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Britain is an island surrounded by a cold and unforgiving sea. | 0:00:02 | 0:00:06 | |
For centuries, it protected us from attack. | 0:00:06 | 0:00:11 | |
But to prosper and thrive, we would need to do more than just hide behind her salt water shield. | 0:00:11 | 0:00:17 | |
Britain needed brave men, willing to venture out into the unknown. | 0:00:17 | 0:00:22 | |
And she needed good boats to take them there. | 0:00:22 | 0:00:24 | |
I've spent my life at sea. | 0:00:26 | 0:00:29 | |
Now I'm going to take passage on six boats that, together, tell the story of modern Britain. | 0:00:29 | 0:00:34 | |
Built for exploration, war, fishing, industry and our very survival... | 0:00:34 | 0:00:42 | |
these are the boats that built Britain and changed the way we live forever. | 0:00:42 | 0:00:47 | |
This time, I'm sailing on a square-rigger. | 0:00:52 | 0:00:55 | |
This one form of rig did more to shape the world we live in today than anything else afloat. | 0:00:55 | 0:01:02 | |
Carrying goods all over the globe, the square-rigger was the workhorse | 0:01:02 | 0:01:07 | |
of the industrial revolution and the ship that turned Britain into the richest country in the world. | 0:01:07 | 0:01:14 | |
This is the Phoenix. | 0:01:33 | 0:01:35 | |
She's got two masts which makes her a brig, and to see her come over the | 0:01:35 | 0:01:39 | |
horizon, thundering down on you on a windy day with a bone in her teeth and her topsails bellowing out | 0:01:39 | 0:01:44 | |
to the wind, is one of the great thrills this world has to offer. | 0:01:44 | 0:01:48 | |
It's been said that the wooden square-rigged | 0:01:52 | 0:01:54 | |
sailing ship was the most important vehicle ever devised by man. | 0:01:54 | 0:01:59 | |
These were the vessels that took sailors to the four corners | 0:02:00 | 0:02:04 | |
of the earth, and made Britain the world's first industrial superpower. | 0:02:04 | 0:02:09 | |
At the beginning of the 19th century, with the Royal Navy | 0:02:11 | 0:02:14 | |
policing the high seas after the battle of Trafalgar, | 0:02:14 | 0:02:18 | |
the world opened up for ships like these. | 0:02:18 | 0:02:21 | |
Now, merchants were free to trade around the globe without fear of attack. | 0:02:21 | 0:02:26 | |
And it was the square-rigged ship, with its forest of shrouds, stays | 0:02:26 | 0:02:31 | |
and spars, that became the vessel of choice. | 0:02:31 | 0:02:34 | |
Pushed by the trade winds that circle the world, these ships could travel huge distances, sailing | 0:02:37 | 0:02:43 | |
non-stop for weeks at a time and handling everything that the oceans could throw at them along the way. | 0:02:43 | 0:02:49 | |
Vessels like this made fortunes for their owners | 0:02:53 | 0:02:56 | |
in the mid-19th century, but to understand where they've come from, we have to understand that | 0:02:56 | 0:03:01 | |
trading on the water goes back to the days before the dawn of history. | 0:03:01 | 0:03:05 | |
As an island, Britain has always depended | 0:03:09 | 0:03:11 | |
on trade with the outside world for things we can't produce ourselves. | 0:03:11 | 0:03:15 | |
Long before the Romans came over here and stirred things up a bit, the Celtic tribes living in these | 0:03:18 | 0:03:23 | |
south coast harbours and creeks used to trade with their opposite numbers over in Brittany. | 0:03:23 | 0:03:29 | |
Back then, trade was simple and restricted to a few luxury goods. | 0:03:29 | 0:03:34 | |
Maybe wine from the Rhone, or olives from Provence. | 0:03:34 | 0:03:38 | |
It's a simple equation, trading one thing for another. | 0:03:38 | 0:03:43 | |
But as boats got bigger and the world grew smaller, | 0:03:43 | 0:03:47 | |
the complexity and scale of sea-trade began to grow. | 0:03:47 | 0:03:51 | |
And with the expansion of the British Empire at | 0:03:54 | 0:03:56 | |
the beginning of the 19th century, | 0:03:56 | 0:03:59 | |
