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The Article mentions both the Preussian and the France II as the largest Windjammer. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.233.69.220 ( talk) 22:24, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
Windjammers are most famous for being very fast. Time is money, especially on the scale of Australia to Europe, and a fast ship would make more roundtrips a year, and more profit.
And all that stuff about modern reasons to return to sailing ships: this has nothing to do with windjammers in particular (other than that the windjammer was the most advanced form of a sailing ship prior to their demise as commercial vessels). I mean "kites"? what windjammers flew kites?
Windjammers are like the opposite to the clippers - the clippers carried small ammounts of high value/perishable cargo at high speeds; windjammers carried large ammounts of lower-value cargoes at lower speeds. Fionnlaoch ( talk) 22:58, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
I remove
The article currently says: "Sailing ships in general were expensive to operate, as they required a large crew". While that is not wrong absolutely, it seems to be misleading in the context. Preussen (ship) had a crew of 45. Compared to a modern container ship, that is large. But compared to a 10000 ton 1900 coal-fired steamer with stokers and mechanics, it is not. -- Stephan Schulz 08:02, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
Eric Newby's detailed account of his round the world trip on Moshulu in 1938-1939 has much relevant information. For one thing, the spare sails were carried on the (mostly empty) first deck, just below the weather deck, and above the cargo hold. It seems there was no space conflict. The crew was small, 28; he describes it as 4 officers, cook, steward, sailmaker, carprenter, two men to run the donkey engine, and 18 sailors (9 of those apprentices). That is probably within a factor of two of what a steam ship would need for such a voyage. They handled the heavy work with the help of "patent" (differential) winches. They spent a lot of time chipping rust.
He interviewed the sailmaker, who described the sail material as the best available linen canvas, certainly not cheap, but likely the most durable material available at the time.
I think one big problem was that the square rig is a special-purpose, not a general-purpose, rig; it goes very well downwind and poorly upwind. For example, at the start of the voyage, Moshulu struggled for about a week in the Irish Sea trying to go against the wind, after coming out of Belfast, before the Captain relented and went the other way. (Probably after he was satisfied that the apprentices had had enough practice tacking.) (By the way, if you doubt tacking a square rig is tricky and dangerous, read "The Secret Sharer" by Conrad.) The Moshulu went round the world from Ireland to Australia and back to take advantage of prevailing winds. Not all trade routes have such convenient wind patterns. Many ships are chartered for individual voyages and benefit by being able to sail in any direction. Hybrid engine and square rigs suffer from huge wind resistance losses when motoring into the wind. Even fore-and-aft rigs have a quadrant they can not sail in. Most importantly though, fuel used to be cheap.
AJim ( talk) 04:13, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
I wand to clear up several points here: windjammers were very cheap to run. They required minimal numbers of crew, because they were fitted with steam winches. Compared to the earlier steamers, they were also quite fast. A major problem for steamers is that they reuiquired coaling stations to refuel, as on longer journeys, they couldn't carry anywhere near enough fuel for a passage. This cost the owners a lot of money. The coal also cost money, as did the enormous manpower required to operate them. Steam suddenly became more useful and economically viable with the opening of the Suez Canal which was a vital world trade route. Sailing ships could not pass through it, and therefore had to continue old routes around Africa, while the steamers cut two thirds off travel distances. As more canals opened, and steam technology became more efficient and reliable, saining vessels were gradually phased out. Fionnlaoch ( talk) 23:07, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
Some contemporary buisnesses use the term windjammer in their names and to describe their sailing vessles, which are most often actually schooners, and never square rigged sailing ships of the type described in this article. I submit that it is enough to link to windjammer cruises at the top of the page and that we ought to refrain from any other such links, as they are essentially promotion of commercial ventures. -- John.james ( talk) 02:51, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
The narrow use of "windjammer," to refer solely to square-rigged, steel-hulled ships, differs from the original sense of "windjammer," which referred to any sailing ship. See, for example, several examples in Peter Jensen Brown's article, Windjammers, Jazz-Jammers and Jam Sessions. The term originally arose as a mocking term used by steamship "sailors" to refer to actual sailing ships. Sailing-ship sailors mocked the steamship crews for not being "real" sailors. The phrase was not used narrowly, to refer specifically to a certain type of steel-hulled, square-rigged merchant ship until much later; if ever. The businesses and clubs who use the term windjammer to refer to their sailing ships use the term in its original sense; not the other way around. This article would benefit from a broader perspective. The German language article is actually pretty good, in that it runs through all of the various senses of the word, "windjammer," in the introduction, before launching into a lengthy article about the specific type of "windjammer" covered here. Svaihingen ( talk) 20:26, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
I see there is a list of some windjammers in this article but I think I know of one not mentioned, the Christian Radich althou I might be wrong about it being a windjammer... Anyways it would be nice if anyone could verify that it is a windjammer and add it to the list (or prove it ain't one/give a other reason for not adding it)
Luredreier 16:11, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, Maikel ( talk) 11:16, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
The claim that the term derives from Dutch 'jammeren' (similar to German 'jammern', or whinging), is explicitly contradicted by the German version of this page. Only one can be right. Please substantiate. heiser ( talk) 10:55, 26 January 2013 (UTC)
Is that mistaken "folk etymology" actually "common"? I've read about windjammers many times before with explanations of the name and never encountered that mistaken etymology before Wikipedia.-- 23.119.205.88 ( talk) 20:02, 25 December 2014 (UTC)
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Windjammers (video game) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. — RMCD bot 00:00, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
Ahoy wikipedians
Please note, the term 'windjammer' is never used by seamen, or ever to describe a vessel definitively. A vessel type is never described so vaguely.
