Speed under Sail, 1750-1850
We measure technological progress in oceanic shipping by using a large database of daily log entries from ships of the British and Dutch navies and East India Companies to estimate daily sailing speed in different wind conditions from 1750 to 1850. Against the consensus, dating back to North (1958,...
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ftrepec:oai:RePEc:ucn:wpaper:201410 2023-05-15T17:31:54+02:00 Speed under Sail, 1750-1850 Morgan Kelly Cormac Ó Gráda http://hdl.handle.net/10197/5617 unknown http://hdl.handle.net/10197/5617 preprint ftrepec 2020-12-04T13:32:37Z We measure technological progress in oceanic shipping by using a large database of daily log entries from ships of the British and Dutch navies and East India Companies to estimate daily sailing speed in different wind conditions from 1750 to 1850. Against the consensus, dating back to North (1958, 1968), that the technology of sailing ships was static during this period, we find that average sailing speed in a moderate breeze (the usual summer conditions in the North Atlantic) rose by one third between 1780 and 1830; with greater increases at lower wind speeds. About one third of this improvement occurs when hulls are first copper plated in the 1780s, but the rest appears to be the result of incremental improvements in sails, rigging, and hull profiles. Economic history; Technology; Transport Report North Atlantic RePEc (Research Papers in Economics) |
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Open Polar |
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RePEc (Research Papers in Economics) |
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ftrepec |
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unknown |
description |
We measure technological progress in oceanic shipping by using a large database of daily log entries from ships of the British and Dutch navies and East India Companies to estimate daily sailing speed in different wind conditions from 1750 to 1850. Against the consensus, dating back to North (1958, 1968), that the technology of sailing ships was static during this period, we find that average sailing speed in a moderate breeze (the usual summer conditions in the North Atlantic) rose by one third between 1780 and 1830; with greater increases at lower wind speeds. About one third of this improvement occurs when hulls are first copper plated in the 1780s, but the rest appears to be the result of incremental improvements in sails, rigging, and hull profiles. Economic history; Technology; Transport |
format |
Report |
author |
Morgan Kelly Cormac Ó Gráda |
spellingShingle |
Morgan Kelly Cormac Ó Gráda Speed under Sail, 1750-1850 |
author_facet |
Morgan Kelly Cormac Ó Gráda |
author_sort |
Morgan Kelly |
title |
Speed under Sail, 1750-1850 |
title_short |
Speed under Sail, 1750-1850 |
title_full |
Speed under Sail, 1750-1850 |
title_fullStr |
Speed under Sail, 1750-1850 |
title_full_unstemmed |
Speed under Sail, 1750-1850 |
title_sort |
speed under sail, 1750-1850 |
url |
http://hdl.handle.net/10197/5617 |
genre |
North Atlantic |
genre_facet |
North Atlantic |
op_relation |
http://hdl.handle.net/10197/5617 |
_version_ |
1766129754539294720 |