IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ehsrev/v72y2019i2p459-480.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Speed under sail during the early industrial revolution (c. 1750–1830)

Author

Listed:
  • Morgan Kelly
  • Cormac Ó Gráda

Abstract

This article measures technological progress in oceanic shipping directly by using a large database of daily log entries from British, Dutch, and Spanish ships to estimate daily sailing speed in different wind conditions from 1750 to 1850. Against the consensus among economic (but not maritime) historians that the technology of sailing ships was fairly static during this time, we find that average sailing speeds of British East India Company and Navy ships in moderate to strong winds rose considerably after the 1770s. Driving this progress was the introduction of coppering in the 1780s, but subsequent rises are probably due to a continuous evolution of sails and rigging, and improved hulls that allowed a greater area of sail to be set safely in a given wind. By contrast, the speeds of Dutch and Spanish vessels were stagnant. Using separate data on the crossing times of Atlantic mail packets, we find gradual progress from the 1750s, followed by marked improvements when American packets appeared in the 1820s.

Suggested Citation

  • Morgan Kelly & Cormac Ó Gráda, 2019. "Speed under sail during the early industrial revolution (c. 1750–1830)," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 72(2), pages 459-480, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ehsrev:v:72:y:2019:i:2:p:459-480
    DOI: 10.1111/ehr.12696
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/ehr.12696
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/ehr.12696?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Dan Bogart & Oliver Dunn & Eduard J. Alvarez‐Palau & Leigh Shaw‐Taylor, 2021. "Speedier delivery: coastal shipping times and speeds during the Age of Sail," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 74(1), pages 87-114, February.
    2. Wolfgang Keller & Markus Lampe & Carol H. Shiue, 2020. "International Transactions: Real Trade and Factor Flows between 1700 and 1870," NBER Working Papers 26865, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Gavin Wright, 2020. "Slavery and Anglo‐American capitalism revisited," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 73(2), pages 353-383, May.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:ehsrev:v:72:y:2019:i:2:p:459-480. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ehsukea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.