This list of large sailing vessels, past and present, includes mega yachts, tall ships, cruise ships, and military ships. The list is sorted by overall length, covering vessels greater than about 200 feet (61 m) LOA, including overhangs and spars. The Royal Clipper, the largest full-rigged sailing ship in the world, measures 439 feet in length with 19,000 square feet of open deck and accommodations for up to 227 guests.
The Golden Horizon, the world’s largest sailing ship, is the flagship of the Star Clippers cruise line and is the largest true sailing ship according to the Lloyds List. It is 12 meters longer than the previous two hundred years ago. The Thomas W. Lawson was the world’s largest pure sailing ship without an auxiliary engine and the only seven-masted schooner.
The Great Republic was the largest wooden ship in the world when launched in 1853, sharing this title with another American-built ship, the steamship Adriatic. The Black Pearl, one of the largest sailing yachts in the world, has a length of 106.7 meters and is among the most advanced technologically.
The Royal Clipper is a cruise ship built on the lines of the Preussen, a five-mast sail ship. The longest wooden ship ever built was the six-masted New England gaff schooner Wyoming, which had a total length of 137 meters (449 ft). The Royal Clipper is the world’s largest full-rigged sailing ship, with a total length of 439 feet.
📹 The Wreck of the Schooner “WYOMING”, the Largest Wooden Ship in History
The monstrous coal-hauling Schooner “Wyoming”, built by Percy and Small in Bath, Maine, was the biggest wooden ship to sail …
📹 The Syracusia: Archimedes’ Massive Sailing Ship
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My father, before he passed away, like to claim that he was perhaps the last person alive who saw the Wyoming before she was lost. His story was that when he was six years old, living in North Chatham, Massachusetts he remembered his uncle coming by the house excited that two big vessels were to be seen anchored near Pollock Rip Lightship. He was allowed to take a car ride with his father and uncle to the Chatham Lighthouse overlook where the Cora Cressy and the Wyoming were visible anchored up a few miles offshore. Unfortunately, later that night the storm increased. The Cora Cressy was able to work its way into deeper water and safety where the Wyoming either parted or dragged its anchor forcing it into the shoal water where it was pounded to pieces and all hands lost. My father never forgot the sight of those two huge sailing vessels anchored up together and the fact that a few hours later the Wyoming and all her people were lost forever.
She was just too long for a wooden ship, even with the bracing. That she lasted so long and it took a major storm to take her out is a testament to both her design and the skill of the shipyard workers who built her. Small crews, a major advantage of the schooner rig, work against survival in a shipwreck.
I’ve grown up in Bath, and a few years ago had the opportunity to do some renovations on the Percy and Small workshop (the black roofed building on the left), which is now part of the Maine Maritime Museum. The history that’s been preserved there is amazing, and this article answered a lot of unanswered questions I’ve had for a long time about the Wyoming. Great work.
That is INSANE. I visited aboard the USCGC Acushnet before it was decommissioned in 2012 or 13. Onboard were two of my shipmstes from CG basic training. Beautiful ship. The bridge was all teak wood and had a no-shit wooden spoked helm. She was a throw back for sure. I think one of only two remaining cutters that had seen combat in WWII pacific theater.. She moored up next to the ship I served on. Crazy that it served as an active duty vessel that long
Wow, great story about a historic ship that most of us have never known about. I would have never expected to ship to last as long as it did being as huge as it was. The technology of the day usually ends today usually ends in disaster much sooner when trying to go bigger and bolder. The designer was truly visionary in what he accomplished.
Made it up to Maine last year and spent half a day at the Maritime Museum. Being land locked and knowing nothing of shipping I found it fascinating. I can grasp why place’s like New York, Boston and San Diego have a rich shipping heritage, after going to Bath, Maine I was able learn a little of theirs.
A wonderful website with so much history. Being from Wyoming, and not ever hearing this story, I personally thank you. Your website, time, effort and easy story telling is very much looked forward to, and appreciated. The voices of those who were lost, can be heard from their watery graves and it is powerful, to say the least…and of course, it’s through all you do in your research. Thank you!
I’ve worked on the water my whole life on tug boats. I didn’t know how long after 1900 that sailing ships still actually worked and competed with steam. You should do a article on the sailing ship adelana which sank suddenly on commencement bay in tacoma Washington in December 1898 in which all hands were lost.
I was scratching my head about the ship being built of pine, then remembered this timber was probably FIRST GROWTH pine, where you needed a magnifying glass to count the growth rings!! Strong straight material; my homestead grandfather would split the pine at minus 40 below and he didn’t need to saw much for railroad ties. It would split straight!!
