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Earliest Plans of an American-Built Vessel the sloop Mediator (see below), built on the Chesapeake, 

 1741-42. Redrawn from original British Admiralty draught. {Courtesy of Trustees of the National Maritime 

 Museum, Greemvich, England.) 



Stem was usually well rounded in profile and the hull 

 drew much more water aft than forward. The free- 

 board to the main deck was low, but these vessels 

 usually had high bulwarks pierced for carriage guns 

 and a high, short quarterdeck or a stern cabin with 

 its roof strongly arched athwartships. The main deck 

 of these sloops was coinmonly heavily cro\vned, or 

 arched. The mast raked a good deal and the sloops 

 carried two or more headsails, large gaff mainsail 

 fitted with a boom, square course, topsail, and top- 

 gallant sail. 



Through the early trade to Bermuda, as well as to 

 the colonial West Indies, this type became well known 

 on the Chesapeake. During the first half of the 18th 

 century a great many sloops of this type were built on 

 the Eastern Shore of Maryland and \"irginia, in ports 

 oa the western side of the Bay, and on the Delaware. 

 The earliest plan of an American built vessel, that 

 has yet been found, is of a sloop of this class, the 

 Mediator, purchased for the Royal Navy in 1745 and 

 built in "Virginia" about 1741. This sloop was 



bought in the West Indies and sailed to England 

 where she was measured and drawings made, shortly 

 before she was lost at Dunkirk. 



These large sloops apparently created a problem of 

 manning, particularly when o\Nned in a small village, 

 for the rig in such large hulls required big crews. 

 Hence, it was not long before the more easily man- 

 aged schooner rig was applied to the type. 



In \-iew of a rather old American tradition that the 

 fast-sailing American model was de\eloped from 

 French lugsjers and vessels that visited America and 

 that had their lines taken off by colonial shipwrights 

 during the Revolution, it should be made clear that 

 no evidence has been found to support such a tradi- 

 tion. On the contrary, there is clear evidence in 

 Maryland records of the construction of the Bermuda 

 sloop type there, as the plan of the Mediator beare 

 witness. The hull form of the Bermuda sloop, more- 

 over, was employed to construct a British 24-gun 

 ship in 1739 at London, and this vessel, the Lynu, is 

 represented by her building plans in the Admiralty 



17 