It is a colloquialism used by essentially landlubbers, copy and fiction writers, to describe a variety of large old sailing ships. It was never used actually in the days when there were only large sailing ships.
Karen Hill, New York freelance writer and editor gave the best description. >>
"The earliest use of the term windjammer in English is reported to have been in the 1870’s, with the meaning of “a horn player.”
It seems probable that the nickname was coined from the German word for wind, which has the same spelling, and from the German verb jammer (pronounced yahmmer, and from which we get the English yammer), which means “to moan, cry, wail.”
Hence the horn player, who might seem to an unappreciative hearer to be making moaning or wailing sounds with his wind, was given the slang name of windjammer.
The next oldest use in English is the meaning “a talkative person, blowhard, windbag,” and since such a one, too, is making noises with his wind, this meaning seems to be a logical extension of the first.
But the most common meaning in English today, which dates from the very last of the nineteenth century, is “a sailing vessel or one of its crew.”
Here we can only suppose that, in the great rivalry between steam and sail, the men of the sailing ships bragged so loudly of the merits of sail that the supporters of steamships tacked onto them this term, from where it was transferred to the ships as well."
- - At some point this can be parsed by someone into wiki-speak - with citations of course, but I have neither the time nor the energy to sift through the heaps of errors with this and similar. Otherwise WP is a most useful of online tools.
This is the disappointing downside of crowdsourcing encyclopedic or any accurate information. I find that, for example, the SMS Seeadler (1888) is defined as a windjammer, when the word should not even be mentioned. She is a Barque or a Full-rigged ship.
Please lets keep windjammer for Jack London novels, or charterboat spiel. And fyi - 40 years a ocean going captain, neither I nor anyone near me ever used this word definitively. Ssaco ( talk) 19:57, 15 August 2018 (UTC)
Be that as it may, Mysha, "windjammer" is just a term for a sailing ship—regardless of size, for which there is already an article. If there is a distinct need to describe the era of large sailing ships, then an article can be devoted to that subject. (Please remember to sign your posts with "~~~~" to provide an automated date.) Cheers, HopsonRoad ( talk) 13:46, 5 June 2019 (UTC)
The distinguishing feature of the ships under discussion is not their colloquial name, but their construction from iron. See, for example:
Accordingly, I propose to rename this article Iron sailing ship, or Iron-hulled sailing ship, or Sailing ship (iron-hulled) since there is enough content, when properly referenced for the material to stand on its own.
Cheers, HopsonRoad ( talk) 14:06, 6 June 2019 (UTC)
Is there consensus that Windjammer should lead to a disambiguation page? If so then we should tidy up a couple of things:
I'm happy to help but need to check first whether the recent move is likely to be reverted. Certes ( talk) 14:26, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
Broichmore has voiced concern whether the title change from "Windjammer" to "Iron-hulled ship" was appropriate. Please read the discussion in the above sections (and add to it, as you see fit) and then provide your support or non-support of the current title versus the previous, here. HopsonRoad ( talk) 14:58, 16 June 2019 (UTC)
Done I have created a page with content appropriate for Windjammer. Cheers, HopsonRoad ( talk) 02:16, 25 June 2019 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Windjammer article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
This article is rated Start-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
The Article mentions both the Preussian and the France II as the largest Windjammer. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.233.69.220 ( talk) 22:24, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
Windjammers are most famous for being very fast. Time is money, especially on the scale of Australia to Europe, and a fast ship would make more roundtrips a year, and more profit.
