HISTORY
HISTORY
The
Virginia Sloop
is a single-masted privateer, or smuggler, an evolutionary development in the line of fast
sailing ships linking the Bermuda sloop of c. 1740 and the trim, sharp model Virginia schooners found in
Steel’s Naval Architecture of 1805
. It is a small, well-designed ship, with a graceful sheer and low freeboard.
The 18th century was a time of intense naval and maritime competition. In both peace and war, Britain, France,
and America looked toward the development of a new vessel type that might further their national or regional
interests at sea. Often, the private sector was more innovative, as the quest for quick profits spurred the produc-
tion and refinement of fast sailing ships.
Jamaica had become rapidly established as a shipbuilding center in the prior century, with a reputation for fast, well-
built ships. By the end of the century the shift to Bermuda had already begun, coincident with the decline in tim-
ber in Jamaica. When the same happened in Bermuda, the hull form seems to have moved to the Chesapeake.
Whether these ships were a new design development is not entirely clear. The basic form may have developed
from the English cutter of the first quarter of the century. However, the Jamaica-Bermuda-Virginia sloops were
sharper, lighter, and sleeker than their cutter cousins.
