20
Jun
2009
200 Year Old Dagger-Board Schooner
Rochester, New York – A rare dagger-board schooner has been discovered in very deep water off the southern shore of Lake Ontario near Oak Orchard, New York. Jim Kennard and Dan Scoville, shipwreck enthusiasts, located the schooner using deep towed side scan sonar equipment. Sailing vessels of this type were in use on the lakes for only a short period of time beginning in the very early 1800’s. This ship is the only dagger-board schooner known to have been found in the Great Lakes.
The Dagger-Board Schooner
The dagger-board schooner was typically a shallow draft ship having one or more wood panels that could be extended through the keel to increase its effectiveness while under way in the open water. The sole purpose of dagger-boards was to prevent the schooner from being pushed sideways when sailing windward or with the wind coming from one side (abeam) of the vessel. A single dagger-board was a panel of wood perhaps 1 to 2 inches in thickness with a width of 4 to 5 feet surrounded by a narrow watertight enclosure. The dagger-board would be pushed squarely down though the bottom of the vessel to increase her draught while sailing and hauled up by separate tackles at either end. The ability to raise the dagger-boards when entering a shallow harbor was a great advantage. The boat could load and unload personnel and cargo in all sorts of locations that would not otherwise be accessible with a larger sailing craft. The term “dagger-board” was also referred to as drop-keel, slip-keel, sliding-keel, barn-door, or center-plate.
Development of the Dagger-Board Sailing Vessel
The invention of the dagger-board or drop keel is generally credited to British Captain John Schank in 1774, however, the early use of the dagger-board in sailing craft prior to the 1800’s can actually be traced back to China and possibly South America. Captain Schank proposed and then adapted the dagger-board concept for use in the cutter Trial built in Portsmouth England for the British Admiralty in 1790. This ship turned out to be a great success as the Trial was able to out sail most of the smaller cutters even though she was a much larger vessel. In the next few years, the British followed up by building a ship-sloop, two classes of gun-brigs, and 16 brigs utilizing the dagger-board concept. Depending on the ship design, multiple dagger-boards were utilized to compensate for the shifting of the vessel’s center of gravity as the sails moved fore-and-aft. Ten years after the British Admiralty built the Trial further interest in ships with dagger-boards was put on hold due to the problem of making the enclosure for the dagger-boards water tight.
Dagger-Board Sailing Vessels on the Great Lakes
As recounted by Captain James Van Cleve in his memoirs, the first vessel on the Great Lakes to utilize dagger-boards was a skiff brought to Oswego from Niagara around 1806. In September 1813, Major-General James Wilkinson wrote in a letter to the US Secretary of War “….Before I left Sackett’s Harbor, I ordered a dozen slip keeled boats to carry 50 men and row 30 oars to be armed with a light cannon in their bow.” References can also be found in the 1813 transport dispatches of Buffalo army officers of the use of slip-keel (dagger-board) sailing vessels. From 1817 to 1820 sailing vessels on Lake Erie greatly increased in numbers, though not in size. These ships varied from 18 to 65 tons burden, and most of them utilized dagger-boards. Each creek, river and port along the coast from Buffalo to the Vermillion River had its representative vessel. It is thought that by 1819, one or more ship builders in York (Toronto) were producing ships that utilized dagger-boards. The pivoted center-board was patented in 1811 and during the next several years larger ships would employ this method of extending the functionality of the keel. By 1820 the dagger-board design gave way to that of the pivoted centerboard. It is reasonable to assume that many of the early dagger-board schooners, initially military vessels, were later used for the commercial transport of people and goods on both Lake Ontario and Lake Erie.
Discovery of the Shipwreck
The dagger-board schooner was unexpectedly discovered in the fall of 2008 while Kennard and Scoville were conducting a deep water survey in Lake Ontario off Oak Orchard, New York. On the very last survey run of the season, the faint image of something protruding from the bottom showed up at the very edge of the display screen. Another run was made to obtain a better image and position of the object. Two weeks later, when the lake was calm and the winds were light, they returned and deployed a remote operated vehicle (designed and built by Scoville) with lights and multiple cameras to explore the shipwreck.
Exploring the Shipwrecked Schooner
The shipwreck was found upright and in remarkable condition considering that it had plunged over 500 feet to its final resting place on the bottom. The remote …. (read more)
from Shipwreckworld.com