Windjammer

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This article is about a type of sailing ship. For information on the cruise lines, see Maine Windjammer Association and Windjammer Barefoot Cruises

Dar Pomorza, former „SMS Prinzess Eitel Friedrich“, an old Polish windjammer

A windjammer was a type of sailing ship with a large iron or steel hull, used for cargo in the nineteenth century. They were the grandest of cargo sailing ships, with between three and five large masts and square sails, giving them a characteristic profile. They frequently displaced several thousand tons, and were cheaper than their wooden hulled counterparts for three main reasons: iron was stronger, and thus could enable larger ship sizes and considerable economies of scale, iron hulls took up less space and allowed for more cargo to be carried, and iron hulls were cheaper to maintain than an equivalent wooden hull.

Windjammers were mainly produced from the 1870s to the 1890s, when the steam engine began to outcompete them economically, due to cheap coal. Steel hulls also replaced iron hulls at around the same time. Sailing ships in general were expensive to operate, as they required a large crew and, like all sailing ships, Windjammers depended on favorable wind conditions, making them unreliable.

Windjammers were used commercially (though recognised as a dying breed) until the 1930s. They occupied something of a niche in the transport of goods from remote ports where coal and water were not available, such as parts of Australia (carrying wool) and remote islands (harvesting guano). Windjammers were also used particularly for the transport of South American nitrates.

These days, windjammers carry people rather than cargo. In addition to the many steel hulled windjammers in the Caribbean, several traditional wooden hulled schooners from the northeastern United States were rebuilt in the latter half of the 20th century for the windjammer trade. Schooners transformed from carrying fish, oysters, lumber, and granite to accomodating passengers looking to discover what travel was like in the golden age of sail.