Britain was exploiting business opportunities all over the world. | 0:03:59 | 0:04:03 | |
Here at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, the very fabric of the | 0:04:06 | 0:04:10 | |
building testifies to the vast wealth this period was generating. | 0:04:10 | 0:04:15 | |
And on the museum walls, pictures capture the world the sqaure-rigged ships created. | 0:04:15 | 0:04:21 | |
One painting in particular depicts a scene that must have been repeated | 0:04:21 | 0:04:25 | |
thousands of times at docks up and down the country in the 1800s. | 0:04:25 | 0:04:29 | |
Henry O'Neil's The Parting Cheer. | 0:04:29 | 0:04:33 | |
Wow. It's alive, isn't it? | 0:04:34 | 0:04:39 | |
It really gives you the feeling that the world is expanding. | 0:04:39 | 0:04:43 | |
These people are going out looking for new horizons. | 0:04:43 | 0:04:46 | |
It's...I guess boom time for the British Empire. | 0:04:46 | 0:04:49 | |
Absolutely. You're talking about the mass movement of people | 0:04:49 | 0:04:51 | |
and goods, but also ideas and cargos | 0:04:51 | 0:04:55 | |
all moving round the British Empire, | 0:04:55 | 0:04:58 | |
and for that you need a step change in the size of ships as well. | 0:04:58 | 0:05:01 | |
As this shipping company atlas proudly shows, | 0:05:02 | 0:05:05 | |
by the middle of the 19th century, Britain either | 0:05:05 | 0:05:08 | |
controlled or was trading with virtually every country on earth. | 0:05:08 | 0:05:12 | |
And it was the square-rigger that tied it all together. | 0:05:12 | 0:05:15 | |
So, until really quite late in the nineteenth century, square-riggers are | 0:05:15 | 0:05:20 | |
carrying the bulk of Britain's trade, especially the high bulk, low value goods like coal and cotton and this | 0:05:20 | 0:05:27 | |
is still an age of high adventure on the high seas for Britain's sailors. | 0:05:27 | 0:05:32 | |
So how did these sqaure-rigged merchant ships come about? | 0:05:32 | 0:05:35 | |
Britain had been trading with the Far East and the Americas since the beginning of the 17th Century. | 0:05:35 | 0:05:42 | |
But with the European powers almost continually in conflict, | 0:05:42 | 0:05:46 | |
and pirates lurking behind every other headland, | 0:05:46 | 0:05:50 | |
the sea was a dangerous place in those days. | 0:05:50 | 0:05:52 | |
Merchant ships looked more like men of war, | 0:05:52 | 0:05:56 | |
weighed down with the guns and troops they needed for protection. | 0:05:56 | 0:05:59 | |
But as the oceans became safer following Trafalgar, | 0:06:00 | 0:06:04 | |
merchants were finally free to trade without fear of constant attack. | 0:06:04 | 0:06:09 | |
Now, speed, sailing ability and cargo capacity were more important than firepower alone. | 0:06:09 | 0:06:16 | |
Relieved of the need to carry a serious battery of artillery, | 0:06:18 | 0:06:21 | |
merchant ships could become leaner, faster, more manoeuvrable craft. | 0:06:21 | 0:06:27 | |
Time was becoming money, and ship builders looked to new designs. | 0:06:27 | 0:06:32 | |
The efficient brig and her big sister, the full-rigged three-master, now developed rapidly. | 0:06:32 | 0:06:38 | |
And as the focus switched from war to wealth, these rigs drove sharper, speedier hulls. | 0:06:38 | 0:06:44 | |
They would soon become the backbone | 0:06:46 | 0:06:48 | |
of the greatest merchant fleet the world had ever seen. | 0:06:48 | 0:06:52 | |
Fortunes were there to be won. | 0:06:56 | 0:06:58 | |
And it wasn't just foreign goods, Eastern spices and silks, that were making money. | 0:06:58 | 0:07:03 | |
Every corner of Britain was getting into trade, | 0:07:03 | 0:07:06 | |
exploiting whatever was at hand in the pursuit of profit. | 0:07:06 | 0:07:11 | |
And one place captures this new attitude perfectly. | 0:07:11 | 0:07:14 | |
And it's here, in deepest Cornwall. | 0:07:14 | 0:07:18 | |
You don't expect to see slag heaps and open casts pits like this in Cornwall, do you? | 0:07:19 | 0:07:25 | |
