Boarding

Boarding is when the crew of a ship tries to capture another ship and not sink it by forcing their way on board. Captured ships and captured crew have been a valuable asset to retrieve throughout most of the naval history.

Ancient war galleys, such as those of the Greeks, Romans, Phoenicians and Persians, were armed with heavy ram spurs to pierce the sides of an enemy when the opportunity arose, but they also carried soldiers and archers. But since the opportunity rarely arose, they had to resort to fighting on the enemy deck.

Naval battle between the Romans and Carthaginians, 260 BC.

A ramp (corvus) with long spkies was lowered when the enemy was lying alongside and the men stormed the deck to defeat the enemy as in a land battle.

Fighting as on land and ramming was still very present in the Middle Ages, even if attempts were made to keep distance. As a result, the height of a ship became an important factor that gave the crew the advantage of being able to attack or shoot at the deck of an enemy. Warships began to resemble fortifications on land, with high sides and “castles” built at each end of the hull. The forecastle, which addresses the front part of the ship, dates from this period.

The explosion of the Spanish flagship during the Battle of Gibraltar, 25 April 1607, by Hendrick Vroom 1621

The temptation to build bigger and bigger ships and to load them with heavily armed soliders and archers on the upper deck and different types of cannons distributed all over the ship when they went into battle led to some notoriously unstable ships. This was the case, for example, with Henry VIII’s Mary Rose, which capsized in calm weather and sank in the Solent, as she sailed towards a French assault.

The arrival of heavy cannons on board warships in the early 17th century began to change the way naval warfare was conducted. By the end of the 17th century, naval gunnery had become the main means of fighting an enemy, and small-scale warfare between masses of ships trying to board gave way to fleets in long lines manoeuvring across the sea.

Even though boarding was now used less frequently, it remained a legitimate tactic. All warships trained for both boarding and defence against attackers. When they went into action, they often attached ship-spanning nets to provide a barrier to the enemy. They also carried a large arsenal of weapons for close combat, including muskets, pistols, blunderbusses, cutlasses, boarding axes and pikes. There were even some weapons designed specifically for this type of warfare, such as the strange four-barrel “duck-foot” pistol. All but the smallest warships had marines on board, who were specialists in this kind of warfare. And were often used as sniper in the tops. 

Capture of HMS Ambuscade by the French corvette Bayonnaise, 14 December 1798

Under certain circumstances boarding was a preferred tactic. Both privateers and pirates wanted to capture a prize, while causing as little damage to the ship or cargo as possible. It was also the only tactic available during a cutting attack, i.e. when a ship was captured by an enemy approaching in boats alongside.

Even in actions between warships, a protagonist who was in an unequal firefight with a larger enemy could turn the tables with a quick, surprising boarding. Nelson used this tactic to capture the Spanish 80-gun San Nicolás and the 112-gun San Josef with the crew of his much smaller 74-gun captain in the Battle of Cape St. Vincent. In 1798 the French corvette Bayonnaise used the boarding to surprise and defeat the Royal Navy’s larger frigate, Ambuscade. Cochrane did the same in 1801 when he conquered the Spanish 32 guns xebeque El Gamo  with his much smaller, 14-gun brig Speedy.

The Action and Capture of the Spanish Xebeque El Gamo, by  Clarkson Frederick Stanfield 1845 

Smooth bore cannon in the age of sail were only really effective at ranges below a thousand yards, and most battles took place at even closer distances than this, which kept boarding in play as a possible tactic. Even when the introduction of rifled guns in the 19th century pushed out the range at which sea battles took place, crews were still trained in boarding. It was used in situations in which firing at an enemy was not an option. The suppression of the Atlantic slave trade in the 19th century, for example, was largely carried out in this way, for fear of harming the slaves being liberated.

Even if the boarding has changed in its current form, it is still present and is still carried out.

