Britain is an island surrounded by a cold and unforgiving sea.
For centuries, it protected us from attack.
But to prosper and thrive, we would need to do more than just hide behind her salt water shield.
Britain needed brave men, willing to venture out into the unknown.
And she needed good boats to take them there.
I've spent my life at sea.
Now I'm going to take passage on six boats that, together, tell the story of modern Britain.
Built for exploration, war, fishing, industry and our very survival...
these are the boats that built Britain and changed the way we live forever.
This time, I'm sailing on a square-rigger.
This one form of rig did more to shape the world we live in today than anything else afloat.
Carrying goods all over the globe, the square-rigger was the workhorse
of the industrial revolution and the ship that turned Britain into the richest country in the world.
This is the Phoenix.
She's got two masts which makes her a brig, and to see her come over the
horizon, thundering down on you on a windy day with a bone in her teeth and her topsails bellowing out
to the wind, is one of the great thrills this world has to offer.
It's been said that the wooden square-rigged
sailing ship was the most important vehicle ever devised by man.
These were the vessels that took sailors to the four corners
of the earth, and made Britain the world's first industrial superpower.
At the beginning of the 19th century, with the Royal Navy
policing the high seas after the battle of Trafalgar,
the world opened up for ships like these.
Now, merchants were free to trade around the globe without fear of attack.
And it was the square-rigged ship, with its forest of shrouds, stays
and spars, that became the vessel of choice.
Pushed by the trade winds that circle the world, these ships could travel huge distances, sailing
non-stop for weeks at a time and handling everything that the oceans could throw at them along the way.
Vessels like this made fortunes for their owners
in the mid-19th century, but to understand where they've come from, we have to understand that
trading on the water goes back to the days before the dawn of history.
As an island, Britain has always depended
on trade with the outside world for things we can't produce ourselves.
Long before the Romans came over here and stirred things up a bit, the Celtic tribes living in these
south coast harbours and creeks used to trade with their opposite numbers over in Brittany.
Back then, trade was simple and restricted to a few luxury goods.
Maybe wine from the Rhone, or olives from Provence.
It's a simple equation, trading one thing for another.
But as boats got bigger and the world grew smaller,
the complexity and scale of sea-trade began to grow.
And with the expansion of the British Empire at
the beginning of the 19th century,
Britain was exploiting business opportunities all over the world.
Here at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, the very fabric of the
building testifies to the vast wealth this period was generating.
And on the museum walls, pictures capture the world the sqaure-rigged ships created.
One painting in particular depicts a scene that must have been repeated
thousands of times at docks up and down the country in the 1800s.
Henry O'Neil's The Parting Cheer.
Wow. It's alive, isn't it?
It really gives you the feeling that the world is expanding.
These people are going out looking for new horizons.
It's...I guess boom time for the British Empire.
Absolutely. You're talking about the mass movement of people
and goods, but also ideas and cargos
all moving round the British Empire,
and for that you need a step change in the size of ships as well.
As this shipping company atlas proudly shows,
by the middle of the 19th century, Britain either
controlled or was trading with virtually every country on earth.
And it was the square-rigger that tied it all together.
So, until really quite late in the nineteenth century, square-riggers are
carrying the bulk of Britain's trade, especially the high bulk, low value goods like coal and cotton and this
is still an age of high adventure on the high seas for Britain's sailors.
So how did these sqaure-rigged merchant ships come about?
Britain had been trading with the Far East and the Americas since the beginning of the 17th Century.
But with the European powers almost continually in conflict,
and pirates lurking behind every other headland,
the sea was a dangerous place in those days.
Merchant ships looked more like men of war,
weighed down with the guns and troops they needed for protection.
But as the oceans became safer following Trafalgar,
merchants were finally free to trade without fear of constant attack.
Now, speed, sailing ability and cargo capacity were more important than firepower alone.
Relieved of the need to carry a serious battery of artillery,
merchant ships could become leaner, faster, more manoeuvrable craft.
Time was becoming money, and ship builders looked to new designs.
The efficient brig and her big sister, the full-rigged three-master, now developed rapidly.
And as the focus switched from war to wealth, these rigs drove sharper, speedier hulls.
They would soon become the backbone
of the greatest merchant fleet the world had ever seen.
Fortunes were there to be won.
And it wasn't just foreign goods, Eastern spices and silks, that were making money.
Every corner of Britain was getting into trade,
exploiting whatever was at hand in the pursuit of profit.
And one place captures this new attitude perfectly.
And it's here, in deepest Cornwall.
You don't expect to see slag heaps and open casts pits like this in Cornwall, do you?
