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The flyboat (also spelled ''fly-boat'' or ''fly boat'') was a European light vessel of Dutch origin developed primarily as a mercantile cargo carrier, although many served as
warship A warship or combatant ship is a naval ship that is used for naval warfare. Usually they belong to the navy branch of the armed forces of a nation, though they have also been operated by individuals, cooperatives and corporations. As well as b ...
s in an auxiliary role because of their agility. These vessels could displace between 70 and 200 tons, and were used in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. The name was subsequently applied to a number of disparate vessels which achieved high speeds or endurance. At the beginning of the 17th century, they were replaced by the
fluyt A fluyt (archaic Dutch language, Dutch: ''fluijt'' "flute"; ) is a Dutch type of sailing ship, sailing vessel originally designed by the shipwrights of Hoorn as a dedicated ship transport, cargo vessel. Originating in the Dutch Republic in the 16 ...
, which in England was also known as a fly-boat.


Origin

The name "flyboat" is derived from Dutch ''vlieboot'', a boat with a shallow enough draught to be able to navigate a shallow ''vlie'' or river
estuary An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea. Estuaries form a transition zone between river environments and maritime enviro ...
, such as the Vlie. Armed flyboats were used by the naval forces of the Dutch rebels, the Watergeuzen, in the beginning of the
Eighty Years' War The Eighty Years' War or Dutch Revolt (; 1566/1568–1648) was an armed conflict in the Habsburg Netherlands between disparate groups of rebels and the Spanish Empire, Spanish government. The Origins of the Eighty Years' War, causes of the w ...
, and comprised the Dutch contribution to the
English Armada The English Armada (), also known as the Counter Armada, Drake–Norris Expedition, Portugal Expedition, was an attack fleet sent against Spain by Queen Elizabeth I of England that sailed on 28 April 1589 during the undeclared Anglo-Spanish W ...
. The type resembled a small
carrack A carrack (; ; ) is a three- or four- masted ocean-going sailing ship that was developed in the 14th to 15th centuries in Europe, most notably in Portugal and Spain. Evolving from the single-masted cog, the carrack was first used for Europea ...
and had two or at most three masts, a high board, and a dozen iron cannons. Small, inexpensive, and manoeuvrable, it was ideal for
privateering A privateer is a private person or vessel which engages in commerce raiding under a commission of war. Since Piracy, robbery under arms was a common aspect of seaborne trade, until the early 19th century all merchant ships carried arms. A sover ...
activities in the European coastal waters, and was soon imitated by
privateers A privateer is a private person or vessel which engages in commerce raiding under a commission of war. Since robbery under arms was a common aspect of seaborne trade, until the early 19th century all merchant ships carried arms. A sovereign o ...
or
pirate Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence by ship or boat-borne attackers upon another ship or a coastal area, typically with the goal of stealing cargo and valuable goods, or taking hostages. Those who conduct acts of piracy are call ...
s of other nations. The Dutch navy, and their enemies, the Dunkirkers, at first extensively employed flyboats. In 1588, the army of Alexander Farnese was blocked in
Dunkirk Dunkirk ( ; ; ; Picard language, Picard: ''Dunkèke''; ; or ) is a major port city in the Departments of France, department of Nord (French department), Nord in northern France. It lies from the Belgium, Belgian border. It has the third-larg ...
by a fleet of 30 Dutch flyboats commanded by Lieutenant Admiral Justin of Nassau, preventing him from joining the
Spanish Armada The Spanish Armada (often known as Invincible Armada, or the Enterprise of England, ) was a Spanish fleet that sailed from Lisbon in late May 1588, commanded by Alonso de Guzmán, Duke of Medina Sidonia, an aristocrat without previous naval ...
to invade
England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...
. In the early 17th century, the warship type became obsolete by the invention by the Dunkirkers of the
frigate A frigate () is a type of warship. In different eras, the roles and capabilities of ships classified as frigates have varied. The name frigate in the 17th to early 18th centuries was given to any full-rigged ship built for speed and maneuvera ...
, then a small
galleon Galleons were large, multi-decked sailing ships developed in Spain and Portugal. They were first used as armed cargo carriers by Europe, Europeans from the 16th to 18th centuries during the Age of Sail, and they were the principal vessels dr ...
type, although flyboats continued to be adapted in wartime for naval use until the 1670s. However, civilian Dutch ''vlieboten'' continued to be built and evolved during the 18th century into much larger
cromster The Crommesteven or cromsteven, often as crompster, cromster or crumster (from ''crom'' = bent, concave; ''steven'' = stem) was a type of small warship used by the Dutch Republic and later by the British fleets during the sixteenth and seventeenth ...
s (''kromstevens''), then flat coastal cargo ships up to 1200 tons. At the same time, the term flyboat was used for a swift fishing vessel on the Atlantic. In the 19th century, the term was used in England for canal boats, resembling small Dutch cromsters.


Other types of flyboat


12th-century galleys

What might be seen as a prototype of the flyboat was the fleet of war galleys that were developed by
Richard the Lionheart Richard is a male given name. It originates, via Old French, from compound of the words descending from Proto-Germanic language">Proto-Germanic ''*rīk-'' 'ruler, leader, king' and ''*hardu-'' 'strong, brave, hardy', and it therefore means 'st ...
in the 12th century. They were similar to Viking longship design and were created for fast movement and riverine warfare, and were stationed from
Portsmouth Portsmouth ( ) is a port city status in the United Kingdom, city and unitary authority in Hampshire, England. Most of Portsmouth is located on Portsea Island, off the south coast of England in the Solent, making Portsmouth the only city in En ...
to
Rouen Rouen (, ; or ) is a city on the River Seine, in northwestern France. It is in the prefecture of Regions of France, region of Normandy (administrative region), Normandy and the Departments of France, department of Seine-Maritime. Formerly one ...
to
Les Andelys Les Andelys (; Norman language, Norman: ''Les Aundelys'') is a Communes of France, commune in the northern French Departments of France, department of Eure, in Normandy (administrative region), Normandy. Geography It lies on the Seine, about no ...
and other points along the
Seine The Seine ( , ) is a river in northern France. Its drainage basin is in the Paris Basin (a geological relative lowland) covering most of northern France. It rises at Source-Seine, northwest of Dijon in northeastern France in the Langres plat ...
.


