I’ve worked on one of these that sails off the coast of New England. It was a passenger boat that would do week long cruises. Long, tough hours, but the view from the office each morning was unbeatable.
The German term “Windjammer” translates literally to “wind whiner” or “wind lamentor” as the crews of these ships were very unhappy when there was no wind.
According to Wikipedia, Windjammer is a term of English origin:
Yes, the introduction of steel to sail boat construction allowed bullders to blow previous size constraints out of the water. They were considered big and ugly. IRC Windjammer was an insulting name because they didn’t look like elegant craft that rode the wind, but wind jammers.
Compared to their wooden counterparts, windjammers may not be quite as elegant, but I find some of them quite attractive. E.g. Christian Radich.
That ship, btw, was the star in the 1958 film Windjammer. Shot in Cinemiracle, it is well worth a watch.
No frisbees?
I used to work on these as a sailor. Most can be chartered for trips. Some sea going ones travel across the world to this day. If you want a fun week get some friends together and sail one some place!
These are not windjammers though, are they? They look like pretty vanilla, small sail boats (IDK sloops ketches, or yawls… (Wrong … Too many masts. They’re schooners.) Windjammer was a derogatory moniker for the sailing ships built after steel construction became common. Much much taller masts, wire rigging etc.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’d expect a much larger hull and 3 or 4 very tall masts, with something like four square sails per mast.
The Windjammers outcompeted steam vessels for many transoceanic trade routes because they don’t require the constant input of coal to operate.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windjammer
Picture on that article depicts a ship with six square sails.
EDIT: looked at the picture again. I believe they are schooners.
Huh, never knew this was where the RPG term spelljammer came from.
I’ve never run or been in a spelljammer campaign but have always been interested. I just thought they “jammed” together magic and age of sail ideas and that’s where they got the name from lol.
The “jammer” in Windjammer is not associated with “jamming”, see my other comment.
