In a medieval setting, I need some of my characters to take a boat to arrive at a destination. I suppose a sail boat (they had sail boats, right?) but one that could be handled by one person with perhaps a little inexpert help from non-sailors. Would that be possible or would he have to have a crew? It has to carry six or seven people with a small amount of personal gear. I have no idea what size or kind of boat could do that. And since it's a fantasy world I'm not extraordinarily concerned if they actually existed in the middle ages although I don't want it to be obviously anachronistic.

After that I need something along the lines of a dory or skiff (no clue if there is a difference) that will carry one person and some gear BUT it has to be able to be rigged with a single sail as well as oarlocks.

So any help I could get with terms or names and even descriptions would be greatly appreciated.

Modern day sailboats are able to be sailed solo because of very complicated riggings. I don't suspect that such a thing existed back then. It might be possible to move a midevil sailboat alone but effectively sailing it for any distance would probably not work.

I think your only option would be a rowboat.

Large lateen or spritsail rigged boats were commonplace in Mediteranean medieval communities. The rest of Europe, fore and aft sails of the same type were common in small boats. Larger vessels were square rigged. The Norse sailing-rowing vessels the Vikings ventured across the Atlantic in were square rigged but much more maneuverable than the European vessels. European square rigged vessels couldn't sail into the wind.

I don't think a rowboat would be a possibility for seven people for that distance. And a quick check showed that a caravel was a 60 foot plus ship that took a large crew--also not a possibility.

Your response on the single person craft pretty much confused me. Would a dory be able to be equipped with a sail?

Now I don't know what is a possibility. I might have to make something up in which case that's just the way it is.

You understand the two boats are for different parts of the plot, of course. Thanks for the help.

Edit: I've done google searches on some of this, don't get me wrong. But everything I get is modern and or advertising for selling boats. Can't say I've found anything that helps with my questions.

I did find a reference to something called a buss.

Sailboat top speeds range from a low of a crawling knot per hour for a scow, scows have flat bottomed rectangular hulls, up to 25 knots for modern thoroughbred ocean racing sloops. The Volvo 70 sails at or above wind speed. As long as there's any wind at all, a scow moves at about the same plodding speed regardless of wind velocity, but scows don't do very well in open seas.

Planing hulls are best for inshore and protected waters. They typically have flat bottoms with adjustable centerboards, and are faster than displacement hulls.

Displacement hulls are more stable. They're best for near coastal or oceanic waters. They typically have rounded or triangular hulls with deep fixed keels and ample cargo or crew space in the holds. An average projected speed for a displacement hull on the voyage you suggest might be 2 to 8 knots with wind speeds from 5 to 15 knots. A nautical mile equals 6,000 feet versus 5,280 for a statute mile.

A fore and aft sailing rig has the sails generally in line with the length of the boat versus a square rig which has them more or less perpendicular to the length of the boat. Fore and aft rigs can sail upwind to varying degrees. With the exception of Viking longboats, square rigs can't sail upwind. Upwind sailing is called reaching or a reach; downwind, running or run.

A cat boat is an open boat with a single mast at or very near the bow and one sail, typically a gaff rig or a spritsail. I can't imagine a cat boat with a lateen sail. Large cat boats were built that plied the American coastal trades.

The four basic types of fore and aft sail rigs are, the lateen, the spritsail, the gaff rig, and the Bermuda rig. All four are Wikipedia topics. Below, I've listed some of the finer points that the wiki pages give short shrift.

Lateen sailing rigs are the cheapest, easiest to make, most efficient sail plan, and the most ancient form of fore and aft sail rigs. The mast is short but stout and in the center of the boat. The boom is secured near the top of the mast and reaches from one end of the boat to the other. The triangular-shaped sail hangs below the boom.

Lateens are more complex to operate than any other fore and aft rig. A lateen rigged vessel large enough for an offshore voyage would require an experienced crew. A good example of a lateen rigged sailboat is the Egyptian dhow.

When sailing a lateen rig upwind, tacking across the wind is what complicates operation. Tacking with a lateen requires reversing the direction of the boat. The forward boom tip is released at the bow and the aft tip is hauled down to the stern. The rudder is shipped and moved from the stern to the bow, which then becomes the stern. The boat then sails forward on the new tack. It's a complex dance that must be executed precisely to make any headway against the wind. The antiquity of the lateen rig offers good mythology potential.