I stumbled upon this article by mistake, but I am glad I took the time to watch. I lived on Nantucket for many years and towards the end of this article it was said that the ship wrecked off the coast. That jogged my memory….a very dear friend of mine who still lives on the island told me a story of how their father gathered some shipwrecked pieces off the coast and saved them including some masts. Years later in the early 1970’s they decided to incorporate many of the pieces in the construction of their home. I am convinced that it was this very ship.
You would love the Outer Banks of North Carolina as it’s named the Graveyard of the Atlantic for it’s hundreds of wrecks. After storms my girlfriend and myself would ride the beaches between towns looking for wrecks while picking up trash. My yard was lined with pieces of wrecks that I’d kept track of in a notebook even though it was highly illegal but two pieces were pulled out of beach fires as my excuse so the NPS was cool with it especially knowing how much trash I collected. I wish more people would do that but most can’t even put their shopping carts in the racks so yeah, lazy.
Hey Tom… being originally from Maine I’ve appreciated the last few articles. You’re very good at telling an engaging and informative story. However, a gentle thought… I would like to see you do more than shipwrecks. You’ve implied traveling all over the world, I’d like to see some more with that sometime!
Great mini doc on the”Wyoming”, and a fitting tribute and memorial. It was interesting to hear about her successful involvement in Great War given the threat possessed to large sailing ships by German raiders and U-boats. Have you heard about the 281 ft long 2,556 grt Ferris ships and other attempts to mass produce wooden cargo ships in WW1? There wrecks of 90 of them are in Mallows Bay, Maryland.
Thoroughly enjoyable piece of historeo …… history article …looking for a name to describe this skillful enterprise. Telling the story of industrial developments and the impact on people, society, business, culture, technology. You have a fine hand for this work. Do more. It honors your subject material. So do more.
I live in Bath Maine just up the road from the MMM and across the street from the Bath Iron Works. I had been to the museum but have forgotten the history of the Wyoming although I drive by the sculpture almost every day. You article was very informative for me, I’m glad I found it. I was perusal a article of Maine’s First Ship launch that happened in the beginning of June of this year. The launching of a replica of “The Virgina of Sagadahoc” was built by mostly volunteers over the last 15 or 20 years. It is now resting at its pier in downtown Bath as the outfitting continues.
I been to the museum that built the ship and they have a semi replica of the thing. They have 6 mast placed where the ship was built and still have most of the buildings that were used during the time period. And then down river is the fore river ship yard. There were three Arleigh Burke destroyers and one of the Zumwalts there. It’s a beautiful area and I would go back any time.
This article was extremely interesting. I’d never heard of the Wyoming. A great tribute to the great state of Wyoming. A most beautiful place. Your article editing and scripting as well as your very good enunciation made this article actually relaxing. I enjoyed hearing about St Johns as I am a retired IT professional and traveled there spent a great deal of time up there. Letting us know about the museums is great as I may one day return to Maine and New Brunswick to see these places. Well done mate. You’re to be commended for your excellent work.
I love history and old ships… I just did a compliance inspection on a 1902 Brigantine that is still in service. Not sure the owners are going to like some of my recommendations, but keeping 120 year old small ship is always a cost challenge to prevent the masts being the marker of current location. Funny how this recommendation popped up the same day I did my inspection. I spent a year in Maine, one of the best years of my life. Cheers from Oz.
As amazing as they were, nobody misses wooden ships much. They are floating repair/restoration jobs: a trip around Cape Horn to China required the replacement of a non-trivial fraction of the original ship. And they rotted. And they were devoured by shipworms. And they burned with great enthusiasm. But it’s still fascinating how wood, wind-powered ships could travel the world as well as they did.
I have a article idea. It’s of the largest sailing ship of it’s time, the training ship København, built in the United Kingdom, made for the Danish East Asiatic Company as a training ship, but had been enlisted for The Great War as an oil tender while under construction, it then got delivered after the war, and while under a normal trip it dissapeared, on the way from Buenos Aires to Australia and was never found.
Wonderful article – thank you! But was it really the largest wooden ship in all of history? I remember reading about the Chinese treasure fleet from the Ming Dynasty so I looked it up: ‘Incredibly, the largest ships in the fleet (called “baoshan,” or “treasure ships”) were likely between 440 and 538 feet long by 210 feet wide. The 4-decked baoshan had an estimated displacement of 20-30,000 tons, roughly 1/3 to 1/2 the displacement of modern American aircraft carriers.’ Maybe you could do a piece on this sometime. Thanks again!
As wonderful as American ship design and building was in the days of sail, no industry could supply the vast amounts of properly aged lumber. Add to this, the fact that the whalers, clippers, schooners and down-easters were generally built of soft-woods resulted in short working lives. A fifteen year old American wooden ship was very tired in deed.