But they're a mute witness to the Cornish people's urge to get rich quick over the past 150 years. | 0:07:25 | 0:07:31 | |
These vast mines once produced tens of thousands of tons of clay. | 0:07:32 | 0:07:37 | |
The particularly fine clay demanded by makers of bone china, | 0:07:37 | 0:07:41 | |
the must-have domestic item for any fashionable 19th century household. | 0:07:41 | 0:07:46 | |
The only problem was that British manufacturers were based up in the Midlands. | 0:07:47 | 0:07:52 | |
With land transport ineffective and prohibitively expensive, | 0:07:52 | 0:07:56 | |
only the sea offered a viable means of conveyance, | 0:07:56 | 0:08:00 | |
and the mine owners stopped at nothing to get their cargo ships as close to the clay as they could. | 0:08:00 | 0:08:08 | |
This is Charlestown harbour, carved out of the solid rock of the hillside. | 0:08:08 | 0:08:12 | |
An impressive feat of engineering in a place where nature never intended there to be a harbour at all. | 0:08:12 | 0:08:18 | |
But it was all in a day's work to the industrialists and ship owners of the mid-19th century. | 0:08:18 | 0:08:24 | |
The sort of thing they would do at the drop of a hat in the pursuit of profit. | 0:08:24 | 0:08:28 | |
And that profit was made by the ships that could now come and go, | 0:08:28 | 0:08:33 | |
laden, in the case of Charlestown, with the clay mined just inland. | 0:08:33 | 0:08:38 | |
Throughout the 19th century, | 0:08:39 | 0:08:41 | |
this little dock would have been packed with all the boat-related | 0:08:41 | 0:08:45 | |
businesses you need to keep a fleet of trading vessels afloat. | 0:08:45 | 0:08:49 | |
Most of that has long gone now, of course. | 0:08:49 | 0:08:51 | |
But here at Charlestown, you can still get a flavour | 0:08:51 | 0:08:55 | |
of what it must have been like when square-riggers were the shuttles of the loom of industry. | 0:08:55 | 0:09:00 | |
Today they're replacing the mast on one of these great ships. | 0:09:03 | 0:09:06 | |
And it shows the first thing you need if you're going to build a square-rigger... | 0:09:06 | 0:09:11 | |
wood. | 0:09:11 | 0:09:12 | |
Lots of it! | 0:09:12 | 0:09:15 | |
Francis Browne is a skipper and shipwright who has spent his life working on square-riggers. | 0:09:15 | 0:09:20 | |
He knows every inch of what goes into making one of these wonderful craft. | 0:09:20 | 0:09:25 | |
This is the inside planking. It's known as the ceiling. | 0:09:25 | 0:09:29 | |
This planking runs all the way fore and aft on the vessel | 0:09:29 | 0:09:34 | |
and it adds terrific longitudinal strength to the vessel. | 0:09:34 | 0:09:39 | |
You can see the thickness of the planking here, this is a good three inches thick. | 0:09:39 | 0:09:43 | |
It's very solid. And the frames behind and then, of course, the external skin of planking, | 0:09:43 | 0:09:50 | |
which on this vessel, is another three and a half, four inches. | 0:09:50 | 0:09:53 | |
So, there's a massive amount of timber in these vessels. | 0:09:53 | 0:09:56 | |
It's unimaginably strong, isn't it? | 0:09:56 | 0:09:58 | |
-Very, very strong. -And we've got metal work here, haven't we? | 0:09:58 | 0:10:01 | |
This is actually iron work, | 0:10:01 | 0:10:04 | |
forged iron hanging knees, and they run right down inside. | 0:10:04 | 0:10:08 | |
And that's continuing here under the deck. | 0:10:08 | 0:10:12 | |
This beefs up these | 0:10:12 | 0:10:15 | |
deck beams and ties it all together. | 0:10:15 | 0:10:17 | |
It's very much a living component. | 0:10:17 | 0:10:21 | |
The way it's been constructed, it all works together and it all does move a little bit at sea. | 0:10:21 | 0:10:29 | |
Nothing is so rigid that it can't move and give a little bit as it makes it way through the seas. | 0:10:29 | 0:10:37 | |
And every one of these planks had to be hand made and fitted by a team of craftsmen. | 0:10:37 | 0:10:43 | |
