and four Confucian virtues: propriety, integrity, righteousness and modesty.
So by building the ships to a length that was based on fours, the ships were in harmony with existence and therefore lucky and blessed.
The trick then was to figure out exactly how long the "chi" was that was used to build the ships- the first estimate was the "Ming gong bu chi" of 12.129 inches, or the "Huai chi" of 13.338 inches, but this made them around 450 to 500 feet long, and that is mighty big for a wooden ship. Further research has seemed to indicate that the Longjiang shipwrights who actually built the vessels in Nanjing used their tools and measurement devices on them. We have actual chi measurement devices from this group and period, and they use a chi of between 10.53 to 11.037 inches in length, giving an overall length of 390 to 408 feet to the vessels- which is still huge, particularly given their beam of 180 chi that is quoted in the description of them.
Seen from above, their shape would be basically rectangular with some tapering toward the bow and stern. Unlike the European design of ships which were shaped to cut through the water and push it to either side, the Chinese design used on the trading ships was shaped to basically run over the water and push it down, rather like a landing craft or barge. This would result in great stability in rough seas, shallow draft- allowing use near coasts and in shallow water, and great internal volume in which to store supplies, treasure, and trading goods; but at the price of speed and maneuverability.
Pat
.
- References:
- Cos-B: 30 Years On (Forwarded)
- From: Andrew Yee
- Re: Cos-B: 30 Years On (Forwarded)
- From: Dale
- Re: Cos-B: 30 Years On (Forwarded)
- From: Pat Flannery
- Re: Cos-B: 30 Years On (Forwarded)
- From: Derek Lyons
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- From: Henry Spencer
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