Friday, July 19, 2013

Ships on Globes

by Trey Thomas

Replogle, the world's leading globe manufacturer (and maker of the Landen Floor Globe exclusive to Ultimate Globes), has always included monochrome drawings of ships of exploration in their antique-style globes.

Here are the ships that have appeared so far in Replogle globes. If you have a world globe, join in and trace their voyages.

1. Chinese Junk (200 A.D.)

Probably the heyday of the Chinese Junk was during the days of the Muslim-born Ming eunuch admiral Zheng He.
Admiral Zheng He by hathu-, on Flickr
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic License  by  hathu- 

From 1405 to 1433, Zheng He's treasure fleet of junks made seven voyages in the seas of Southeast Asia, India, Northeastern Africa and Arabia. Here's a picture of Zheng He's route (click to enlarge):
(from Wikipedia)
And what a treasure fleet it was. On his first voyage, he had 28,000 crewmen aboard 317 ships.
17th-century depiction of Zheng He's ships (from Wikipedia)
Here's a model of one of these treasure ships, along with a model of Christopher Columbus' Santa Maria and clipper Cutty Sark for comparison:
Model of 15th century Ming Treasure Ship by mharrsch, on Flickr
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic License  by  mharrsch 

Here's another depiction of a treasure ship, with the treasures it contained:

2. Arab Dhow (500 A.D.)

The dhow is either of Arab or Indian origin. Once the primary trading vessels in the Indian Ocean coasts (including the Red Sea), the dhows' distinctive sail and silhouette evokes the adventures of Sinbad the Sailor.

Dhow Traffic 1 by Shaun D Metcalfe, on Flickr

D6Z_dhow_0706 by Mike LaB, on Flickr
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 Generic License  by  Mike LaB 

Indian Ocean. The dhow was used in the coasts of East Africa, Arabia and India.
From the Wikipedia article

3. Polynesian Canoe (700 A.D.)

A development of Southeast Asian outrigger canoes, the Polynesian canoe (aided by Polynesian navigation methods) helped populate the Polynesian Triangle.
Polynesian Triangle (image from Wikipedia)

Polynesian canoes for seafaring are typically double-hulled.
Modern replica of a Polynesian canoe at Honolulu harbor (CC by Stan Shebs on Wikipedia)

Hawaiian priests traveling across Kealakekua Bay for first contact rituals (from Wikipedia)

The most popular descendant of the great Polynesian sea-faring canoes today is the catamaran (a word imported from Tamil).

Mormon-owned Polynesian Cultural Center in Oahu, Hawaii, has the Polynesian canoe as its logo:
(image from PCC's Wikipedia entry page)

4. Viking Longship (838-840 A.D.)

"From the fury of the Northmen, deliver us, o Lord" went the apocryphal medieval plea for deliverance against the Norsemen of the Viking Age who raided, traded, and flourished between the late 8th to the 11th centuries.
The Gokstad Viking shipViking Ship MuseumOslo, Norway. (from WIkipedia)

The Oseberg ship prow, Viking Ship MuseumOslo, Norway. (from Wikipedia)
The Vikings were wide-ranging seafarers, founding kingdoms, serving as mercenaries and traders, pirating, pillaging and robbing along the way.
Viking Voyages and Territories (from Wikipedia)
 It was a terrible time for their victims.
Viking Ship Museum by TXMagpie, on Flickr
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic License  by  TXMagpie 

longship 1 by chatirygirl, on Flickr
Viking longship burning at the end of Edinburgh's Torchlight Procession
Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 2.0 Generic License  by  chatirygirl 

5. Pinta, Niña, Santa Maria 1492-1493

It is generally agreed Christopher Columbus "discovered" the Americas for European conquest. The Santa Maria, Columbus' flagship was a carrack (the other two were caravels) sponsored by the monarchs of Spain (Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile).
Ship model at Fort San CristóbalSan Juan, Puerto Rico (image from Wikipedia)

However, the Americas were not named for Columbus, the honor instead going to Italian Amerigo Vespucci. Some say it was because Vespucci's accounts of his travels outsold Columbus' three to one (helped by the loving details of the Vespucci crew's sexy exploits with the free-spirited Caribbean women).
Christopher Columbus

Voyages of Columbus

6. São Gabriel 1497-1499

The carrack São Gabriel was the flagship of Portuguese Vasco da Gama's first voyage (with another carrack São Rafael, Berrio (a caravel), and an unnamed storage ship.