Personally I find it interesting that this ship was launched 50 years after the Great Eastern. Which was a bit more than 3x the displacement of this ship and 250 feet longer, amongst other ludicrous statistics that Brunel made happen in his awesome insanity. Now I don’t mean to compare a wooden schooner, no matter how big, to the Great Eastern. What I find interesting is that a wooden ship of this size was built 50 years after a far larger iron ship. Sure, Brunel was pushing the limits of new things and this was pushing the limits of what was old, tried and tested. So it is not like it makes no sense. I just find it interesting that something like Wyoming was built 50 years after Great Eastern. I don’t know if this is a testament to how far ahead of the curve Brunel was, or something else. But as I said, I think it is interesting. addendum: yeah, I know Great Eastern was far from a success, with the exception of her time spent as a cable laying ship. But she was, as Burnel loved to make, something far ahead of its time.
Amazing story telling. My father was born and raised in Bath and we’d spend summers there in the late ’60’s. He’d tell us all about the history of the shipyard, and of Bath Iron Works, but I’d never heard of the Wyoming until now. (I now work in Maine for a good part of the summer, and am in Bath often, but had no knowledge of the museum. Will definitely make it by this summer.) Thanks for this!
Great article! You have a very pleasant way of narrating this article and it is full of interesting info. I think sometimes people forget the wooden sailing ships were still around well past the invention of gasoline engines. Society tends to relate wooden sailing ships to revolutionary war era. Up in the great lakes some of the old ships were converted to barges and towed into the 1950’s. I like perusal historical things about technology, it is simply amazing how rapid things changed, but also how long older technology stayed around. It seems only most recently society is willing to discard things that are only a few years old in favor of the new.
I grew up in Bath Maine. Percy and Small is now. The Maine maritime museum. Great place to visit. Just before you get to the Maine maritime museum. There’s a shipyard called Bath Iron Works. They build destroyers and cruisers for the U.S.Navy the Arliegh (sp) Burke class and other warships great place to see
Awesome article – so glad that your website happened to show up in my feed today! I am currently living in Georgetown, just down river from Bath, and I frequently travel by the museum. As a relatively new transplant to Maine ( from PA) I am so happy to be here and would encourage anyone contemplating a visit to Maine to be sure to plan on spending a day in Bath – a great little town to explore, a wonderful museum for those interested in maritime history, and two beautiful state parks with great beaches within a short drive. I am looking forward to checking out your list of articles! jt
Some of my favorite childhood memories are going up the Bath region of Maine to visit my grandparents. Back in the late 80s there were two schooners decaying in nearby Wiscasset harbor(called the Hesper and Luther Little). My grandather would take us in his boat and we would circle those old wrecks. Shipwrecks have always had a haunting quality to them. Its not the same as a haunted house, its something more frightful, perhaps. Like it is trying to pull you down with it. It must have something to do with the unconscious mind or something like that. Well they blew those old ships up in the late 90s since they had collapsed over the years. I was fortunate enough to see them while they still resembled ships.
I like your presentation style!!! good pacing, clear enunciation, good editing. A long time ago, I had a friend, Arthur Brendze, who built wooden boats. He built Swampscott dories in Massachusetts and had a wooden boat repair yard in Kennebunkport.. He then went on to work at the Bath Maritime museum.
This was a fascinating article. I used to work in Norfolk, VA and live in Virginia Beach. I’ve now called Cheyenne, Wyoming home for the last 7 years and love being in Wyoming. I’ve never heard of this ship and found the saga interesting. Along the timeline, just as an aside, I settled in Cheyenne after I got out of the Army. I bought an old house with a VA loan that dates back to 1923. It is in the historic district that was built for the railway workers that toiled on the rails in Wyoming. I found that date of the ship in 1924 just a unique bit of history that coincides with the time frame that my now 99 year old house would have been almost new. Great article and now I’m curious about any local mention of it here in the capital city Cheyenne, I will look around.
Very well done article. Thank you. I was surprised by two things in the story. 1. How long after the invention of steam boats these large schooners were still economically viable. My great grandfather got to the US from Sweden on a hybrid steamboat and sailboat in 1880. Pure cargo sailboats were still going in 1924. Wow. 2. Fore and aft rigging: I didn’t realize on very large ships fore and aft rigging ever became standard. Apparently the tradeoffs between square rigging and fore and aft rigging must be close enough that both ideas were viable.