But they're a mute witness to the Cornish people's urge to get rich quick over the past 150 years.
These vast mines once produced tens of thousands of tons of clay.
The particularly fine clay demanded by makers of bone china,
the must-have domestic item for any fashionable 19th century household.
The only problem was that British manufacturers were based up in the Midlands.
With land transport ineffective and prohibitively expensive,
only the sea offered a viable means of conveyance,
and the mine owners stopped at nothing to get their cargo ships as close to the clay as they could.
This is Charlestown harbour, carved out of the solid rock of the hillside.
An impressive feat of engineering in a place where nature never intended there to be a harbour at all.
But it was all in a day's work to the industrialists and ship owners of the mid-19th century.
The sort of thing they would do at the drop of a hat in the pursuit of profit.
And that profit was made by the ships that could now come and go,
laden, in the case of Charlestown, with the clay mined just inland.
Throughout the 19th century,
this little dock would have been packed with all the boat-related
businesses you need to keep a fleet of trading vessels afloat.
Most of that has long gone now, of course.
But here at Charlestown, you can still get a flavour
of what it must have been like when square-riggers were the shuttles of the loom of industry.
Today they're replacing the mast on one of these great ships.
And it shows the first thing you need if you're going to build a square-rigger...
wood.
Lots of it!
Francis Browne is a skipper and shipwright who has spent his life working on square-riggers.
He knows every inch of what goes into making one of these wonderful craft.
This is the inside planking. It's known as the ceiling.
This planking runs all the way fore and aft on the vessel
and it adds terrific longitudinal strength to the vessel.
You can see the thickness of the planking here, this is a good three inches thick.
It's very solid. And the frames behind and then, of course, the external skin of planking,
which on this vessel, is another three and a half, four inches.
So, there's a massive amount of timber in these vessels.
It's unimaginably strong, isn't it?
Very, very strong. And we've got metal work here, haven't we?
This is actually iron work,
forged iron hanging knees, and they run right down inside.
And that's continuing here under the deck.
This beefs up these
deck beams and ties it all together.
It's very much a living component.
The way it's been constructed, it all works together and it all does move a little bit at sea.
Nothing is so rigid that it can't move and give a little bit as it makes it way through the seas.
And every one of these planks had to be hand made and fitted by a team of craftsmen.
Today, another of the Charlestown fleet is in dry dock having new
planks fitted to her hull, which gives us a chance for
a close-up view of the work that goes into building and maintaining these boats.
First of all, the gap left by the plank to be replaced is measured and a template is transferred
onto the new plank so it can be cut to the right size.
They then have to make sure that the bevel of the plank is correct so that it fits perfectly.
Now, the boys are drilling the plank so it won't split when they fasten it in with giant nails.
Before the plank can be offered up into place,
the edges are greased with tallow to help it slide in more easily.
Of course, they're hoping that their measurements are right, so that when
they insert the plank, it fits perfectly.
Good job, lads.
Now, it's 'hold the forward end up with a jack and hammer it home',
leaving the aft end over-length so they can cut the exact fit
after she's been half-secured.
Once they're happy, they can start fastening
by driving six inch nails through the plank and into the frames.
To finish off, the nails are countersunk to really make sure they're not going anywhere.
It's great to see these guys whacking away with these big hammers.
The explosive force that they're using
to drive in these great big spikes and every single one of those bangs
is putting strength into this ship.
The strength in a wooden boat is remarkable
and this is the way they've been built since time immemorial.
These are ancient skills.
With 19th-century Britain crying out for ever more ships
to meet demand, vessels like these were being built in their hundreds
up and down the country.
And it was happening in some unlikely places.
It wasn't just fully-fledged shipyards that were carrying out this work,
boats were being built anywhere they could find the materials and the labour.
I've just brought you in here while the lads are sledging in the plank
under the ship out there to make a point.
We're in a full on shipyard here, great bit shed, all sorts of things
going on around us, substantial establishment.
It wasn't always like that, and in fact, in the 19th century,
a lot of ships were built in an extremely vernacular environment.
There's a picture here of a schooner being built literally under a cliff in a Cornish village.
You see the size of the chaps here?
This is a substantial vessel.
What really impresses me about her is this beautiful shareline and the sweet shape of her stern.
That is an extraordinarily beautiful vessel.
Her masts are rigged and ready to go.
They've done the whole thing, these guys, these villagers on the beach.
No shipyard, no nothing.
Just a bunch of guys who could do it.
This was happening all over Britain.
Today, large-scale wooden ship-building is virtually a lost craft, kept alive by a few good men
who still have the skills that were once so common.
That the last one, Scott? That is the last one.
