Freight sailboats from Czerwinsk on the River Vistula

• Autorzy: Reszka A. W.
• Języki publikacji: PL

Abstrakty

EN

The freight boats discussed, were built in Czerwinsk on the Vistula river and were used, in the first half of the 20th century, for transportation of excavated material: sand, gravel or stones. The different types of flat-bottomed boats, called respectively 'bat', 'krypa' and 'kajlak', had been perfected by boat-builders throughout centuries and were well adapted to sailing on the Vistula, a river whose water levels have always shown a lot of variation. The knowledge and the skills of the bargemen, as well as the sailing experience they had, enabled them to use navigational techniques necessary in sailing on rivers that based on utilizing windpower in sailing up-stream and the speed of the river current in sailing down-stream. Square rigging, which had for a long time been typical for sailing on the Vistula, was replaced at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries by sprit rigging. Sails were the only means of propelling boats up-stream. Sailing down-stream was based on the rafting principle. The navigation technique involved was a 'secret science' and that is why it remains unknown to historians of rafting on the Vistula river. Boats from Czerwinsk, and especially bats were used mainly for transporting construction gravel for building sites in Warsaw at which concrete was used. The bats were built with great care in boatbuilding workshops, which differed very little from workshops that operated in the 16th century. When in motion, the relatively narrow body of the bat eliminated head resistance, and that is why bats could attain significant speeds under sail. The rapid application of mechanical means at the end of the 1940s caused freight sailboats to be gradually eliminated from the Vistula, as they were unable to withstand the competition. Bats survived the longest, but even they eventually disappeared.

Słowa kluczowe

EN

RIVER TRANSPORTATION; SAILBOATS

• Wydawca: Polska Akademia Nauk. Instytut Historii Nauki im. Ludwika i Aleksandra Birkenmajerów
• Czasopismo: Kwartalnik Historii Nauki i Techniki
• Rocznik: 2004
• Tom: 49
• Numer: 2
• Strony: 69-112
• Rodzaj publikacji: ARTICLE

Twórcy

autor

Reszka A. W.

• A. W. Reszka, no address given, contact the journal editor

Identyfikatory

CEJSH db identifier

04PLAAAA0027595