Sailing in the Caribbean in the Early 1700s

A Dutch Threemaster and Other Shipping in Choppy Waters, a View of Fort Rammekens Off the Coast of Vlissinger in the Background by Claes Claesz. Wou, between 1607 and 1665. From Wikimedia Commons, the Free Media Repository, September 19, 2022.

Sailing improved during the Age of Discovery (sixteenth century) with the introduction of the Portuguese caravel, which could sail faster and further than the existing cargo vessel. Fitted with a lateen sail, a triangular sail affixed to a long yard or crossbar, mounted at its middle to a mast and angled down nearly to the deck, the bow of the vessel would be pointed toward the wind so it could blow from one side of the sail to the other. The caravel could sail “into the wind,” making it largely independent of the prevailing winds.

Vessels, Boats, and Ships

In the Age of Sail (mid-sixteenth to the mid-nineteenth centuries), a vessel was a craft that traveled on water. At one end of the spectrum were the crafts primarily powered by oars such as the rowboats, shallops, longboats, and periaguas (sailing canoes). At the other end of the spectrum were the ships with their three square-rigged masts and a full bowsprit. They were the galleys and the galleons. They sailed the oceans and were employed in commerce and passenger travel. Vessels that were more than boats and less than ships were the single fore-and-aft rigged single-masted sloops and the double-masted brigantines with their combination of square rigging and fore and aft rigging.

Distances and Speed

Distance

One foot                                              .3048 meters

One meter                                           3 feet, 3.37 inches

One statute (land) mile                        5,280 feet, 1,609.34 meters

One nautical mile                                6,080 feet; 1,852 meters; or 1.151 statute miles

Speed

One knot                                             1.15078 statute miles per hour           

One knot                                             One nautical mile per hours

A nautical mile is one-sixtieth of a degree of latitude and varies from 6,046 feet at the equator to 6,092 feet at a latitude of 60 degrees. This variation is due to the fact that Earth is not a perfect sphere but is flatter at the poles.

Winds and Currents

In the North Atlantic, the trade winds blow from east to west at about 30 degrees latitude above the equator. They flow from the Canary Islands to the Caribbean. From there, the trade winds push the Gulf Stream north along what was the Spanish Main and up the east coast of America until they veer northeast across the North Atlantic toward Western Europe. Between the trade winds and the Gulf Stream, sailing vessels could follow these clockwise winds and currents as they sailed from Western Europe, down Western Africa, across the Atlantic to America and back to Western Europe.

In the South Atlantic, the trade winds also blow from east to west about 30 degrees latitude below the equator. They flow from western Africa across the South Atlantic to Brazil, down the coast of South America, and then veer east back across the South Atlantic to western Africa.

If a sailing vessel in the 1700s could maintain an average speed of four knots per hour over twenty-four hours, it could sail one hundred nautical miles in a day. Sailing, however, was not in a straight line from point A to point B but needed to take into consideration obstructing land masses, seasons, currents, and wind patterns.

Three examples illustrate the speed of travel. First, when Captain Vincent Pearce sailed the HMS Phoenix from its home port in New York to Nassau, a distance of about 1,127 nautical miles, he left New York on January 21, 1718, and arrived in Nassau Harbor on February 23, 1718, thirty-four days later. The HMS Phoenix averaged thirty-three nautical miles a day or 1.4 knots.

Second, when the new governor of the Bahamas, Woodes Rogers, and his fleet sailed from London to Nassau, New Providence Island, in the Bahamas, he first sailed south to the Canary Islands, then west across the Atlantic to Barbados, and finally worked his way north to Nassau Harbor, which is on the northern coast of New Providence Island, a distance of over 5,500 nautical miles. If he averaged four knots, he should have arrived in about fifty-six days. But that would have been a perfect voyage. Governor Rogers left London April 22, 1718, and arrived in Nassau Harbor on July 24, 1718, ninety-three days later. His vessels averaged 2.5 knots.

Third, Captain Charles Vane sailed from Nassau Harbor on May 22, 1718, and arrived at Crooked Island a day later in time to capture the Richard & John, about two hundred thirty-four nautical miles. He would have been sailing at about ten knots over a twenty-four-hour period.

Distances and Sailing Days