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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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Morgan Kelly, Cormac Ó Gráda
Format: Report
Language:unknown
Subjects:
North Atlantic
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10197/5617
id ftrepec:oai:RePEc:ucn:wpaper:201410
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spelling 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)
institution Open Polar
collection RePEc (Research Papers in Economics)
op_collection_id ftrepec
language 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
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