Today the waters of the Bristol Channel are frequently empty of any shipping whatsoever. What a different scene it would have been in the past, especially in the 19th century. Huge numbers of vessels might be seen anchored in the regular spots in King Road, in the deeper channels off Cardiff and near Stert island, and might total anything from 10 to 60 vessels, all forced to wait until the conditions were right. And the mixture would contain smacks, sloops, luggers, trows, ketches, schooners and hybrids, all revealing a variety of shapes and rigs depending on their builders, skippers and trades. The variety in cargoes meant vessels sat in the water in different ways and their depth needs would determine when they could take the flowing tide upriver.

Before the godsend of the marine engine, sailing in the waters of the Severn Estuary and Bristol Channel required a very daunting mixture of skills.Any cargo sailing was invariably physically hard. It also demanded a feel for the effects of varying tide, wind and water flow and depth conditions which would vary from vessel to vessel depending on the hull profile, the load, the rig and each craft’s idiosyncrasies. Depths, rocks, tide races, shoals, whirlpools and landmarks were another lesson, along with the nature of differing cargoes and the peculiarities of each individual harbour. Weather, running repairs, the management of the ship’s rowing boat, handling the sails, winch, anchor and ropes and other gear – the list of skills to be mastered goes on. All skills traditionally handed down among families and picked up in the hard classroom of earning a living.

The crew
Traditionally crew members tended to be followers in their father’s footsteps but, as commerce expanded, new seamen might be drawn from the land, from the fishing community, from shrinking trades and even from the workhouse. Crews did not live on board unless forced to do so by their sailings, and the homes of the majority were in or near their home port.

A crew would normally comprise skipper, mate and, possibly, a boy learning the trade, but larger vessels would often need the addition of a deckhand. Home life was hardly ‘normal’ for the hours were uncertain, the earnings unpredictable and the risk of injury, or even death, always present.

The channel trading activity was largely the province of single vessel owners but some traders like Ridler at Minehead and some of the larger manufacturing activities such as the Bridgwater brickworks either owned several vessels or controlled fleets they had contracted. Vessel ownership involved the costs of covering the original construction of the vessel and a return on that outlay, plus another group of costs associated with maintenance, eg sails, ropes and other chandlery items, also hull and cargo insurance, and then the actual costs incurred in carrying out a voyage. The latter would consist of payments for provisions, towage, harbour dues, trimming assistance and so on plus, of course, wages for the crew. Their earnings were in line with their status and responsibilities, those of the mate, for example, being generally slightly above the going rate of payment to an agricultural labourer.

Vessel ownership might actually be part-ownership and involve as many as 80 shares. Those involved could range from farmers to tradesmen and often included shipbuilders who were willing to accept deferred payments to be made out of voyage earnings. Working vessels would have to carry some sort of cash float for paying dues, replenishing supplies and underwriting such contingencies as becoming windbound in some distant harbour, yet still having to eat. In some cases captains might also want to do a bit of trading on their own account and purchase a load of coal if it were offered cheap and could be sold for a profit. An occasional ‘passenger’ might also be taken to visit a relative or to offer home-produced goods at some destination. Local migration among the families of seamen was quite commonplace.

Work that did not come directly from owners or a contract would usually be at the behest of an agent, but there was a lot of casual, shortterm work and captains with no next load might try their luck anywhere that experience or rumour suggested one might be available.

Freight rates were a matter for negotiation and, for what would now be called ‘jobbing’, would depend on a cargo’s nature, value and urgency and the degree of availability of vessels willing and able to carry it. No vessel wanted to sail empty and if getting an onward load meant trimming the rate, so be it. If the next load meant moving to another loading point, then the shorter the journey the better.

Planning journeys
The early dependence on the post made the pre-planning of journeys difficult, and the advent of the telegraph system, eventually taken over by the Post Office, was a major development in freight shipping arrangements. Even so bad weather, crowded berths and other such difficulties could ruin arrangements, although it helped if the planned cargo came from or was intended for a warehouse, store or stack. Getting a profitable load factor depended heavily on agents and factors and on those harbours with a constant output or intake. Even then it could result in a voyage with as many as seven or eight different ‘legs’.

Bridgwater coal merchants such as Sully & Co would arrange their requirements with the colliery factor and engage a vessel to bring the traffic from the port of origin and would then, after arrival, send it on by rail or have it discharged to stack for local sale. Small coal merchants, often farmers as well, would do the same in a smaller way and hawk the coal around local villages by horse and cart.

Before the 19th century sailings were much less structured. The better weather season produced an increase in produce to be moved to the big city markets, but coal for industries and culm for kilns remained a constant need. Some seamen turned to farming or fishing in the winter or other slack periods, others had to weather the days when jobs were not available or sailing was impossible, perhaps turning to casual fishing as the short-term standby most allied to their trade.

A suitable wind and tide combination was critical, as was an adequate depth of water. The tide pattern and variations – high and low, ebb and flow, neap, spring and flood – were known, wind and weather were a matter of experience, and observation and water depths were part of the sailor’s essential knowledge. But there needed to be a constant check during every voyage against known bank or shore markers.

Navigation
Navigation, or pilotage as it was referred to in coastal waters, was not sophisticated and would rarely involve more instruments than a lead line for the vital task of monitoring depths, and a compass, and sometimes not even a compass. Knowledge was the key, that vital understanding of the hazards of rocks, headlands, shoals and tide races and awareness of the various hills, church towers and other landmarks which would help a skipper to stay on a rough course. Seamen needed the ability to read the weather both early and when change was on the way and to know where to look for a sheltered anchorage if needed, for the ever-present element of waiting out a storm or for the tide to turn.