1558 depiction. Clockwise (top to bottom): São Rafael, São Gabriel, and Bérrio (from Wikipedia)

Vasco da Gama is credited with directly sailing to India from Europe. But he is also known for atrocities to non-Europeans which inspired the movie, Urumi.

The Portuguese India Run (from Wikipedia)

7. Victoria 1519-1522

A carrack of Ferdinand Magellan, another Portuguese, whose 1519-1522 fleet expedition (sponsored by Spain's King Charles I) completed the first known (westward) circumnavigation of the globe (Magellan was killed in the island of Mactan in 1521). The Victoria was the only ship of Magellan's fleet of five to return back to Spain, with 18 men on board.

1590 depiction of the Victoria (from Wikipedia)

Ferdinand Magellan

Circumnavigation of the globe 1519-1522 (from Wikipedia)

8. Heemskeerk 1642-1643

The Heemskeerk (also spelled Heemskerck or Heemskirk), a yacht, is not very well known, but it was one of two that Abel Tasman used in an expedition that led to the discovery of Tasmania and New Zealand, and the sighting of Tonga and Fiji. Tasman's flagship was the fluyt Zeehaen.

Here's a depiction of the Heemskeerk from The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 11, Issue 8 (November 2, 1936), posted online by the New Zealand Electronic Text Collection of Victoria University of Wellington.

And here's Tasman and his voyages:

Abel Tasman's routes from Batavia (Jakarta). Image from Wikipedia

In his later years, Tasman might have enjoyed tracing his travels on a globe, as this part of a family portrait shows:

9. Endeavor 1768-1771

Also known as HMS Endeavour, this ship reached New Zealand 127 years after Abel Tasman's Heemskeerk. The Endeavor is the first known ship to reach the east coast of Australia, when Captain James Cook went ashore at Botany Bay. Aside from the first circumnavigation of New Zealand and reaching east Australia, Captain Cook's expedition was also the first to have contact with the Hawaiian Islands.
Earl of Pembroke, later HMS Endeavour, leaving Whitby Harbour in 1768. By Thomas Luny, dated 1790. (from Wikipedia)

A replica of Endeavor was made in Australia 1988 and was completed in 1993. From 1996 to 2002, this replica traced Captain Cook's ports of call back to the original Endeavor's home port of Whitby Harbor.

Captain James Cook

Routes of Captain Cook's Three Voyages (from Wikipedia)

10. H.M.S. Beagle 1831-1836

In a way, Charles Darwin's Theory of Evolution owes much to the brig-sloop H.M.S. Beagle. The dates above refer to the Beagle's second voyage.
HMS Beagle in the Straits of Magellan, pencil sketch circa 1900 (from Wikipedia)

The voyage of the Beagle (from Wikipedia)

11. Vincennes 1838-1842

The USS Vincennes was the first American warship to circumnavigate the globe. The dates above refer to the Wilkes Expedition to the Pacific Ocean and surrounding lands, under Lieutenant Charles Wilkes.
19th century photograph of a painting (based on a sketch by Lieutenant Charles Wilkes, USN), depicting USS Vincennes in Disappointment Bay, Antarctica, circa January–February 1840. (from Wikipedia)

Charles Wilkes

Route of the Wilkes Expedition (from the Titian Peale Butterfly and Moth Collection page)
The Smithsonian Institution called the expedition "a tremendous feat of navigation," and is said to have "cemented the nation’s [US's] status as a new world economic leader."

Trace away

There you have it, Replogle's roll-call of ships that have appeared in their globes. Have fun tracing their routes. These are best enjoyed with an antique-finish Replogle globe.

'Antique' here refers to the parchment style antique finish of the oceans but Replogle uses up-to-date and detailed maps.

Speaking of 'detailed', Replogle also manufactures the globe that currently holds the title of "The World's Most Detailed Globe" (at over 20,000 place names) – the 32-inch Replogle Diplomat.

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