Today, another of the Charlestown fleet is in dry dock having new | 0:10:43 | 0:10:47 | |
planks fitted to her hull, which gives us a chance for | 0:10:47 | 0:10:51 | |
a close-up view of the work that goes into building and maintaining these boats. | 0:10:51 | 0:10:55 | |
First of all, the gap left by the plank to be replaced is measured and a template is transferred | 0:10:57 | 0:11:02 | |
onto the new plank so it can be cut to the right size. | 0:11:02 | 0:11:06 | |
They then have to make sure that the bevel of the plank is correct so that it fits perfectly. | 0:11:06 | 0:11:13 | |
Now, the boys are drilling the plank so it won't split when they fasten it in with giant nails. | 0:11:13 | 0:11:20 | |
Before the plank can be offered up into place, | 0:11:20 | 0:11:22 | |
the edges are greased with tallow to help it slide in more easily. | 0:11:22 | 0:11:26 | |
Of course, they're hoping that their measurements are right, so that when | 0:11:30 | 0:11:34 | |
they insert the plank, it fits perfectly. | 0:11:34 | 0:11:38 | |
Good job, lads. | 0:11:39 | 0:11:40 | |
Now, it's 'hold the forward end up with a jack and hammer it home', | 0:11:40 | 0:11:45 | |
leaving the aft end over-length so they can cut the exact fit | 0:11:45 | 0:11:48 | |
after she's been half-secured. | 0:11:48 | 0:11:52 | |
Once they're happy, they can start fastening | 0:11:52 | 0:11:54 | |
by driving six inch nails through the plank and into the frames. | 0:11:54 | 0:11:58 | |
To finish off, the nails are countersunk to really make sure they're not going anywhere. | 0:11:58 | 0:12:04 | |
It's great to see these guys whacking away with these big hammers. | 0:12:08 | 0:12:12 | |
The explosive force that they're using | 0:12:12 | 0:12:14 | |
to drive in these great big spikes and every single one of those bangs | 0:12:14 | 0:12:18 | |
is putting strength into this ship. | 0:12:18 | 0:12:21 | |
The strength in a wooden boat is remarkable | 0:12:21 | 0:12:24 | |
and this is the way they've been built since time immemorial. | 0:12:24 | 0:12:27 | |
These are ancient skills. | 0:12:27 | 0:12:29 | |
With 19th-century Britain crying out for ever more ships | 0:12:29 | 0:12:31 | |
to meet demand, vessels like these were being built in their hundreds | 0:12:31 | 0:12:37 | |
up and down the country. | 0:12:37 | 0:12:39 | |
And it was happening in some unlikely places. | 0:12:39 | 0:12:42 | |
It wasn't just fully-fledged shipyards that were carrying out this work, | 0:12:42 | 0:12:46 | |
boats were being built anywhere they could find the materials and the labour. | 0:12:46 | 0:12:50 | |
I've just brought you in here while the lads are sledging in the plank | 0:12:52 | 0:12:55 | |
under the ship out there to make a point. | 0:12:55 | 0:12:57 | |
We're in a full on shipyard here, great bit shed, all sorts of things | 0:12:57 | 0:13:01 | |
going on around us, substantial establishment. | 0:13:01 | 0:13:04 | |
It wasn't always like that, and in fact, in the 19th century, | 0:13:04 | 0:13:09 | |
a lot of ships were built in an extremely vernacular environment. | 0:13:09 | 0:13:13 | |
There's a picture here of a schooner being built literally under a cliff in a Cornish village. | 0:13:13 | 0:13:19 | |
You see the size of the chaps here? | 0:13:19 | 0:13:21 | |
This is a substantial vessel. | 0:13:21 | 0:13:23 | |
What really impresses me about her is this beautiful shareline and the sweet shape of her stern. | 0:13:23 | 0:13:29 | |
That is an extraordinarily beautiful vessel. | 0:13:29 | 0:13:32 | |
Her masts are rigged and ready to go. | 0:13:32 | 0:13:35 | |
They've done the whole thing, these guys, these villagers on the beach. | 0:13:35 | 0:13:39 | |
No shipyard, no nothing. | 0:13:39 | 0:13:41 | |
Just a bunch of guys who could do it. | 0:13:41 | 0:13:44 | |
This was happening all over Britain. | 0:13:44 | 0:13:47 | |
Today, large-scale wooden ship-building is virtually a lost craft, kept alive by a few good men | 0:13:47 | 0:13:54 | |