Spritsail rigs are similar in shape and function to lateens but much easier to operate because they don't require a reversal of the boat's direction. Depending on which side of the mast the sprit boom is attached to, say the port side, the opposite tack is less powerful because the sail warps around the mast out of the ideal shape. They're the simplest sail to operate but not practical on large boats due to being unmanageably affixed to the mast. The Sunray sailboat has a spritsail. Spritsails are typically on single- or double-occupant boats.

A compromise sail plan that evolved from the lateen and spritsail is the gaff rig. A gaff rig sails closest to the wind, is uncomplicated to operate and even on a large boat might not require additional crew to operate. I've singlehandedly sailed gaff rigged boats from 17 to 21 feet without windlasses to handle the sails. They're my favorite.

Gaff rigs can be loose footed, meaning they have no main boom, only a sprit boom diagonally bisecting the sail. That variety I'm most familiar with as the traditional working fishing boat of the mid Atlantic coast. Back in the day, local fisherman and whalers sailed them far offshore for days on end. An open, heavy wooden-hulled skiff, centerboard, a jib sail on the bow, crewed for fishing by two, eight for whaling.

I've sailed a 21-foot gaff-rigged skiff across the sound, offshore, and in shallow waters with a crowd of landlubber companions and our gear for a week of primitive barrier island camping. I also taught the owners how to sail it. I had to make one special piece of gear first though. The snotter knot that controlled the heal of the sprit boom was missing. Today, none of the oldtimers even know what a snotter is and it's not in the dictionary.

The Bermuda rig is the most common modern recreational and sport sailing rig. The main drawback to the Bermuda rig is they require the tallest masts and therefore make the boat more unstable than the other rigs. They're also more expensive yard for yard because of complex shaping built into the sail.

I did realize two different sized boats were involved. One with a crowd to get somewhere, the other with a solitary occupant. Yes, dories were sometimes equipped with sails. The pre motorboat New England lobster fishery relied on sailing dories.

For a glimpse and flavor of a remarkable nautical experience, Joshua Slocum's Sailing Alone Around the World is a rich and rewarding autobiography. Ernest Shackleton's Voyage of Endurance is not as well written but illustrates the hardships of nautical exploration.

I'll be happy to answer any other questions on sailing.

I googled 'medieval sailing', 'medieval ship' and so forth and got these links which I hope might be useful:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_ships

http://www.nmm.ac.uk/server/show/conWebDoc.168

http://nabataea.net/sailing.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship

It is NOT a ship, mister.

There is a lot more information on medieval ships than there is on medieval boats.

I found a transcript of a talk about "a first-hand account of a harrowing voyage from the south-west coast of Ireland across the North Atlantic in a small open boat skinned with ox hides. Tim Severin and his companions set out to test whether the legendary voyage of the 6th century Irish monk, St Brendan, was based on the real life adventures of early medieval seafarers."

"For their boats, the Irish wrote how they then dressed their leather with grease, but they did omit one detail. Greased ox hides stink."

The boat "could not sail upwind. She could sail across the wind, and since this series is about navigation, the simplest way of sailing a vessel like this, which doesn’t go against the wind, is when the wind’s against you, you lower the sail and you drift slowly backwards, and when the wind is sufficiently favourable, you hoist sail and you progress at about three or four times the speed that you went backwards. "

The full transcript is at
http://www.gresham.ac.uk/event.asp?PageId=108&EventId=406

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Scroll down this page for a picture of a reconstruction of the kind of leather medieval boat the Celtic monks would have used:
http://vivierboats.com/html/heritage_open.html

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This link talks of the coastal nature of medieval shipping--using boats.

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Z5Nidb7CUxUC&pg=PA119&lpg=PA119&dq=medieval+boat&source=web&ots=bTxch78X-k&sig=g7jYbGDPUv5LJMV8dqRX7x1i13M&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=9&ct= result

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Here's a paper about medieval watercraft from DargonZine (the link is to a pdf file). I'm not sure of its historical accuracy but it has a ring of truth about it:
http://www.dargonzine.org/dpww/docs/medieval_watercraft.pdf
(The ezine is at http://www.dargonzine.org/ )

The technology to make the rotor only requires light enough materials, like bamboo. The boat would need bearings and a gearbox, but that is no more sophisticated than the fabric loom required to make a big sail.

quote:

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...As long as there's any wind at all, a scow moves at about the same plodding speed regardless of wind velocity, but scows don't do very well in open seas...

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What? Maybe cargo scows, but my racing scow was faster than anything on the water except the catamarans.

Edit: I'm thinking of adding a crew of one to the boat and making it a small trade vessel. Again, I'm not really thinking that it would be intended for the open sea but more coastal trade.