They're now in the final stages of fixing this one plank in place,
a job that's taken the whole afternoon,
and this boat is skinned with more than 200 planks.
Now, the plank's in. The last lap is caulking to make her watertight.
The caulking material is oakum, hemp fibres soaked in pine tar.
It's hammered in with a special tool called a caulking iron.
When the boat gets back in the water the planks will expand,
squeezing the oakum even tighter, an effective and natural way to get a strong, tight hull.
The whole process is rounded off with a liberal application of tar.
Planking a wooden ship like this is a timeless art.
But what's under the water on a square-rigger is only half the story.
Her real glory, the part that gives her the name, is up in the sky.
A cathedral in wood and rope.
This riot of a maze of wood and rope up here looks like chaos
to a landsman, but to a seamen, it is the pure poetry of motion.
It's the beating heart of sqaure-rig, where every spar and every rope is counted.
And before you set sail on a square-rigger, it's as well to understand the basics.
If we look at the main mast here, we can see that there are three spars going across it.
The sails are attached to those at the top edge.
The rest of the sail comes down and fills the gap beneath the spar.
The spar is called a yard.
The bottom one is called the main yard.
The next one up, that's the topsail yard and the sail is set then underneath it.
That's a big, big sail when that yard is hoisted
but it's the working sail of the rig, the powerhouse.
The one above it, for fair weather, is the royal.
But the reason why this is so special, is because it is a single sail.
It took a lot of men to handle that sail and there's some brutal work attached to doing it, too.
Later on, square-riggers divided their topsails into two halves, one above the other.
This made the rig easier to handle, and allowed it to be sailed more cheaply with smaller crews.
That single topsail proves to us that she's as she would have been in the middle of the 19th century
at the height of trade at the peak of empire, and at the zenith of sqaure-rig.
Now I'm going to get the chance to sail one of these iconic ships for myself.
Skipper says we've got to get on top of the tide, so we've got to go. It's the only time they can.
Still, I've been looking forward to sailing on this little ship for a long time, so...here we go.
Over the wall.
As we hit the top of the tide, we're faced with the task of manoeuvring the ship out of the dock.
Today we've an engine, but it's still a highly-skilled operation.
150 years ago, without the benefit of diesel power,
we'd have had a team of dockers armed with rope, capstan and work-hardened muscle,
inching the boat out to sea.
Ease it down gently, now. Ease down gently.
It's nerve-wracking stuff and it's a tight fit.
But the skipper and crew know what they're about
and with only the merest kiss of the dock wall, we're out.
Now that we're safely clear of the harbour, we can begin the serious business of setting sail,
which is no small undertaking in a boat this size.
On modern boats, the furling and loosing of the sails is done from the deck.
With a square-rigger, you've got to go to the sails and that means climbing the mast.
Back in the 19th century, they'd never heard of health and safety
and for a young seamen, getting sent up the rigging at sea was one of the first tests of nerve he'd face.
And looking at the heights involved, it isn't hard to see why you'd feel just a little apprehensive...
OK. The boys and girls have gone aloft to release the topsails.
The two topsails are the first we're going to set, so the guys have got to undo the gaskets.
That will let the sails fall a little way away from the yard
and they're then free to be handled from the deck.
What you don't want when you're half way through hoisting that yard is a foul up.
She's coiling up the little gaskets, the ropes, coiling them up neatly
and just tossing them down over the front of the sail.
With so many sails and lines, there's a lot that can go wrong.
So it's vital that each task is done neatly, properly, and in the correct order.
Back in the 19th century, practice over and over again would
have drilled every seamen to get it right at any time in any conditions.
Wondering whether you're tying the right knot 70 feet above the water in a gale of wind wasn't an option.
Just the windage of the rig, the weight of the wind just blowing
in the rigging and those two little rags of canvas, is blowing this ship along at three knots.
As each additional sail is set, the speed of the ship slowly builds up.
The mate and her hand here are working the braces.
Those are the ropes that actually control the angle of the yard to the wind,
so they're now actually controlling the set of the sail.
Troops are giving the halyard another tweak and the boat is picking up speed.
We've now got two topsails and a jib set, and already, The Phoenix is travelling at a fair lick.
But even with gale force eight forecast, there's more canvas to set.
Next it's the main staysail.
The skipper wants more speed, so we're going to set the forecourse,
that's the big sail at the fore end of the ship, set on the foremast.
Unlike their navy counterparts, merchant skippers couldn't rely
on military discipline to control their crews.
With small crews relatively free to jump ship, a more consensual approach
was required to maintain morale and get the job done.
And what's so nice about this is that this is a small crew.