who still have the skills that were once so common. | 0:13:54 | 0:13:58 | |
-That the last one, Scott? -That is the last one. | 0:13:58 | 0:14:01 | |
They're now in the final stages of fixing this one plank in place, | 0:14:01 | 0:14:05 | |
a job that's taken the whole afternoon, | 0:14:05 | 0:14:08 | |
and this boat is skinned with more than 200 planks. | 0:14:08 | 0:14:12 | |
Now, the plank's in. The last lap is caulking to make her watertight. | 0:14:15 | 0:14:19 | |
The caulking material is oakum, hemp fibres soaked in pine tar. | 0:14:19 | 0:14:25 | |
It's hammered in with a special tool called a caulking iron. | 0:14:25 | 0:14:29 | |
When the boat gets back in the water the planks will expand, | 0:14:30 | 0:14:34 | |
squeezing the oakum even tighter, an effective and natural way to get a strong, tight hull. | 0:14:34 | 0:14:40 | |
The whole process is rounded off with a liberal application of tar. | 0:14:41 | 0:14:46 | |
Planking a wooden ship like this is a timeless art. | 0:14:50 | 0:14:54 | |
But what's under the water on a square-rigger is only half the story. | 0:14:54 | 0:15:00 | |
Her real glory, the part that gives her the name, is up in the sky. | 0:15:00 | 0:15:05 | |
A cathedral in wood and rope. | 0:15:05 | 0:15:08 | |
This riot of a maze of wood and rope up here looks like chaos | 0:15:10 | 0:15:16 | |
to a landsman, but to a seamen, it is the pure poetry of motion. | 0:15:16 | 0:15:20 | |
It's the beating heart of sqaure-rig, where every spar and every rope is counted. | 0:15:20 | 0:15:28 | |
And before you set sail on a square-rigger, it's as well to understand the basics. | 0:15:29 | 0:15:35 | |
If we look at the main mast here, we can see that there are three spars going across it. | 0:15:35 | 0:15:40 | |
The sails are attached to those at the top edge. | 0:15:40 | 0:15:44 | |
The rest of the sail comes down and fills the gap beneath the spar. | 0:15:44 | 0:15:48 | |
The spar is called a yard. | 0:15:48 | 0:15:51 | |
The bottom one is called the main yard. | 0:15:51 | 0:15:53 | |
The next one up, that's the topsail yard and the sail is set then underneath it. | 0:15:53 | 0:15:58 | |
That's a big, big sail when that yard is hoisted | 0:15:58 | 0:16:01 | |
but it's the working sail of the rig, the powerhouse. | 0:16:01 | 0:16:04 | |
The one above it, for fair weather, is the royal. | 0:16:04 | 0:16:08 | |
But the reason why this is so special, is because it is a single sail. | 0:16:08 | 0:16:13 | |
It took a lot of men to handle that sail and there's some brutal work attached to doing it, too. | 0:16:13 | 0:16:18 | |
Later on, square-riggers divided their topsails into two halves, one above the other. | 0:16:19 | 0:16:23 | |
This made the rig easier to handle, and allowed it to be sailed more cheaply with smaller crews. | 0:16:23 | 0:16:31 | |
That single topsail proves to us that she's as she would have been in the middle of the 19th century | 0:16:31 | 0:16:36 | |
at the height of trade at the peak of empire, and at the zenith of sqaure-rig. | 0:16:36 | 0:16:42 | |
Now I'm going to get the chance to sail one of these iconic ships for myself. | 0:16:45 | 0:16:50 | |
Skipper says we've got to get on top of the tide, so we've got to go. It's the only time they can. | 0:16:51 | 0:16:57 | |
Still, I've been looking forward to sailing on this little ship for a long time, so...here we go. | 0:16:57 | 0:17:02 | |
Over the wall. | 0:17:02 | 0:17:04 | |
As we hit the top of the tide, we're faced with the task of manoeuvring the ship out of the dock. | 0:17:12 | 0:17:18 | |
Today we've an engine, but it's still a highly-skilled operation. | 0:17:18 | 0:17:23 | |
150 years ago, without the benefit of diesel power, | 0:17:23 | 0:17:27 | |
we'd have had a team of dockers armed with rope, capstan and work-hardened muscle, | 0:17:27 | 0:17:32 | |
inching the boat out to sea. | 0:17:32 | 0:17:34 | |