UK canal boats


Planing vessels

An "express boat" service was started on the Glasgow, Paisley and Ardrossan Canal in 1830. One of its employees, William Houston, was guiding an empty horse-drawn boat when the horse took fright and bolted. Expecting the horse soon to tire, he hung on, but was amazed when the boat rose up onto its bow wave and shot off along the canal at high speed. Mr Houston was canny enough to realise the potential, and soon travellers were being hauled along the canals at high speed in an early example of planing. This canal—11 miles without locks into the centre of Glasgow—was an ideal situation for this venture. Once the boat was planing, the wash that damaged the canal banks largely disappeared, and by 1835, flat iron boats up to 65 feet made 323,290 passenger trips at 10 mph in a year. Services were established on the Forth and Clyde and on the
Shropshire Union Canal The Shropshire Union Canal, sometimes nicknamed the "Shroppie", is a navigable canal in England. It is the modern name for a part of the Shropshire Union Railways and Canal Company network. In the leisure age, two of the branches of that netwo ...
flyboats with single horse-pulled, 22-ton loads at 10 mph as late as 1847. They were also called "swift boats" or "gig boats". Occurring a year after the opening of the
Liverpool and Manchester Railway The Liverpool and Manchester Railway (L&MR) was the first inter-city railway in the world. It Opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, opened on 15 September 1830 between the Lancashire towns of Liverpool and Manchester in England. It ...
, this development sparked enormous interest in the canal world. Books were published by Sir William Armstrong Fairburn and Sir John Benjamin Macneill. The latter records experiments on the Paddington Canal in London attended by
Thomas Telford Thomas Telford (9 August 1757 – 2 September 1834) was a Scottish civil engineer. After establishing himself as an engineer of road and canal projects in Shropshire, he designed numerous infrastructure projects in his native Scotland, as well ...
and
Charles Babbage Charles Babbage (; 26 December 1791 – 18 October 1871) was an English polymath. A mathematician, philosopher, inventor and mechanical engineer, Babbage originated the concept of a digital programmable computer. Babbage is considered ...
. They hoped that steamboats running on the canals would be able to attain these high speeds, thus fighting off the threat of the railways. A series of experiments conducted by the young
John Scott Russell John Scott Russell (9 May 1808, Parkhead, Glasgow – 8 June 1882, Ventnor, Isle of Wight) was a Scottish civil engineer, naval architecture, naval architect and shipbuilder who built ''SS Great Eastern, Great Eastern'' in collaboration with Is ...
, for which he eventually received the gold medal of the
Royal Society of Edinburgh The Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity that operates on a wholly independent and non-partisan basis and provides public benefit throughout Scotland. It was establis ...
and initiated research in
solitons In mathematics and physics, a soliton is a nonlinear, self-reinforcing, localized wave packet that is , in that it preserves its shape while propagating freely, at constant velocity, and recovers it even after collisions with other such locali ...
, demonstrated that the phenomenon could only be achieved in very shallow canals, and that steamboats needed very different conditions. Flyboats pulled by one or more horses continued to be used in Britain and Ireland for a number of years, and even in America, but ultimately the railway proved the winner. High-speed running of this kind is no longer permitted on UK canals, with a blanket speed limit of four miles per hour in the modern, leisure-dominated era.


Canal carrying-company flyboats: long-distance overnight services

A fly-boat is also a
narrowboat A narrowboat is a particular type of Barge, canal boat, built to fit the narrow History of the British canal system, locks of the United Kingdom. The UK's canal system provided a nationwide transport network during the Industrial Revolution, b ...
which works all day and all night (24/7) on the English
canal Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport vehicles (e.g. water taxi). They carry free, calm surface ...
system without mooring. All-male professional crews, chosen for their skill and experience, slept in different watches at night and day to keep progress as fast as possible. They became common around 1834 and later attempted to emulate the railways by running to timetables so that deliveries could be assured. Some of these boats were operated by railway companies, as a method of providing services into rival railway territory. The design of the hull lines was finer and more streamlined than other narrowboats, limiting cargo capacity but increasing top speed. Being operated by the canal owners, these express services had priority over all other traffic when encountering congestion such as at locks. Time-sensitive cargoes such as
cheese Cheese is a type of dairy product produced in a range of flavors, textures, and forms by coagulation of the milk protein casein. It comprises proteins and fat from milk (usually the milk of cows, buffalo, goats or sheep). During prod ...
and other valuable produce paid a premium for the fast delivery, which survived until the outbreak of
World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
. One 1906 fly-boat from the
Shropshire Union Canal The Shropshire Union Canal, sometimes nicknamed the "Shroppie", is a navigable canal in England. It is the modern name for a part of the Shropshire Union Railways and Canal Company network. In the leisure age, two of the branches of that netwo ...
, ''Saturn'', survives in preservation today and is used for historical trips and education.


References


Further reading

* {{Sailing Vessels and Rigs Dutch inventions Ship types Ship designs of the Dutch Republic 16th-century ships category:17th-century ships category:18th-century ships 19th-century ships category:Tall ships