A hulk is a
ship
A ship is a large watercraft, vessel that travels the world's oceans and other Waterway, navigable waterways, carrying cargo or passengers, or in support of specialized missions, such as defense, research and fishing. Ships are generally disti ...
that is afloat, but incapable of going to sea. 'Hulk' may be used to describe a ship that has been launched but not completed, an abandoned wreck or shell, or a ship whose
propulsion
Propulsion is the generation of force by any combination of pushing or pulling to modify the translational motion of an object, which is typically a rigid body (or an articulated rigid body) but may also concern a fluid. The term is derived from ...
system is no longer maintained or has been removed altogether. The word hulk also may be used as a verb: a ship is "hulked" to convert it to a hulk. The verb was also applied to crews of Royal Navy ships in dock, who were sent to the receiving ship for accommodation, or "hulked". Hulks have a variety of uses such as housing, prisons, salvage pontoons, gambling sites, naval training, or cargo storage.
In the
age of sail
The Age of Sail is a period in European history that lasted at the latest from the mid-16th (or mid-15th) to the mid-19th centuries, in which the dominance of sailing ships in global trade and warfare culminated, particularly marked by the int ...
, many hulls served longer as hulks than they did as functional ships. Wooden ships were often hulked when the hull structure became too old and weak to withstand the stresses of sailing.
More recently, ships have been hulked when they become obsolete or when they become uneconomical to operate.
Sheer hulk
A ''sheer hulk'' (or ''shear hulk'') was used in shipbuilding and repair as a
floating crane in the days of
sailing ship
A sailing ship is a sea-going vessel that uses sails mounted on Mast (sailing), masts to harness the power of wind and propel the vessel. There is a variety of sail plans that propel sailing ships, employing Square rig, square-rigged or Fore-an ...
s, primarily to place the lower
masts of a ship under construction or repair. Booms known as
sheers were attached to the base of a hulk's lower masts or beam, supported from the top of those masts.
Blocks and tackle were then used in such tasks as placing or removing the lower masts of a vessel under construction or repair. These lower masts were the largest and most massive single timbers aboard a ship, and erecting them without the assistance of either a sheer hulk or land-based
masting sheer was extremely difficult.
The concept of sheer hulks originated with the Royal Navy in the 1690s, and persisted in Britain until the early nineteenth century. Most sheer hulks were decommissioned warships; ''Chatham'', built in 1694, was the first of only three purpose-built vessels. There were at least six sheer hulks in service in Britain at any time throughout the 1700s. The concept spread to France in the 1740s with the commissioning of a sheer hulk at the port of Rochefort.
By 1807 the Royal Navy had standardised sheer hulk crew numbers to comprise a
boatswain
A boatswain ( , ), bo's'n, bos'n, or bosun, also known as a deck boss, or a qualified member of the deck department, or the third hand on a fishing vessel, is the most senior Naval rating, rate of the deck department and is responsible for the ...
, mate and six seamen, with larger numbers coming aboard only when the sheers were in use.
[
]
Accommodation hulk
An ''accommodation hulk'' is a hulk used as housing, generally when there is a lack of quarters available ashore. An operational ship may be used for accommodation, but a hulk can accommodate more personnel than the same hull would accommodate as a functional ship. For this role, the hulk is often extensively modified to improve living conditions. Receiving hulks and prison hulks are specialized types of accommodation hulks. During World War II, purpose-built barracks ships were used in this role.
Receiving hulk
A ''receiving ship'' is a ship
A ship is a large watercraft, vessel that travels the world's oceans and other Waterway, navigable waterways, carrying cargo or passengers, or in support of specialized missions, such as defense, research and fishing. Ships are generally disti ...
used in harbour to house newly recruited sailor
A sailor, seaman, mariner, or seafarer is a person who works aboard a watercraft as part of its crew, and may work in any one of a number of different fields that are related to the operation and maintenance of a ship. While the term ''sailor'' ...
s before they are assigned to a ship's crew.
During the wars of the 18th and 19th century, almost every nation's navy suffered from a lack of volunteers and had to rely on some form of forced recruitment. The receiving ship partly solved the problem of unwilling recruits escaping; it was difficult to get off the ship without being detected, and most seamen of the era did not know how to swim.
Receiving ships were typically older vessels that could still be kept afloat, but were obsolete or no longer seaworthy. The practice was especially common in the age of wooden ships, since the old hulls would remain afloat for many years in relatively still waters after they had become too weak to withstand the rigors of the open ocean.
Receiving ships often served as floating hospitals as many were assigned in locations without shore-based station hospitals. Often the afloat surgeon would take up station on the receiving ship.
Prison hulk
A ''prison hulk'' was a hulk used as a floating prison. They were used extensively in Great Britain
Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-west coast of continental Europe, consisting of the countries England, Scotland, and Wales. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the List of European ...
, the Royal Navy
The Royal Navy (RN) is the naval warfare force of the United Kingdom. It is a component of His Majesty's Naval Service, and its officers hold their commissions from the King of the United Kingdom, King. Although warships were used by Kingdom ...
producing a steady supply of ships too worn-out to use in combat, but still afloat. Their widespread use was a result of the large number of French sailors captured during the Seven Years' War
The Seven Years' War, 1756 to 1763, was a Great Power conflict fought primarily in Europe, with significant subsidiary campaigns in North America and South Asia. The protagonists were Kingdom of Great Britain, Great Britain and Kingdom of Prus ...