And all that stuff about modern reasons to return to sailing ships: this has nothing to do with windjammers in particular (other than that the windjammer was the most advanced form of a sailing ship prior to their demise as commercial vessels). I mean "kites"? what windjammers flew kites?
Windjammers are like the opposite to the clippers - the clippers carried small ammounts of high value/perishable cargo at high speeds; windjammers carried large ammounts of lower-value cargoes at lower speeds. Fionnlaoch ( talk) 22:58, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
I remove
The article currently says: "Sailing ships in general were expensive to operate, as they required a large crew". While that is not wrong absolutely, it seems to be misleading in the context. Preussen (ship) had a crew of 45. Compared to a modern container ship, that is large. But compared to a 10000 ton 1900 coal-fired steamer with stokers and mechanics, it is not. -- Stephan Schulz 08:02, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
Eric Newby's detailed account of his round the world trip on Moshulu in 1938-1939 has much relevant information. For one thing, the spare sails were carried on the (mostly empty) first deck, just below the weather deck, and above the cargo hold. It seems there was no space conflict. The crew was small, 28; he describes it as 4 officers, cook, steward, sailmaker, carprenter, two men to run the donkey engine, and 18 sailors (9 of those apprentices). That is probably within a factor of two of what a steam ship would need for such a voyage. They handled the heavy work with the help of "patent" (differential) winches. They spent a lot of time chipping rust.
He interviewed the sailmaker, who described the sail material as the best available linen canvas, certainly not cheap, but likely the most durable material available at the time.
I think one big problem was that the square rig is a special-purpose, not a general-purpose, rig; it goes very well downwind and poorly upwind. For example, at the start of the voyage, Moshulu struggled for about a week in the Irish Sea trying to go against the wind, after coming out of Belfast, before the Captain relented and went the other way. (Probably after he was satisfied that the apprentices had had enough practice tacking.) (By the way, if you doubt tacking a square rig is tricky and dangerous, read "The Secret Sharer" by Conrad.) The Moshulu went round the world from Ireland to Australia and back to take advantage of prevailing winds. Not all trade routes have such convenient wind patterns. Many ships are chartered for individual voyages and benefit by being able to sail in any direction. Hybrid engine and square rigs suffer from huge wind resistance losses when motoring into the wind. Even fore-and-aft rigs have a quadrant they can not sail in. Most importantly though, fuel used to be cheap.
AJim ( talk) 04:13, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
I wand to clear up several points here: windjammers were very cheap to run. They required minimal numbers of crew, because they were fitted with steam winches. Compared to the earlier steamers, they were also quite fast. A major problem for steamers is that they reuiquired coaling stations to refuel, as on longer journeys, they couldn't carry anywhere near enough fuel for a passage. This cost the owners a lot of money. The coal also cost money, as did the enormous manpower required to operate them. Steam suddenly became more useful and economically viable with the opening of the Suez Canal which was a vital world trade route. Sailing ships could not pass through it, and therefore had to continue old routes around Africa, while the steamers cut two thirds off travel distances. As more canals opened, and steam technology became more efficient and reliable, saining vessels were gradually phased out. Fionnlaoch ( talk) 23:07, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
Some contemporary buisnesses use the term windjammer in their names and to describe their sailing vessles, which are most often actually schooners, and never square rigged sailing ships of the type described in this article. I submit that it is enough to link to windjammer cruises at the top of the page and that we ought to refrain from any other such links, as they are essentially promotion of commercial ventures. -- John.james ( talk) 02:51, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
The narrow use of "windjammer," to refer solely to square-rigged, steel-hulled ships, differs from the original sense of "windjammer," which referred to any sailing ship. See, for example, several examples in Peter Jensen Brown's article, Windjammers, Jazz-Jammers and Jam Sessions. The term originally arose as a mocking term used by steamship "sailors" to refer to actual sailing ships. Sailing-ship sailors mocked the steamship crews for not being "real" sailors. The phrase was not used narrowly, to refer specifically to a certain type of steel-hulled, square-rigged merchant ship until much later; if ever. The businesses and clubs who use the term windjammer to refer to their sailing ships use the term in its original sense; not the other way around. This article would benefit from a broader perspective. The German language article is actually pretty good, in that it runs through all of the various senses of the word, "windjammer," in the introduction, before launching into a lengthy article about the specific type of "windjammer" covered here. Svaihingen ( talk) 20:26, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
I see there is a list of some windjammers in this article but I think I know of one not mentioned, the Christian Radich althou I might be wrong about it being a windjammer... Anyways it would be nice if anyone could verify that it is a windjammer and add it to the list (or prove it ain't one/give a other reason for not adding it)
Luredreier 16:11, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, Maikel ( talk) 11:16, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
The claim that the term derives from Dutch 'jammeren' (similar to German 'jammern', or whinging), is explicitly contradicted by the German version of this page. Only one can be right. Please substantiate. heiser ( talk) 10:55, 26 January 2013 (UTC)
Is that mistaken "folk etymology" actually "common"? I've read about windjammers many times before with explanations of the name and never encountered that mistaken etymology before Wikipedia.-- 23.119.205.88 ( talk) 20:02, 25 December 2014 (UTC)
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Windjammers (video game) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. — RMCD bot 00:00, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
Ahoy wikipedians
Please note, the term 'windjammer' is never used by seamen, or ever to describe a vessel definitively. A vessel type is never described so vaguely.
