Sailing ships first appeared on the Great Lakes when French explorer Rene Robert Cavalier, Sieur de La Salle built the Griffon in 1679. By 1870, over two thousand sailing ships plied the Great Lakes. Most of these sailing ships were schooners, sails rigged fore-and-aft on two or more masts. Why were schooners so popular? The combination of seaworthiness, maneuverability, large cargo capacity, and low labor cost made schooners ideal for Great Lakes service.
Many Great Lakes schooners were designed as "canallers," built to maximize their cargo capacity within the size restrictions imposed by the locks of the Welland and St. Lawrence River Canals. Canallers were characterized by boxy, shallow-bottomed hulls, shortened spars, and hinged bowsprits. By 1900, competition from larger, steam-driven vessels ended the era of the Great Lakes schooners. Within the next two decades, the vessels had disappeared from the lakes.
Comments 0 comments