Shipbucket

The wooden ships that had the best combination of speed, firepower and durability, at least for their time was the six original frigates. Look at the USS Constitution. Size of a frigate, with firepower greater than that of a fourth rate ship-of-the line. They did inflict quite some damage to the Royal Navy and its pride.

Thiel, I don't quite agree with you with regards to the relative speed of SoLs. You did mention the HMS Victory, and she was able to reach 11-12 knots with topsails set but no studding or stay sails. Many French designs were as fast or faster, some later Spanish designs, especially those by Don Romero de Landa could achieve such speeds as well. There were sluggish SoLs, by all means, but it shouldn't be perceived as a general or even typical feature! As for frigates, most were quite fast, between 10-14 knots, depending on design, fineness on the bows, trim and, of course the amount and weight of canvas carried. The USS Constellation, with a top-heavy, oversized rig, in 1798, logged 13 knots. After having her rig reduced and her trim corrected, being now stiffer in following winds, she was faster still... - An exceptional number of French built frigates displayed the same agility, not always, though manifest, due to being out of trim, having inexperienced crews etc. Spanish frigates, on the other hand were know to be sluggish, and Nelson's quip: "a Spanish frigate chased is a Spanish frigate taken" quite accurately described their nature of sailing qualities! The Scandinavian navies, as you know, Thiel, also produced during the 18th c. some exceptional designs, which were considered fast and weatherly.

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My Avatar:Петр Алексеевич Безобразов (Petr Alekseevich Bezobrazov), Вице-адмирал , царская ВМФ России(1845-1906) - I sign my drawings as Ari Saarinen

I do remember USS Constitution as a poor ship..

Alvama, what you may remember is one of a number of separate incidents, in this case in the USS Constitution, I believe around 1798/99, when she shipped a too excessive rigging, like the United States also did, and lost her weatherliness and had her stability affected too, by too heavy top hamper. This resulted in the ship pitching badly and, close hauled, she dipped her lower gun ports in the water, listing badly. All this was due to the fact that none of the original six captains appointed, including Thomas Truxtun, were experienced enough to understand how to properly rig such large vessels. But when properly rigged, at trim, and with an experienced crew these ships were virtually unbeatable with regards to speed and weatherliness. The USS President's famous sailplan during the War of 1812, is an example of how well these large frigates could carry such extensive canvas, but on properly sized masts and spars!

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My Avatar:Петр Алексеевич Безобразов (Petr Alekseevich Bezobrazov), Вице-адмирал , царская ВМФ России(1845-1906) - I sign my drawings as Ari Saarinen

Ahh!

iirc (again, from Chappelle), the longest practical wooden ship was about 300 ft (maybe 350 ft) on the waterline. Sailing ships don't plane -- they're too heavy -- although small sailing craft may (indeed, there are sailing hydrofoils), so they're quite strictly bound to speed-length ratios (speed in knots divided by square root of waterline length in feet) of less than about 1.3.

Warships were under three major constraints that merchant ships were not: they had to accommodate huge crews, they had to accommodate large, heavy guns high enough about the ship's waterline to be useful, and they had to expect people shooting at them. Their guns, and the guns of others, drove the ships' scantlings, which made their hulls much heavier than merchant ships of the same size, which would make them slower. Since warships were expensive, governments would build them to last, while merchant ships were built well enough to be profitable. In other words, most merchant ships would not be built of properly-seasoned oak; they were more likely to be built of green fir. Again: build to last vs build to profit.

In reality, at the time (again, from Chappelle), maximum speed was not the most important criterion for a warship: weatherliness (how close it could sail to the wind) was more important, as was ease of maneuver. The former may seem to argue against square-rigged ships, but the fore-and-aft rig had many practical disadvantages (including maneuverability) which restricted its use to small vessels, like RN and US Revenue Marine cutters (the former were, for many years, cutter-rigged, hence the name). The huge schooners, like the Thomas W Lawson at the end of sail were not more weatherly than contemporary square-riggers; their main advantage was that all the sail handling could be done from the deck.

Another problem with sailing ship speed was that the propulsive thrust was considerably above the ship's center of gravity, so a ship would heel (even square riggers were faster with the wind abeam than dead astern), and too much thrust could cause a ship to roll over. This would be bad, and resulted in the loss of
the Somers (see http://www.history.navy.mil/danfs/s15/somers-ii.htm ) and her sister ship, Bainbridge.

Because of this heavier ships, like liners could be faster than lighter, nominally faster ships in heavy winds. Liners, like HMS Victory, the USN's heavy frigates, like Constitution, or the RN's razees could probably run down smaller contemporaries because they could carry full sail (even studdingsails) in weather that would force the smaller ship to reduce sail, perhaps even heave to.