I grew up sailing in Alameda CA and would sail along side and tack next to the cargo ships at the Oakland Harbor. I would look at those giants and wonder how the hell a sailing vessel could do the same. It’s a damn shame most of those massive sailing ships ended rotting in a backwater some where out of sight and care. Thanks for keeping her story alive
A visit to the Maine Maritime Museum is well worth your while. If you are a history buff, plan to spend the day, much to see and read. Sport for the boat ride too. In summer you will never see more Bald Eagles in one place. And if there is anything in the water at Bath Iron works, you get to Navy security boats with a 50 on the bow.
Good show. I live in Cody,Wyoming and I’m a former merchant marine engineer. Recently retired from air freight piloting. I may stop by Bath Maine when I eventually make an autumn trip to Maine with my German shorthairs for a little grouse hunting. I wonder if the Wyoming would have survived better if she was in deeper water off shore, hove to with just enough sail to slowly tack into the wind. I’ll bet those waves coming into the shallow coastal waters were close and steep.
These schooners were the last gasp of Wooden sail. They had smaller,thus cheaper crews to pay, the lifespan of a wooden ship was about 20 years. Buying ships,selling ships and cargo demands were the secret to making $$ in shipping. My father was friends with a black man who had cooked on sailing vessels. They both worked for a relative who owned an Inn on Bostons North shore. Dad had returned from 5 years in the Army, WW2 . The cook had a painting of the 4 masted schooner Talofa built at Bath Maine in 1889 He had sailed on her.. It says wrecked on the Mexican coast 1898. The cooks son had drowned in the wreck. The ship was routed from Tampa Bay to Guantanamo Cuba and wrecked in Yucatan on the return voyage. The Captains name was Richardson. When the cook,Charles Callender died he willed the painting to my father and it hangs in my library today. It was built in a Bath shipyard that was a predecessor to Percy and Small. the CORa Cressey or her remains are in Bremen Maine and were used as a lobster strorage pound at one time. We live 9 miles from where the Luther Little and Hesper lay abandoned in the mud for years. I always wondered why that Ship was named Wyoming. P and S was obviously grubbing around for financing to build this monstrosity. Shipping costs shot up during war and dove into depression after. Bulk cargos are not high value cargos. As she aged the Wyoming became less safe obviously. Hogging was common in wooden ships. The USS Constitution had hogged 3 feet when it was once put in dry dock.
Thanks for this great article! My family heritage is the Pennell family. We built almost 100 sailing vessels in Brunswick, Main 1870-1900. My brother, James Lay, and my cousin Sam Pennell are all creating a historical account of our story. Do you know about our ship building family? Thanks again for this great story of The Wyoming! Dwight Lay
I’d HIGHLY recommend the Maine Maritime Museum to anyone who has the chance to visit. The sculpture for the Wyoming alone is worth it, just to feel the scale of how massive she was, but there are plenty of other interesting exhibits, both regarding shipbuilding and general local maritime history. Plus, GD Bath Ironworks are just up the river, so you might get to see ships under construction, an interesting contrast to the old way of doing things detailed by the museum. When I visited Bath, I got to see the USS Zumwalt under construction, just before her superstructure was added.
Great website Tom,You are spot on and so very informative,your research is impeccable! Might I suggest the Halifax explosion as a future topic? Course I’m from here so I have special interest in the disaster,but it is such a great story about a terrible nautical catastrophe that it would seem right up your alley. Looking forward to all your explorations! Cheers Ron
Wow that’s my birthday, so groovy. Just found your website & very much enjoy the work put in by you. You do your research & can tell really enjoy what you do. There is so much history that people don’t know about. Hey from Alaska & with the Bering sea do you have any from there or maybe the Artic. I was in Boston with the blizzard & noreaster ( not sure how to spell it) in 1978, was downtown & almost didn’t make it home. Our friends who got us home had to leave their car & walk to Cambridge. Town was shut down for two weeks. What an experience
Wow, what a story. Hard to imagine a wooden ship of that size. There a few old masted ships, now, ‘shipwrecks’ in the waters of the Great Lakes near & around Upper Michigan. One, whose name evades me right now has its mast tops in about 80 feet of water. It is about another 80 feet to the deck. It has all of its rigging still intact and is an incredible dive site. It in very close to the center of the main shipping website but not deemed to be a hazard so long as dive boats have adequate radar reflection to commercial ships. The waters there are very cold but most often beautifully clear.
Great article I have shared …I live in Newcastle ME where many a fine wooden ships were built. I live in Abner Stetsons house. He and another built the Wiscasset that brought Andrew Carnegie to Amerjca as a 10 year old..Hey maybe you could research that and male a article? I have been to the Maritimd Museum and seen all about the Wyoming but I forgot until your very well done article. Thank you and keep on making these historical articles!! PLEASE !!!