This list of large sailing vessels, past and present, includes sailing mega yachts, tall ships, sailing cruise ships, and large sailing military ships. The list is sorted by overall length, covering vessels greater than about 200 feet (61 m) LOA, which includes overhangs and spars. The world’s largest sailing ships have captivated mankind for centuries, being symbols of elegance, adventure, and freedom on the high seas.
The Sailing Yacht A, designed by French designer Philippe Stark, is the largest sailing yacht in the world at 142.81 meters (469 feet). The Golden Horizon, a steel-built, five-masted barque, is the world’s largest sailing ship at 162 meters long. The Monegasque ship-owning company Star Clippers is enlarging its fleet with the construction of the Royal Clipper, the flagship of the Star Clippers cruise line.
The top 20 remarkable sailing yachts in the world include the groundbreaking Sailing Yacht A at 469 feet, Jeff Bezos massive Y721 Royal Clipper sailing the Mediterranean, and the Koru Sea Cloud Spirit Black Pearl EOS Athena Maltese Falcon Aquijo. Other notable ships with sails include Preussen, France II, Thomas W. Lawson, Wyoming, Royal Clipper, Barque Sedov, and Juan.
The Golden Horizon, a steel-built, five-masted barque, is the largest sailing ship in the world at 162-meters long. The Orient Express Silenseas will be the world’s largest sailing ship and the benchmark ocean liner from an environmental point of view on the ultra-large scale.
📹 The Largest Sailing Ship in the World – Royal Clipper
Royal Clipper is a steel-hulled five-masted fully rigged tall #ship used as a cruise ship. She was designed by Robert McFarlane of …
📹 The Syracusia: Archimedes’ Massive Sailing Ship
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Here is more historical maritime megaprojects that deserve an episode: – Ming treasure voyages (largest fleet in the world at the time) – Vasa (e.g. Gustavus Adolphus biggest blunder) the one of the biggest and most powerful ships of the era that sunk on its maiden voyage due to piss poor engineering. – Wyoming (schooner)the largest wooden ship ever built sunk due to poor engineering.
There are a few stories associated with this ship. One was that at a party a fairly drunk Archimedes proclaimed, “Give me a lever long enough and a place to put it and I can move the world.” Heiron said, “Yeah, prove it. Launch my ship.” Another story of this pair is that Heiron had commissioned a jeweler to make him a new gold crown. The jeweler was supposed to return the left over gold and be paid in much more common silver. Rumours reached Heiron that the jeweler has allowed the gold with a base metal (probably copper) and pocketed the change. Heiron asked Archimedes to prove his crown was pure gold or not. Some time latter Archimedes, who loved good food and good wine and it showed, got into a public bath and when he over flowed had a moment of insight about the principle of buoyancy. He then ran back home naked screaming, “Eureka” or I have it. The crown and an equal weight of water were submerged and when the crown displaced more water than the gold Archimedes proved the crown was not real gold. Less mentioned is that the jeweler was executed.
It is thought that out there in the land of antiquity was a warship so large that could never possibly fight. A ship dubbed “the super carrier of antiquity.” If your average Greek Trireme is a 3, and your Roman Quinquireme is a 5, the ship I speak of would be a 40. It’s called the Tessarakonteres. A article on it would be great.
This is cool because there is now a new cruis ship that is like twice the size of them one he mentions in the beginning of this article. It’s crazy to think cruise ships always get bigger and bigger every few years I wonder how big the biggest cruise ship is going to be in like 30 years they’re going to have a ship so big that it’s going to be unbelievable.
I’m surprised you haven’t done a article on the Ming Dynasty Treasure Ships on one of your several websites. Built around 1400 they were absolutely massive for the time. Accounts vary but they were somewhere between 250 to 500ft long. They sailed south from China, trading and giving gifts and made it at least all the way to the east coast of Africa.
Someone below cited the Venice Arsenal, which would be a good topic by itself. Also Venice as a whole, from its foundations, if you’re inclined to do a longer scope topic. Amazing use of a marshy island in a lagoon and still an engineering challenge today. I’m interested in ports and harbours in terms of their evolution in size, capacity, docking techniques from the days of beaching galleys to the great tidal docks to the container ports of today. There’s not a lot looking at them as an evolving phenomenon. Maybe there’s something there- ancient versus early modern vs today? British Royal Dockyards used as an example through the centuries? Could be material there. Have you already done Diocletian’s Palace somewhere? I’ve seen many illustrations but if there’s information on its scale and internal layout that could be interesting. The pictures always show huge barracks and temple but I’ve no idea how much was the emperor’s space. The history of the Palatine Hill in Rome, from the republic’s version of Belgravia to giant palace complex.
