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The Age of Sail (usually dated as 15711862) was a period

roughly corresponding to the early modern period in which
international trade and naval warfare were dominated by
sailing ships, lasting from the 16th to the mid-19th
century.[1]

1 Definition The Battle of Terheide (1657) by Willem van de Velde

2 Golden Age of Sail the Elder, depicting a 1653 naval battle between the
3 Decline Dutch Republic and the Commonwealth of England
4 See also
5 References

Like most periodic eras the definition is inexact but close enough to
serve as a general description. The age of sail runs roughly from the
Battle of Lepanto in 1571, the last significant engagement in which
oar-propelled galleys played a major role, to the Battle of Hampton
Roads in 1862, in which the steam-powered ironclad CSS Virginia
destroyed the sailing ships USS Cumberland and USS Congress,
demonstrating that the advance of steam power had rendered sail power A Ship of War, Cyclopaedia 1728, Vol 2
in warfare obsolete.

The Suez Canal, which opened in 1869, was impractical for sailing ships,
and made steamboats faster on the European-Asian sea route.

The period between 1850 and the early 20th century when sailing vessels reached their peak of size and
complexity is sometimes referred to as the "Golden Age of Sail".[2] During this time the efficiency and use of
commercial sailing vessels was at its peakimmediately before steamboats started to take trade away from sail.

Sailing ships continued to be an economical way to transport bulk cargo on long voyages into the 1920s. Sailing
ships do not require fuel or complex engines to be powered; thus they tended to be more independent from
requiring a dedicated support base on the mainland. Crucially though, steam-powered ships held a speed
advantage and were rarely hindered by adverse winds, freeing steam-powered vessels from the necessity of
following trade winds. As a result, cargo and supplies could reach a foreign port in half the time it took a sailing

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Age of Sail - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Sail

ship. It is this factor that drove sailing ships aside.

Sailing vessels were pushed into narrower and narrower economic niches and gradually disappeared from
commercial trade. Today, sailing vessels are only economically viable for small scale coastal fishing, along with
recreational uses such as yachting and passenger sail excursion ships.

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1. "The Age of Sail" (http://www.hms-trincomalee.co.uk/history/the-age-of-sail). HMS Trincomalee.

Retrieved 12 April 2016.
2. "Sailing Ship Rigs" (http://museum.gov.ns.ca/mma/AtoZ/rigs.html) Archived (https://web.archive.org
/web/20101228161737/http://museum.gov.ns.ca/mma/AtoZ/rigs.html) 2010-12-28 at the Wayback
Machine.. Maritime Museum of the Atlantic

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This page was last edited on 18 August 2017, at 15:20.

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