The Uluburun Shipwreck

In 1982, a Turkish sponge diver stumbled upon metal pieces off the Turkish Mediterranean coast near Kaş, which he described as “metal biscuits with ears”. The find turned out to be an elite shipment from the late Bronze Age and provided valuable archaeological evidence of the exotic and valuable gifts exchanged by kings, heads of state or wealthy merchants.

The Uluburun II, replica of the Uluburun. She was knowingly sunk in 2006 to serve as a site and to document and understand her decay 

The shipwreck was excavated by the INA in 11 seasons between 1984 and 1994, recording more than 22,000 dives at depths of over 150 feet. And is considered to be one of the oldest shipwrecks in the world due to the date, late 14th century B.C., based on Mycenaean ceramics.

Siteplan with a reconstruction of the Ship over it - green are the copper ingots, orange the ceramics, grey the anchors, pink the tin ingots

She carried a bulk cargo of copper and tin ingots in the usual 10:1 ratio to produce bronze. Other cargo included pottery (used, unused and also food-containing ceramics) and luxury goods intended for a very specific and wealthy public, such as carved ivory containers, jewellery made of gold and semi-precious stones such as carnelian and agate.

Beads and two glass ingots

Among the raw materials from distant countries such as Cyprus, Egypt but also Syria and Mycenae were glass ingots, unworked elephant tusks, ostrich egg shells and faience beads, gold for death masks.

Gold funeral mask

Personal items such as weapons and galley goods, counterweights and musical instruments including lutes with tortoiseshell sounding bodies suggest that the ship was operated by a Syrocanite crew and carried several passengers from mainland Greece.

In addition to the precious cargo, many stone anchors and a tiny part of the hull were preserved, both of which are equally important for the study of ancient shipbuilding and its development.

A Diptych (writing tablet)  and hippopotamus theet

The ship was built from cedar wood using the so-called “spigot technique”, in which first the outer hull was built and later the “skeleton” (the frames and bars) below was added. One thousand years after the sinking of Uluburun, this technique was still used in the construction of Roman and Greek ships. Archaeological findings in Egypt suggest that the archetype for this ship probably originated in ancient Egypt. At that time, the Pharaoh Akhenaton in particular pushed the development of more resistant deep-sea ships to promote trade and transport.

The reconsturcted wreck site in the Museum in Bodrum ,Turkey

A subtle structural difference to the Uluburun, however, is that its pegs were not secured by wooden pegs. This technique was later referred to by the Romans as “Fenike pegging”. The Uluburun was certainly built for use at sea, which refutes the thesis that sailing in the Bronze Age was done exclusively in sight of the coast.Since only about 3 % of the original hull of the ship had been recovered, drawings from ancient Egypt, in particular the pictorial representation of the “Fleet of Queen Hatshepsut in the Land of Punt” (1500 B.C.) or a painting with Syrian ships from the Tomb of Kenamun, offered an important visual reference for the reconstruction of the ship.

Drawing of wall painting with Syrian ships. Thebes, Tomb of Kenamun (TT 162). Dynasty 18 , reign of Amenhotep III

Fleet of Queen Hatshepsut in the Land of Punt, from her funeray temple at Deir el-Bahri, Dynasty 18 

After extensive research we know today that the Uluburun was 15 meters long and five meters wide and had a draught of 1.4 meters. Her cargo is estimated to be 20 tons. The width of the hull was six centimetres and the pegs were at a distance of 20 centimetres. The ship used a triangular sail, which allowed a maximum speed of two nautical miles per hour, and two oars for manoeuvring.

Possible route of the Uluburun ship

This was the probable route of Uluburun: From her home port on the Levantine coast she sailed fully loaded to her (unknown) Mycenaean port of destination. At night she anchored in ports along the Turkish coast. The planned way back might have led her to Marsa Matruh in northwest Egypt. The currents and winds in this area suggest such a route, as the Uluburun was unable to cross the wind because of its simple sail. Why she sank can no longer be comprehended. Possibly she got caught in a storm and sank.