Ease it down gently, now. Ease down gently. | 0:17:37 | 0:17:39 | |
It's nerve-wracking stuff and it's a tight fit. | 0:17:39 | 0:17:42 | |
But the skipper and crew know what they're about | 0:17:42 | 0:17:46 | |
and with only the merest kiss of the dock wall, we're out. | 0:17:46 | 0:17:50 | |
Now that we're safely clear of the harbour, we can begin the serious business of setting sail, | 0:17:57 | 0:18:02 | |
which is no small undertaking in a boat this size. | 0:18:02 | 0:18:06 | |
On modern boats, the furling and loosing of the sails is done from the deck. | 0:18:09 | 0:18:15 | |
With a square-rigger, you've got to go to the sails and that means climbing the mast. | 0:18:15 | 0:18:22 | |
Back in the 19th century, they'd never heard of health and safety | 0:18:25 | 0:18:28 | |
and for a young seamen, getting sent up the rigging at sea was one of the first tests of nerve he'd face. | 0:18:28 | 0:18:34 | |
And looking at the heights involved, it isn't hard to see why you'd feel just a little apprehensive... | 0:18:36 | 0:18:42 | |
OK. The boys and girls have gone aloft to release the topsails. | 0:18:45 | 0:18:50 | |
The two topsails are the first we're going to set, so the guys have got to undo the gaskets. | 0:18:50 | 0:18:55 | |
That will let the sails fall a little way away from the yard | 0:18:55 | 0:18:58 | |
and they're then free to be handled from the deck. | 0:18:58 | 0:19:01 | |
What you don't want when you're half way through hoisting that yard is a foul up. | 0:19:03 | 0:19:07 | |
She's coiling up the little gaskets, the ropes, coiling them up neatly | 0:19:07 | 0:19:10 | |
and just tossing them down over the front of the sail. | 0:19:10 | 0:19:13 | |
With so many sails and lines, there's a lot that can go wrong. | 0:19:13 | 0:19:17 | |
So it's vital that each task is done neatly, properly, and in the correct order. | 0:19:17 | 0:19:23 | |
Back in the 19th century, practice over and over again would | 0:19:23 | 0:19:27 | |
have drilled every seamen to get it right at any time in any conditions. | 0:19:27 | 0:19:32 | |
Wondering whether you're tying the right knot 70 feet above the water in a gale of wind wasn't an option. | 0:19:32 | 0:19:39 | |
Just the windage of the rig, the weight of the wind just blowing | 0:19:39 | 0:19:42 | |
in the rigging and those two little rags of canvas, is blowing this ship along at three knots. | 0:19:42 | 0:19:47 | |
As each additional sail is set, the speed of the ship slowly builds up. | 0:19:51 | 0:19:56 | |
The mate and her hand here are working the braces. | 0:19:58 | 0:20:02 | |
Those are the ropes that actually control the angle of the yard to the wind, | 0:20:02 | 0:20:06 | |
so they're now actually controlling the set of the sail. | 0:20:06 | 0:20:09 | |
Troops are giving the halyard another tweak and the boat is picking up speed. | 0:20:09 | 0:20:14 | |
We've now got two topsails and a jib set, and already, The Phoenix is travelling at a fair lick. | 0:20:16 | 0:20:22 | |
But even with gale force eight forecast, there's more canvas to set. | 0:20:22 | 0:20:28 | |
Next it's the main staysail. | 0:20:28 | 0:20:30 | |
The skipper wants more speed, so we're going to set the forecourse, | 0:20:33 | 0:20:36 | |
that's the big sail at the fore end of the ship, set on the foremast. | 0:20:36 | 0:20:41 | |
Unlike their navy counterparts, merchant skippers couldn't rely | 0:20:42 | 0:20:46 | |
on military discipline to control their crews. | 0:20:46 | 0:20:49 | |
With small crews relatively free to jump ship, a more consensual approach | 0:20:49 | 0:20:53 | |
was required to maintain morale and get the job done. | 0:20:53 | 0:20:58 | |
And what's so nice about this is that this is a small crew. | 0:20:58 | 0:21:01 | |
It's the sort of crew that would have sailed this vessel had she been a cargo vessel 150 years ago. | 0:21:01 | 0:21:06 | |
It's great teamwork, isn't it? | 0:21:13 | 0:21:16 | |