It's the sort of crew that would have sailed this vessel had she been a cargo vessel 150 years ago.
It's great teamwork, isn't it?
Now, as then, a well-drilled crew is the way to get the best from a boat.
With five sails set, The Phoenix is starting to move beautifully.
Back in her working days, a boat Phoenix's size would have carried a cargo of around 80 tonnes.
Sometimes bulk goods like Cornish clay, but mostly high-value merchandise
such as tobacco from America, a journey she'd have made in around 30 days.
Out on the high seas for long passages like that, square-riggers could run into some serious weather.
But these were capable, ocean-going vessels,
and today with the wind touching gale force, Phoenix is handling it without a second thought.
Absolutely marvellous. This is the power.
This is the wind that drove these ships around the world, because it was harnessed by the sailors.
They made it work for us,
they turned it into miles and they turned those miles into profit.
The wind, the free engine of God.
With a steady wind behind her,
a square-rigger will just keep on going.
And by the 19th century, huge amounts of data had been collected about those winds,
put together by thousands of English-speaking captains sailing the oceans,
all of whom needed to know just what the wind would be doing, where and when.
The special charts that were compiled from this data meant that with a little forethought,
a merchant captain could be confident of finding what became known as the north-east trade winds,
and the powerful westerlies that would drive his ship across the oceans and get the job done.
Ocean sailing is all about planning.
A lot has been known for centuries about the way the wind blows in oceans.
Suppose you're going to trade sugar from London to the Caribbean.
Once you can get down here, you've got almost guaranteed
north-easterly winds that are going to chase you
across the Atlantic.
That will take you to the Caribbean.
Down here, down the coast of Spain and Portugal,
You've got almost certain northerly winds, which are absolutely fine.
With a bit of luck, you'll have some southerlies
and south-westerlies to bring you up the coast of North America.
Once you get into the North Atlantic,
you're almost guaranteed to have westerlies
to carry you home again to London.
So, if you can plan to be in the right place at the right time,
the wind's fair. The square-rigger is bowling along without a care in the world.
With the trade winds and westerlies to power them, square-riggers straddled the world,
from the West Indies to South East Asia, and all points in between.
Driven by a rig, perfectly adapted to the job in hand.
It's been a good few years since I went aloft on a square-rigger,
but without getting up into the rig, there's no way you're ever going to
understand what these boats are really about.
This is absolutely amazing.
I'm up here in the engine that drove commerce, from the time of Noah
until steam started to take over in the latter part of the 19th century.
And the feeling is of flying through the air like a bird.
If you're not used to it, it's a little bit frightening. It's year since I've been aloft.
But I won't have missed it for anything.
From here, of course, you've got a fantastic view of the horizon.
Sailors have been seeing stuff coming up over
the edge of the earth from here since the Vikings and before.
But the best views of all were in that latter part of the 19th century,
when the masts were tall, and the ships were fast
and the yards were well slung and the sailors were at their very peak.
This is the place to see the sea.
This was the golden age of sail.
And as the 19th century progressed, the ships got bigger and ever faster.
But just as these glorious craft were reaching their peak, a new technology arrived that
was to exert a slow stranglehold from which they could never recover.
Steam ships didn't have to wait for a favourable wind to make progress.
They could travel anywhere, at any time, and they could guarantee a schedule.
In a world where time was now money, the writing was on the wall for sail.
Today, very few of the great square riggers remain to paint
a true picture of the incredible scale of the trade they drove.
But at ports like Liverpool, a harbour which once handled cargo from all over the world,
you get some idea of the astonishing place these craft once held in our national and international life.
Believe it or not, this is sailing-ship country.
They walked them into here.
There's a capstan on the quay over there
that's left over from the days that the last sailing ship was in here.
It's a place of ghosts.
Remarkable atmosphere.
You can hear the crowd singing the shanties
as they walked round that capstan to get the sailing ship out to go out through that gate,
turn starboard into the river, pick up her tug,
down to the bar, spread her topsails and away for Australia.
Today, the square-rigged ships are long gone from Liverpool.
But the memory of the time they filled these docks lives on in the songs that the sailors sang.
And in Liverpool's harbourside pubs, you can still find men who
know the tunes that once rang out on British ships all around the world.
INSTRUMENTS OBSCURE VOCALS
# Running the east wind now
# Running the east wind now... #
The docks are still here,
but the men who worked them have faded away.
They've been replaced by ever-more efficient machines.
You can't argue with progress, can you?
But I wonder if in 50 years' time,
men will still be writing songs in praise of container ships.
But it's not hard to see why they sang about the square-rigger,
a magnificent ship that changed Britain and the world for all time.
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
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