Evolution of the Sailing Ship: 1,300 Years from Dromon to Clipper

Hoorn, 1595: shipwrights laugh at a long, plain ship with no guns and no castles, sailed by ten men and a boy. Within a century the Dutch fluyt carried the trade of Europe. To see why, we follow one hull through 1,300 years of the sailing ship: from Belisarius's dromons in 533 to the clippers and the Cutty Sark in 1869. Ships & Inventions: why a plain Dutch cargo ship, the fluyt, carried the Golden Age. IN THIS FILM • A single 3D hull that changes shape across the film: dromon, longship, knarr, cog, caravel, carrack, galleon, fluyt, East Indiaman, ship of the line, frigate and clipper • Belisarius's fleet of 533, the Lindisfarne raid of 793, Erik the Red's Greenland voyage and the Norse at L'Anse aux Meadows • Cape Bojador, the volta do mar, Vasco da Gama's voyage to Calicut, and the field at Lagos in 1444 • The Mary Rose, the race-built galleon and the Armada, then the fluyt of Hoorn, the wind sawmills of the Zaan and the Danish Sound toll • The VOC and the West India Company, Bontekoe's exploding Nieuw Hoorn, the line of battle, the frigate Médée and copper sheathing CHAPTERS 0:00 Hoorn, 1595: The Ship They Laughed At 1:25 I. Two Seas (533–1300): Dromon, Longship, Knarr, Cog 9:01 II. The Ocean (1434–1600): Caravel, Carrack, Galleon 15:32 III. Ten Men and a Boy (1595–1700): The Fluyt 24:31 IV. Guns and Glory (1611–1782): Indiaman to Frigate 32:38 V. The Last Race (1833–1869): Clippers and Steam 36:02 Epilogue: They That Go Down to the Sea in Ships SOURCES Primary: Procopius, History of the Wars, book III; Alcuin of York, letter to King Æthelred of Northumbria (793); Landnámabók (The Book of Settlements); Gomes Eanes de Zurara, Chronicle of the Discovery and Conquest of Guinea (1453); Roteiro of Vasco da Gama's first voyage (attrib. Álvaro Velho, 1497–99); Theodorus Velius, Chroniick van Hoorn (1604). Historians: John H. Pryor & Elizabeth M. Jeffreys, The Age of the Dromon: The Byzantine Navy ca. 500–1204 (2006); Gillian Hutchinson, Medieval Ships and Shipping (1994); Robert Gardiner & Richard W. Unger (eds.), Cogs, Caravels and Galleons (1994); Richard W. Unger, Dutch Shipbuilding before 1800 (1978); Jan de Vries & Ad van der Woude, The First Modern Economy (1997); Simon Schama, The Embarrassment of Riches (1987). CREDITS Narration: synthetic voice (Kokoro TTS). Research, script, animation and edit: Astrolabe. Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com): "Anguish", "Crossing the Chasm", "Crusade", "Dark Walk", "Five Armies", "Heroic Age", "Impact Lento", "Impact Prelude", "Lord of the Land", "Moorland", "Oppressive Gloom", "Prelude and Action", "Rynos Theme", "Stormfront", "Take a Chance", "Thaxted" (melody G. Holst), "The Descent", "Volatile Reaction", "Ancient Rite", "Decisions", "Majestic Hills", "Suonatore di Liuto", "At Launch", "Lost Time", "For the Fallen". Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Music: "Ach Gott vom Himmel, sieh darein" (J. P. Sweelinck), organ: Anthony Mark LaMort, CC BY 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/), via Internet Archive; re-encoded. Music: "Est-ce Mars" (J. P. Sweelinck), organ: Ashtar Moïra, CC BY 2.5 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/), via Wikimedia Commons; converted to MP3, level adjusted. Music: "Mein junges Leben hat ein End" (J. P. Sweelinck), organ: Matthias Flierl, recording: Metzner, CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa..., via Wikimedia Commons; trimmed, fade-out added. Arranged for this film from public-domain melodies: "Wilt heden nu treden" (Valerius 1626); Valerius settings by Peter Gerloff (CC0). Rendered with the GeneralUser GS SoundFont by S. Christian Collins. Sound effects from soundbible.com: "2 Minute Storm", "Crisp Ocean Waves" by Mike Koenig (CC BY 3.0); "Flock Seagulls" by Daniel Simion (CC BY 3.0); "Wind" by Mark DiAngelo (CC BY 3.0), https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/. Other sound effects: generated with ElevenLabs, or public domain. Links for every credit: see the pinned comment. Period paintings, prints and maps: public domain / CC0, via Wikimedia Commons, the Rijksmuseum, Royal Museums Greenwich and other collections (incl. The Bayeux Tapestry, City of Elbing, Frans Huys after Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Anthony Anthony, Wenceslaus Hollar, Nicolaes Witsen). Licence: because its soundtrack includes a CC BY-SA 3.0 recording, this film is shared under CC BY-SA 3.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa... Rendered with the Chronicle Engine: a custom engine that rebuilds each battle from the historical record (fleets, maps, terrain, wind and weather) and renders it in 4K. #history #documentary #AgeOfSail