Now, as then, a well-drilled crew is the way to get the best from a boat. | 0:21:16 | 0:21:21 | |
With five sails set, The Phoenix is starting to move beautifully. | 0:21:21 | 0:21:25 | |
Back in her working days, a boat Phoenix's size would have carried a cargo of around 80 tonnes. | 0:21:30 | 0:21:35 | |
Sometimes bulk goods like Cornish clay, but mostly high-value merchandise | 0:21:35 | 0:21:41 | |
such as tobacco from America, a journey she'd have made in around 30 days. | 0:21:41 | 0:21:47 | |
Out on the high seas for long passages like that, square-riggers could run into some serious weather. | 0:21:47 | 0:21:52 | |
But these were capable, ocean-going vessels, | 0:21:52 | 0:21:55 | |
and today with the wind touching gale force, Phoenix is handling it without a second thought. | 0:21:55 | 0:22:01 | |
Absolutely marvellous. This is the power. | 0:22:02 | 0:22:04 | |
This is the wind that drove these ships around the world, because it was harnessed by the sailors. | 0:22:04 | 0:22:10 | |
They made it work for us, | 0:22:10 | 0:22:12 | |
they turned it into miles and they turned those miles into profit. | 0:22:12 | 0:22:16 | |
The wind, the free engine of God. | 0:22:18 | 0:22:22 | |
With a steady wind behind her, | 0:22:24 | 0:22:25 | |
a square-rigger will just keep on going. | 0:22:25 | 0:22:28 | |
And by the 19th century, huge amounts of data had been collected about those winds, | 0:22:28 | 0:22:34 | |
put together by thousands of English-speaking captains sailing the oceans, | 0:22:34 | 0:22:38 | |
all of whom needed to know just what the wind would be doing, where and when. | 0:22:38 | 0:22:44 | |
The special charts that were compiled from this data meant that with a little forethought, | 0:22:44 | 0:22:48 | |
a merchant captain could be confident of finding what became known as the north-east trade winds, | 0:22:48 | 0:22:53 | |
and the powerful westerlies that would drive his ship across the oceans and get the job done. | 0:22:53 | 0:22:59 | |
Ocean sailing is all about planning. | 0:23:00 | 0:23:03 | |
A lot has been known for centuries about the way the wind blows in oceans. | 0:23:03 | 0:23:07 | |
Suppose you're going to trade sugar from London to the Caribbean. | 0:23:07 | 0:23:12 | |
Once you can get down here, you've got almost guaranteed | 0:23:12 | 0:23:15 | |
north-easterly winds that are going to chase you | 0:23:15 | 0:23:18 | |
across the Atlantic. | 0:23:18 | 0:23:19 | |
That will take you to the Caribbean. | 0:23:19 | 0:23:21 | |
Down here, down the coast of Spain and Portugal, | 0:23:21 | 0:23:24 | |
You've got almost certain northerly winds, which are absolutely fine. | 0:23:24 | 0:23:28 | |
With a bit of luck, you'll have some southerlies | 0:23:28 | 0:23:31 | |
and south-westerlies to bring you up the coast of North America. | 0:23:31 | 0:23:34 | |
Once you get into the North Atlantic, | 0:23:34 | 0:23:36 | |
you're almost guaranteed to have westerlies | 0:23:36 | 0:23:38 | |
to carry you home again to London. | 0:23:38 | 0:23:40 | |
So, if you can plan to be in the right place at the right time, | 0:23:40 | 0:23:45 | |
the wind's fair. The square-rigger is bowling along without a care in the world. | 0:23:45 | 0:23:50 | |
With the trade winds and westerlies to power them, square-riggers straddled the world, | 0:23:56 | 0:24:01 | |
from the West Indies to South East Asia, and all points in between. | 0:24:01 | 0:24:05 | |
Driven by a rig, perfectly adapted to the job in hand. | 0:24:05 | 0:24:09 | |
It's been a good few years since I went aloft on a square-rigger, | 0:24:14 | 0:24:18 | |
but without getting up into the rig, there's no way you're ever going to | 0:24:18 | 0:24:22 | |
understand what these boats are really about. | 0:24:22 | 0:24:26 | |
This is absolutely amazing. | 0:24:28 | 0:24:30 | |
I'm up here in the engine that drove commerce, from the time of Noah | 0:24:30 | 0:24:38 | |
until steam started to take over in the latter part of the 19th century. | 0:24:38 | 0:24:42 | |
