Who better to undertake a serious discussion of the development of the "Bermuda rig" than the Bermudians! In friday's Bermuda Royal Gazette, Dr. Edward Harris, Director of the
Bermuda Maritime Museum, examines Bermuda's role in development of the sail configuration "which transformed forever the way in which boats are sailed.
The fastest boat afloat
HERITAGE MATTERS by DR. EDWARD HARRIS MBE
Nevertheless, when Bermudians look at the massive America's Cup challenger New Zealand or the simple Finn dinghy and consider the influence that Bermuda, out of all proportion to its size, has had on the development of small boat sailing, they should feel a justifiable pride.
THE reason for the pride that all Bermudians should have is something called the 'Bermuda Rig', written about in detail by Eldon H. Trimingham in 1990 in the second issue of the Bermuda Journal of Archaeology and Maritime History.
The Journal is an annual publication of the Bermuda Maritime Museum that records the results of research into the history and heritage of the island.
Richard Darrell Butterfield, OBE and Susan Masters Butterfield have supported the series through 16 issues since its inception in 1989, a singular and significant contribution to the accumulation of historical information and education resources about Bermuda.
Publication is a vital matter when it comes to archaeological remains, for the process of discovery must of necessity destroy part of the site under investigation by excavation. In earlier decades, archaeological sites were investigated without the due process of recording. Without records, the publication of discoveries is difficult, if not impossible.
The process of excavation must translate the destroyed evidence of the past into a permanent archive for the present and the future. The publication of the evidence is like a museum exhibit. Its purpose is to make the history recovered by the scientists accessible to the public, the ultimate owners of all archaeological remains and heritage data.
The evidence, archaeological and otherwise, for the Bermuda Rig being of local invention is almost entirely circumstantial, which is why Mr. Trimingham, an experienced sailor of some decades' standing, is shortly to present an expanded case for the prosecution. I believe Bermudians are guilty of creating the Rig, which transformed forever the way in which boats are sailed.
I believe the jury will convict, but you must appreciate that on the demise of a sailing vessel the first evidence likely to disappear without recall is the rigging, that is the masts, sails, and rope and tackle that power the ship.
No Bermuda Rig or associated vessel has survived from the decades of its invention. A few illustrations, such as the print of a Bermuda sloop on the Spanish Main, help with our understanding of the background of this unique maritime revolution. Mr. Trimingham's next thesis ranges world-wide to set the case for our Bermuda Rig.
The Bermuda Rig is related to another local heritage icon, the 'Bermuda Sloop'. The development of the Sloop probably led to the invention of the Rig, but the early sloops still had a gaff on their four-side mainsail.
The triangular sail of the Bermuda Rig, so well known today, eventually replaced the gaff rig. Nonetheless, with its fore and aft rig, the Bermuda Sloop was the fastest boat afloat in the 1700s.
The first HMS Pickle swiftly took the news of Admiral Nelson's victory at Trafalgar to Britain in October 1805. Also built at Bermuda, the third HMS Pickle had success in the interception of ships engaged in the slave trade.
While a few plans of such vessels built here in the 1820s for the Royal Navy have survived, there is little archaeological evidence left of these ships. We need to find a shipwreck of a Bermuda Sloop with an intact hull, perhaps buried in a muddy estuary on the coast of North Carolina. By archaeological examination, we might recapture the essence of such vessels, encapsulated in the shape of their hulls.
After the dissolution of the Bermuda Company in 1684, Bermudians were free to develop shipbuilding, using the local juniper, called cedar. This timber had many of the qualities of oak, but is lighter and therefore the vessels built of it were faster.
Unlike oak, it was impervious to the destructive boring of the teredo worm, the death beetle for oak hulls in the warm waters of the Caribbean. With cedar hulls, coupled with a fore-and-aft rig, the Bermuda sloop could usually outrun all other vessels, especially when sailing close to the wind, the last a feature needed for travel between St. George's and Somerset.
In late years, the Bermuda Sloop caught the imagination of outstanding marine artists. The fine lines and rigging of these vessels was captured by Deryck Foster in paintings commissioned by the Bank of Bermuda and now on exhibit at the Maritime Museum. For workmanlike sloop, hull down and racing through the sea, Montague Dawson's view of the first HMS Pickle is wonderful. The local craftsmen built other vessels, such as the brigs, shown here in the image of Spheroid and 'Bermudians', a type of schooner illustrated on the right in the Deryck Foster painting.
Bermuda vessels, especially sloops were sold widely and favoured by pirates, privateers and the Royal Navy, each having a different reason for speed under sail.
A few weeks ago, the first 'Bermudian' to be built in many a decade slipped into its new home berth at the old Royal Navy Dockyard, as the Spirit of Bermuda.
This was an event and a vessel in which we can take pride and hopefully find a renewed interest in the great tradition of sailing at Bermuda, in which all sectors of the community took part. It is the hope of the Bermuda Sloop Foundation that the Spirit will be used to train and reconnect all segments of Bermuda with a tradition that has been ours nigh on four centuries. With our Sloop and Rig, we were the first and fastest in a tradition of small boat sailing that is now practised world-wide, thanks to our innovations and inventions in the search for speed under sail.
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Dr. Edward Harris, MBE, JP, FSA, Bermudian, is the Executive Director of the Bermuda Maritime Museum. The views expressed here are his opinion, not necessarily those of the trustees or staff of the Museum. Comments can be sent to drharrislogic.bm, to PO Box MA 133, Sandys MABX, or by telephone at 799-5480.
Royal Gazette