Other, more subtle, skills derived from sheer experience, eg how to read the sound from the sails or those of water passing beneath the hull, the idiosyncrasies of harbours and other vessels and an eye for changes in trim, the sluggishness of too much water in the bilges or the odd habits of the boom or the risk of deck slime upsetting the unwary. Other vessels might not always behave as they should or as expected.

The individual vessel rigs determined their speed and handling characteristics. The traditional trow was originally limited by its single square sail which supplemented tidal movement and added an extra measure of manoeuvrability, but it was never much more than a tidal barge. The ketch rig’s mizzen addition made it handier and faster. Their foresails would also add to the pulling power and a headsail with a ‘horse’ boom was a great boon for turning and extracting extra leverage from the wind. Topsails meant more speed but more work, and no crew was ever short of that. In light winds a topsail on a boom would be rigged above the mainsail and a flying jib used at the end of the bowsprit. Having the mizzen mast forward of the steering post helped in the balance of the boat and increased its manoeuvrability. When changing course or tacking, the jib fulfilled an important function in helping the vessel go through the eye of the wind, when disaster might otherwise result from being ‘caught in stays’ and losing headway off a dangerous coast or among shoals.

Sailing vessel rig was made up of standing rigging including shrouds to support the mast plus braces for the bowsprit, and of running rigging. The latter embraced the ropes and halyards used to hoist or lower sails to the required position, and other ropes that controlled the sails, the ‘sheets’. Along with anchor chains, mooring lines – warps – and the like, much was required in the way of the skills for handling them.

Spare sail would need to be carried, even if it was only something bought second-hand off a larger vessel. Among the essential equipment were the working kedge and heavy bow anchors together with their chains, mooring and other ropes and warps, fenders, planks, boathooks, wheelbarrow, shovels and baskets and, of course, a few basic tools. Also essential were some spare timbers and some nails, some waterproof sheeting or tarpaulin, together with needle and thread and other small items such as a caulking hammer, grease, lamps, fuel for the pressure stove and the like.

Bacon, potatoes, onions, bread, milk, water and tea would be the essential provisions.The ‘heads’ needed a bucket added to the essentials list for an earthy purpose sometimes alluded to as ‘bucket and chuck it’! The bilge pump might also need a bit of help from bucket work, especially when heavy seas were breaking.

Hard day’s work
Less obvious qualities required of our sailing forebears arose from the peculiarities associated with the varying different cargoes. Coal was a dirty product and when dropped into the hold from a chute or wagon tippler threw up a great cloud of dust that penetrated everywhere. The larger ports might have more sophisticated loading chutes to reduce the drop, the coal degradation and the dust, but they rarely offered a quick turnaround. Indeed, around 1880 it appears that the turnaround time for sailing ships loading in the docks at Cardiff could be as much as 12 days, which pushed up the vessel’s costs enormously. Even when loaded, the cargo still had to be trimmed to ensure the stability of the vessel and while the shipper would arrange for the harbour team to do this at the larger coal ports, other cargoes and other ports might well mean that the trimming had to be done by the vessel’s crew. By the time this was done everyone would be not only tired but very dirty.

There would still be the unloading to come, which in many cases meant the work of shovelling into a basket and winching overboard or barrowing along some unsteady plank to the banks of a pill. Stone or sand might just be shovelled or thrown overside from the top of a load, but the lower the level became the harder the work. And when the area below the hatch had been cleared the remaining cargo might have to be moved to get it below the winch. A good team could unload 100 tons in a day, but where they had to be hired the cost might be as much as 2/6d a ton.

Bricks and other heavy materials had to be stowed carefully and evenly or the first load might just embed the vessel in the mud, an unwelcome event which might mean serious delay in sailing or even damage to the hull. The duration of an individual voyage was not the sole working period. On shore there was the presentation or disposal of the cargo to be arranged, along with the relevant documentation. Making small repairs, restocking with supplies and the like involved the host of chandlers, agents, provision stores, customs, port officials and the harbour master. Tackling dirt, vermin, a dirty fuel pump or frayed halyard … the list was endless.

Until the later years of the sailing vessel trade, paperwork was not a major factor in the crew’s lives. The revenue forces were generally concerned with bigger matters and the letpass system sufficed for vessels on local runs, most of whom would be known to customs officers anyway and generally allowed to get on with their business without hindrance. Official oversight became more of a factor as a result of the Merchant Shipping Acts of 1894 and 1906 and their provisions relating to coastal trading vessels of over 15 tons burden. These required that such vessels had to be registered and the certificate of registry produced on demand, along with bills of lading and cargo manifests. it became an offence to overload a vessel dangerously or stow the load badly so as to be a danger, with masters and owners liable to prosecution if that occurred. Lifesaving equipment also had to be provided, although the local channel vessels had always carried a small boat for towing, mooring and other running about.

The whole picture was that of an incredibly skilful life of extremely hard work and great risks, all done for modest reward, but all making the past sailors of local waters unacknowledged masters, and often heroes, of their trade. It was a dangerous business, and many paid the price of their life for their dedication to the sea, but some continued the sailing that was their art right into their 80s, sometimes in vessels half as old again.