And the feeling is of flying through the air like a bird. | 0:24:42 | 0:24:47 | |
If you're not used to it, it's a little bit frightening. It's year since I've been aloft. | 0:24:47 | 0:24:52 | |
But I won't have missed it for anything. | 0:24:52 | 0:24:54 | |
From here, of course, you've got a fantastic view of the horizon. | 0:24:54 | 0:24:59 | |
Sailors have been seeing stuff coming up over | 0:24:59 | 0:25:01 | |
the edge of the earth from here since the Vikings and before. | 0:25:01 | 0:25:05 | |
But the best views of all were in that latter part of the 19th century, | 0:25:05 | 0:25:10 | |
when the masts were tall, and the ships were fast | 0:25:10 | 0:25:13 | |
and the yards were well slung and the sailors were at their very peak. | 0:25:13 | 0:25:18 | |
This is the place to see the sea. | 0:25:20 | 0:25:23 | |
This was the golden age of sail. | 0:25:30 | 0:25:33 | |
And as the 19th century progressed, the ships got bigger and ever faster. | 0:25:33 | 0:25:38 | |
But just as these glorious craft were reaching their peak, a new technology arrived that | 0:25:39 | 0:25:45 | |
was to exert a slow stranglehold from which they could never recover. | 0:25:45 | 0:25:49 | |
Steam ships didn't have to wait for a favourable wind to make progress. | 0:25:52 | 0:25:56 | |
They could travel anywhere, at any time, and they could guarantee a schedule. | 0:25:56 | 0:26:02 | |
In a world where time was now money, the writing was on the wall for sail. | 0:26:03 | 0:26:09 | |
Today, very few of the great square riggers remain to paint | 0:26:12 | 0:26:16 | |
a true picture of the incredible scale of the trade they drove. | 0:26:16 | 0:26:20 | |
But at ports like Liverpool, a harbour which once handled cargo from all over the world, | 0:26:22 | 0:26:28 | |
you get some idea of the astonishing place these craft once held in our national and international life. | 0:26:28 | 0:26:35 | |
Believe it or not, this is sailing-ship country. | 0:26:39 | 0:26:44 | |
They walked them into here. | 0:26:44 | 0:26:46 | |
There's a capstan on the quay over there | 0:26:46 | 0:26:49 | |
that's left over from the days that the last sailing ship was in here. | 0:26:49 | 0:26:54 | |
It's a place of ghosts. | 0:26:54 | 0:26:56 | |
Remarkable atmosphere. | 0:26:58 | 0:27:01 | |
You can hear the crowd singing the shanties | 0:27:01 | 0:27:05 | |
as they walked round that capstan to get the sailing ship out to go out through that gate, | 0:27:05 | 0:27:12 | |
turn starboard into the river, pick up her tug, | 0:27:12 | 0:27:14 | |
down to the bar, spread her topsails and away for Australia. | 0:27:14 | 0:27:20 | |
Today, the square-rigged ships are long gone from Liverpool. | 0:27:22 | 0:27:26 | |
But the memory of the time they filled these docks lives on in the songs that the sailors sang. | 0:27:26 | 0:27:32 | |
And in Liverpool's harbourside pubs, you can still find men who | 0:27:32 | 0:27:35 | |
know the tunes that once rang out on British ships all around the world. | 0:27:35 | 0:27:40 | |
INSTRUMENTS OBSCURE VOCALS | 0:27:40 | 0:27:42 | |
# Running the east wind now | 0:27:51 | 0:27:53 | |
# Running the east wind now... # | 0:27:53 | 0:27:55 | |
The docks are still here, | 0:27:55 | 0:27:58 | |
but the men who worked them have faded away. | 0:27:58 | 0:28:01 | |
They've been replaced by ever-more efficient machines. | 0:28:01 | 0:28:05 | |
You can't argue with progress, can you? | 0:28:05 | 0:28:07 | |
But I wonder if in 50 years' time, | 0:28:07 | 0:28:10 | |
men will still be writing songs in praise of container ships. | 0:28:10 | 0:28:15 | |
But it's not hard to see why they sang about the square-rigger, | 0:28:18 | 0:28:23 | |
a magnificent ship that changed Britain and the world for all time. | 0:28:23 | 0:28:28 | |
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd | 0:28:51 | 0:28:54 | |
E-mail [email protected] | 0:28:54 | 0:28:57 |