Two unquantified prior statements:\r 01:20 “if we’re talking about great monsters of the high seas … we can only really start with one boat — a vessel of astonishing dimensions which was built around 240 bc and which set sail only once widely regarded as the largest ship of antiquity” 02:25 “it was said to be the largest ship ever built at the time by some margin” Then quantified: 08:00 55 meters (180 feet) long 14 meters (46 feet) wide and\r 13 (42.6 feet) meters high\r \r Compare with Noah’s ark.\r Built: ~2500 BC\r Size: 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide, and 30 cubits high.\r As converted in Wikipedia’s article on the ark: This would result in ark dimensions of 525-624 ft. x 87.5-104 ft. x 52.5-62.4 ft.\r \r So, the largest ship of antiquity was Noah’s ark.
9:50 “..’first use of proactive anti-fouling technology.” I doubt that. Along with the flora and fauna that passively attaches itself to a ships bottom, a mollusk called ship-worm, Teredo navalis, would take up residence within the hull planks by using it’s shell as a drill bit, working it’s way deeper into the timber as it grows up to a foot (.3 meters) in length. Having thousands of holes drilled in the bottom of a ship has a bad effect on the vessels sea-going abilities. The stuff growing on the outside below the water-line affects a ships performance. Having hull planks weakened and leaking due to thousands of holes drilled into them will sink the ship. One source I’ve read mentions that during the Bronze Age, sea-going ship’s bottoms would be covered with thin sheets of lead. The Greeks coated their triremes with pine tar or asphalt from the Dead Sea. During the 18th and 19th centuries copper plate would be nailed to ship bottoms, discouraging the passive growth and, most important, prevent ship-worm attachment. Funny, looked up “Teredo” to check facts and all that comes up with Google or Wikipedia is about a computer program that “tunnels.” Had to use “shipworm” as the search term. Thanks Simon Whistler and those that help put these articles together. It’s a great service, and occasionally being wrong about details adds to the experience of perusal.
A fun Megaproject article might be the VC Summer Nuclear Power plant debacle. a $2 billion project that balooned to $9 billion and still only got to about 30% completion before it was cancelled. The mismanagement, corruption, and lack of building knowledge due to America’s decay of nuclear ambition all contributed to this particular disaster that ruined Westinghouse.
Simon Whistler Hey I’ve been trying to get a message to you at different articles and your different websites. I think if you looked up the U.S.S. Rancocas you would find a great subject for one of your articles. It’s called the battleship in the field and it’s a navy ship mast built in a field in New Jersey along side Jersey turnpike and Rt 295 . I have personal experience as my step father worked here in the middle, late 80’s. I could give you info on the war games in middle of the night, the inside of building. Aegis radar, and Phalanx being designed and tested here.
Not sure if this was mentioned in a previous post. But the dimensions do not make any sense in relation to the description of the amenities and payload. 180ft is nothing, especially considering that they needed huge crews for the oars..Honestly at 180ft it sounds about average size for a royal ship of the time. With only one lavish suite for the king, hull mostly filled with sweaty men, a couple horses and some dried bread and water. There must be some mistake in translation or there is a reason why not much is written about it – it wasn’t special.
I just looked it up on wikipedia and as one could expect, once someone builds an enormous “anything”, there is always someone who wants to have the same thing, but BIGGER. Men gonna be men, I guess. And so Ptolemy IV., unsuprisingly son of Ptolemy III., wanted a ship that was bigger than the one his father had been gifted, so he had the Tessarakonteres build, which allegedly was more than 2,5 times longer than the Syracusia, and was powered by, depending on the source, 300 to 600 oars and up to 4,000 oarsmen. However, it apparently was somewhat disfunctional and only really meant to show off. Which probably worked pretty well.
Simon, no one can complain about anything you say about this ship because of so little knowledge. After all, the world has been visualizing everything in the ancient world in different, opposing, and often ridiculous ways. How about the Colossus of Rhodes, which would’ve had to have been ginormously larger than they were capable of casting of bronze in those days—if it had stood astride the harbor entrance. Or the lighthouse at Alexandria, which was also described in equally impossible dimensions. Facts? “We don’t need no stinking facts!” Just entertain us, as usual, and ignore the self-styled “experts.” Your fans love the way you present things and if not, let ’em bugger off. I find myself LOLIMON all the time (That’s Laughing Out Loud In (the) Middle Of (the) Night), which is all I want.
Etymology From French Syracuse, from Latin Syrācūsae, from Ancient Greek Συρᾱ́κουσαι (Surā́kousai) attested from 8th century BC, from a Pre-Greek name, possibly Phoenician ���������� (šhrʾḥ, “to feel ill”) in reference to the ancient port’s proximity to a swamp. As a surname, an anglicized form of Italian Siracusa. Compare Sicilian Saragusa.
Probably, like the GREAT EASTERN of Victorian times, it had propulsion difficulties. It was probably grotesquely under powered. The high sides an large super structure made rowing it impossible in any kind of a wind. Even the sails may have been ineffective, except down wind. This would probably explain how it was able to reach Alexandria, but not able to do much else.