It is a colloquialism used by essentially landlubbers, copy and fiction writers, to describe a variety of large old sailing ships. It was never used actually in the days when there were only large sailing ships.
Karen Hill, New York freelance writer and editor gave the best description. >>
"The earliest use of the term windjammer in English is reported to have been in the 1870’s, with the meaning of “a horn player.”
It seems probable that the nickname was coined from the German word for wind, which has the same spelling, and from the German verb jammer (pronounced yahmmer, and from which we get the English yammer), which means “to moan, cry, wail.”
Hence the horn player, who might seem to an unappreciative hearer to be making moaning or wailing sounds with his wind, was given the slang name of windjammer.
The next oldest use in English is the meaning “a talkative person, blowhard, windbag,” and since such a one, too, is making noises with his wind, this meaning seems to be a logical extension of the first.
But the most common meaning in English today, which dates from the very last of the nineteenth century, is “a sailing vessel or one of its crew.”
Here we can only suppose that, in the great rivalry between steam and sail, the men of the sailing ships bragged so loudly of the merits of sail that the supporters of steamships tacked onto them this term, from where it was transferred to the ships as well."
- - At some point this can be parsed by someone into wiki-speak - with citations of course, but I have neither the time nor the energy to sift through the heaps of errors with this and similar. Otherwise WP is a most useful of online tools.
This is the disappointing downside of crowdsourcing encyclopedic or any accurate information. I find that, for example, the SMS Seeadler (1888) is defined as a windjammer, when the word should not even be mentioned. She is a Barque or a Full-rigged ship.
Please lets keep windjammer for Jack London novels, or charterboat spiel. And fyi - 40 years a ocean going captain, neither I nor anyone near me ever used this word definitively. Ssaco ( talk) 19:57, 15 August 2018 (UTC)
Be that as it may, Mysha, "windjammer" is just a term for a sailing ship—regardless of size, for which there is already an article. If there is a distinct need to describe the era of large sailing ships, then an article can be devoted to that subject. (Please remember to sign your posts with "~~~~" to provide an automated date.) Cheers, HopsonRoad ( talk) 13:46, 5 June 2019 (UTC)
The distinguishing feature of the ships under discussion is not their colloquial name, but their construction from iron. See, for example:
Accordingly, I propose to rename this article Iron sailing ship, or Iron-hulled sailing ship, or Sailing ship (iron-hulled) since there is enough content, when properly referenced for the material to stand on its own.
Cheers, HopsonRoad ( talk) 14:06, 6 June 2019 (UTC)
Is there consensus that Windjammer should lead to a disambiguation page? If so then we should tidy up a couple of things:
I'm happy to help but need to check first whether the recent move is likely to be reverted. Certes ( talk) 14:26, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
Broichmore has voiced concern whether the title change from "Windjammer" to "Iron-hulled ship" was appropriate. Please read the discussion in the above sections (and add to it, as you see fit) and then provide your support or non-support of the current title versus the previous, here. HopsonRoad ( talk) 14:58, 16 June 2019 (UTC)
Done I have created a page with content appropriate for Windjammer. Cheers, HopsonRoad ( talk) 02:16, 25 June 2019 (UTC)