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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Dublin: University College Dublin, UCD School of Economics
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ftzbwkiel:oai:econstor.eu:10419/109720 2024-01-07T09:45:06+01:00 Speed under sail, 1750-1850 Kelly, Morgan Ó Gráda, Cormac 2014 http://hdl.handle.net/10419/109720 eng eng Dublin: University College Dublin, UCD School of Economics Series: UCD Centre for Economic Research Working Paper Series No. WP14/10 gbv-ppn:786607629 http://hdl.handle.net/10419/109720 RePEc:ucn:wpaper:201410 http://www.econstor.eu/dspace/Nutzungsbedingungen ddc:330 N O R economic history technology transport doc-type:workingPaper 2014 ftzbwkiel 2023-12-11T00:44:59Z 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. Report North Atlantic EconStor (German National Library of Economics, ZBW) |
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Open Polar |
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EconStor (German National Library of Economics, ZBW) |
op_collection_id |
ftzbwkiel |
language |
English |
topic |
ddc:330 N O R economic history technology transport |
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ddc:330 N O R economic history technology transport Kelly, Morgan Ó Gráda, Cormac Speed under sail, 1750-1850 |
topic_facet |
ddc:330 N O R economic history technology transport |
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. |
format |
Report |
author |
Kelly, Morgan Ó Gráda, Cormac |
author_facet |
Kelly, Morgan Ó Gráda, Cormac |
author_sort |
Kelly, Morgan |
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 |
publisher |
Dublin: University College Dublin, UCD School of Economics |
publishDate |
2014 |
url |
http://hdl.handle.net/10419/109720 |
genre |
North Atlantic |
genre_facet |
North Atlantic |
op_relation |
Series: UCD Centre for Economic Research Working Paper Series No. WP14/10 gbv-ppn:786607629 http://hdl.handle.net/10419/109720 RePEc:ucn:wpaper:201410 |
op_rights |
http://www.econstor.eu/dspace/Nutzungsbedingungen |
_version_ |
1787426558311399424 |