page_title: History of Bermuda
section_title: Shipbuilding and the maritime economy
hierarchical_section_title: History of Bermuda / The 18th century / Shipbuilding and the maritime economy
caption_attribution_description: A 17th Century woodcut of a Bermudian sailing vessel, displaying the triangular sails of the en:Bermuda rig. Source Reproduced in Sailing in Bermuda: Sail Racing in the Nineteenth Century, by J.C. Arnell.
context_page_description: Bermuda was originally discovered in 1503 by Spanish explorer Juan de Bermúdez. In 1609, the English Virginia Company, which had established Jamestown in Virginia two years earlier, permanently settled Bermuda in the aftermath of a hurricane, when the crew and passengers of Sea Venture steered the ship onto the surrounding reef to prevent it from sinking, then landed ashore. Bermuda's first capital, St. George's, was established in 1612.
  The Virginia Company administered the island as an extension of Virginia until 1614; its spin-off, the Somers Isles Company, took over in 1615 and managed the island until 1684, when the company's charter was revoked and Bermuda became an English Crown Colony. Following the 1707 unification of the parliaments of Scotland and England, which created the Kingdom of Great Britain, the islands of Bermuda became a British Crown Colony.
  When Newfoundland joined Canada in 1949, Bermuda became the oldest remaining British colony. It has been the most populous remaining dependent territory since the return of Hong Kong to China in 1997. Bermuda became known as a "British Overseas Territory" in 2002, as a result of the British Overseas Territories Act 2002.
context_section_description: With royal administration commencing under Charles II in 1683, and the end of company control in 1684, the island was able to change the basis of its economy from tobacco to maritime enterprises. The maritime economy included ship building, wrecking, whaling, piloting and fishing in local waters. The population at that time consisted of 5889 whites and 1737 slaves. While Tobacco ceased to be a commercial crop by 1710, Bermuda's fleet had grown from fourteen vessels in 1679 to sixty sloops, six brigantines and four ships in 1700.
  These "Bermuda sloops" had their origin in the ship Jacob Jacobson first built after becoming shipwrecked on the island in 1619, and were based on craft sailing on the Zuiderzee and the Dutch coastal sloep. These two-masted vessels, with the mast "raked" or inclined 15 degrees aft, carried fore-and-aft rigs of triangular Bermuda sails. Large mainsails were fixed to elongated booms, giving the sloop a large sail area for maximum speed, averaging 3 knots, but known to exceed 5 knots. Finally, these sloops were especially adept at sailing into the wind, maneuvering, and close-hauled sailing.
  Smaller vessels were originally built for local use, fishing and hauling freight and passengers about the archipelago. By the 1630s, with dwindling income from tobacco exports, largely due to increased competition as the Virginia and newer colonies in the West Indies turned to tobacco cultivation, many of the absentee landowners in England sold their shares to the managers and tenants that occupied them, who turned increasingly to subsistence crops and raising livestock. Bermuda was quickly producing more food than it could consume, and began to sell the excess to the newer colonies that were cultivating tobacco to the exclusion of food crops required for their own subsistence. As the Somers Isles Company's magazine ship would not carry such cargo, Bermudians began constructing their own larger, ocean-going vessels for this purpose. They favoured single-masted designs, more commonly with a gaff-rigged mainsail, although a single larger sail required a larger, more highly skilled, crew than two or more smaller sails.
  The sloops were built from Bermuda cedar, considered the best wood for shipping, according to Bermuda Governor Isaac Richier in 1691. This is because this cedar was as strong as American oak, yet weighed only two thirds as much. Long lasting due to its resistance to marine organisms, the cedar also had the advantage of being readily used for ship building, and were even planned as such while still growing. Using enslaved and free labor and year-round construction, a 30-ton sloop could be built in three to four months. Bermudians also adopted a reforestation policy, with groves cultivated as long-term crops, and passed down to future generations as dowries or inheritances.
  The Bermuda sloop became highly regarded for its speed and manoeuvrability, and was soon adapted for service with the Royal Navy. The Bermuda sloop HMS Pickle carried dispatches of the victory at Trafalgar, and news of the death of Admiral Nelson, to England.
caption: A 17th-century woodcut of a Bermudian sailing vessel, displaying the triangular sails of the Bermuda rig.
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