, and continued throughout the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars
The French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (sometimes called the Great French War or the Wars of the Revolution and the Empire) were a series of conflicts between the French and several European monarchies between 1792 and 1815. They encompas ...
a half-century later. By 1814, there were eighteen prison hulks operating at Portsmouth, sixteen at Plymouth and ten at Chatham.[
Prison hulks were also convenient for holding civilian prisoners, commencing in Britain in 1776 when the ]American Revolution
The American Revolution (1765–1783) was a colonial rebellion and war of independence in which the Thirteen Colonies broke from British America, British rule to form the United States of America. The revolution culminated in the American ...
prevented the sending of convicts to North America. Instead, increasingly large numbers of British convicts were held aboard hulks in the major seaports and landed ashore in daylight hours for manual labour such as harbor dredging.[ From 1786, prison hulks were also used as temporary ''gaols'' (jails) for convicts being transported to ]Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...
.
Hulks used for storage
A ''powder hulk'' was a hulk used to store gunpowder
Gunpowder, also commonly known as black powder to distinguish it from modern smokeless powder, is the earliest known chemical explosive. It consists of a mixture of sulfur, charcoal (which is mostly carbon), and potassium nitrate, potassium ni ...
. The hulk was a floating warehouse which could be moved as needed to simplify the transfer of gunpowder to warships. Its location, away from land, also reduced the possible damage from an explosion.
Service as a ''coal hulk'' was usually, but not always, a ship's last.
Of the fate of the fast and elegant clipper ships, William L. Carothers wrote,
The famed clipper '' Red Jacket'' ended her days as a coaling hulk in the Cape Verde Islands.
Salvage pontoon
Hulks were used in pairs during salvage operations. By passing heavy cables under a wreck and connecting them to two hulks, a wreck could be raised using the lifting force of the tide or by changing the buoyancy of the hulks.
Hulk assemblages
A hulk assemblage (sometimes known as a ship graveyard) is where more than one vessel has been hulked in the same location. A project by Museum of London Archaeology (with the Thames Discovery Programme
The Thames Discovery Programme is a community archaeology project, focusing on the archaeology of the River Thames on the Tideway. The Thames Discovery Programme (TDP) was launched in October 2008 and until September 2011, the project was suppor ...
and the Nautical Archaeology Society) and in 2012 created a database of known hulk assemblages in England. They identified 199 separate hulk assemblages ranging in size from two vessels to over 80.
Hulks in modern times
Several of the largest former oil tankers have been converted to floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) units, effectively very large floating oil storage tanks. '' Knock Nevis'', by some measures the largest ship ever built, served in this capacity from 2004 until 2010. In 2009 and 2010, two of the four TI-class supertankers, then the largest ships afloat, ''TI Asia'' and ''TI Africa'', were converted to FPSOs.
Other services
A vessel's hulking may not be its final use. Scuttling
Scuttling is the act of deliberately sinking a ship by allowing water to flow into the hull, typically by its crew opening holes in its hull.
Scuttling may be performed to dispose of an abandoned, old, or captured vessel; to prevent the vessel ...
as a blockship, breakwater, artificial reef
An artificial reef (AR) is a human-created freshwater or marine benthic structure.
Typically built in areas with a generally featureless bottom to promote Marine biology#Reefs, marine life, it may be intended to control #Erosion prevention, erosio ...
, or recreational dive site may await. Some are repurposed, for example as a gambling ship; others are restored and put to new uses, such as a museum ship
A museum ship, also called a memorial ship, is a ship that has been preserved and converted into a museum open to the public for educational or memorial purposes. Some are also used for training and recruitment purposes, mostly for the small numb ...
. Some even return revitalised to sea.
When lumber schooner , "one of only two Pacific Coast steam schooners to be powered by steam turbines,"[
]
was hulked in 1928, she was moored off Long Beach, California and used as a gambling ship until destroyed by a fire of unknown cause.
One vessel rescued from this ignominious end was the barque
A barque, barc, or bark is a type of sailing ship, sailing vessel with three or more mast (sailing), masts of which the fore mast, mainmast, and any additional masts are Square rig, rigged square, and only the aftmost mast (mizzen in three-maste ...
'' Polly Woodside'', now a museum ship in Melbourne, Australia. Another is the barque , rescued from Recherche Bay in Tasmania
Tasmania (; palawa kani: ''Lutruwita'') is an island States and territories of Australia, state of Australia. It is located to the south of the Mainland Australia, Australian mainland, and is separated from it by the Bass Strait. The sta ...
, now restored and regularly sailing from Sydney, Australia.
See also
* Blockship
* Britannia Royal Naval College
Britannia Royal Naval College Dartmouth, also known as Dartmouth, is the naval academy of the United Kingdom and the initial officer training establishment of the Royal Navy. It is located on a hill overlooking the port of Dartmouth, Devon, En ...
* Mechanised coal hulks (Sydney)
* Moored training ship
References
External links
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hulk (Ship)
Ship types