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Updated: June 18, 2025
And this precaution is the more important, as these vessels, being generally dull sailers and deeply laden, will fail to reach their port if they fall to leeward, unless by returning north into the latitude of the variable winds, and making another trial, with the benefit of more experience.
Captaine Frobisher departed from Blacke Wall, with one of the Queenes Maiesties ships, called The Aide, of nine score tunnes, or thereabouts: and two other Little Barkes likewise, the one called The Gabriel, whereof Master Fenton, a Gentleman of my Lord of Warwikes, was Captaine: accompanied with seuen score Gentlemen, souldiers, and sailers, well furnished with victuals, and other prouision necessarie for one halfe yeere, on this his second voyage, for the further discouering of the passage to Cathay, and other Countreys, thereunto adiacent, by West and Northwest nauigations: which passage or way, is supposed to bee on the North and Northwest part of America: and the said America to be an Island inuironed with the sea, where through our Merchants may haue course and recourse with their merchandize, from these our Northernmost parts of Europe, to those Orientall coasts of Asia, in much shorter time, and with greater benefite then any others, to their no little commoditie and profite that do or shall frequent the same.
They are heavy sailers, too, and the `Pallas, as I thought she would, has shown herself light of heel. We shall get up with the chase before any third party steps in to snap up our prey." Not only Ronald, but every man and boy in the ship entered fully into the captain's eagerness.
There was a big four-masted coaster bound south, too, and light, and for the best part of the night we had a drifting match with her. Coasters as a rule are not great all-round sailers, but some of them, with their flat bottoms and shoal draft, in a fair wind and going light, can run like ghosts, and this was one of that kind.
Being clean and better sailers, they set their split-sails, and with their boats ahead, towed away from him, without giving him the opportunity of exchanging a single broadside with them. There can be no doubt that the British would have gained a complete victory had they not have been in want of shot.
The ponderous three-deckers of Biscay were notoriously the dullest sailers ever known, nor were the fettered slaves who rowed the great galleys of Portugal or of Andalusia very brisk in their movements; and yet the King might have found time to marshal his ideas and his squadrons, and the Armada had leisure to circumnavigate the globe and invade England afterwards, if a succession of John Rogerses could have entertained his Highness with compliments while the preparations were making.
The small provincial squadrons then used to patrol the coasts were by no means adequate to meet the crisis. The warships of this period were called "dromons," a term that persists even in the time of the Turkish invasion eight centuries later. The word means "fast sailers" or "racers."
This challenge the English would not accept, and stood out to sea toward the west. The Spaniards thought they were retreating, and gave chase. All the galleons were bad sailers, but some were better than others, and soon the San Marcus outstripped her consorts. When several miles ahead of all her companions the wind shifted to the west, leaving the English to the windward.
Under convictions thus slowly recasting, the first big steam ships-of-war carried merely "auxiliary" engines; were in fact sailing vessels, of the types in use for over a century, into which machinery was introduced to meet occasional emergencies. In some cases, probably in many, ships already built as sailers were lengthened and engined.
If a squadron cannot be formed sufficient to face the enemy's at home, it would be more advantageous to let your inferiority be still greater in order by it to gain the superiority elsewhere." It must have the advantage of the enemy in sailing, else under certain circumstances it will be liable to be forced to battle or to give up some of its heavy sailers.
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