Windjammer Explained

See main article: Iron-hulled sailing ship.

A windjammer is a commercial sailing ship with multiple masts that may be square rigged, or fore-and-aft rigged, or a combination of the two. The informal term "windjammer" arose during the transition from the Age of Sail to the Age of Steam during the 19th century. The Oxford English Dictionary records the word "windjamming" from 1886 and "windjammer" with reference to a ship from 1892. The term has evolved to include such a vessel, carrying passengers on overnight cruises in the Caribbean, the U.S. state of Maine and elsewhere.^{[1] [2]}

Etymology

The word "windjammer" has a variety of associations, both nautical and not. In the late 19th century the term was pejorative, as used by sailors aboard steamships.

• In 1892, Rudder Magazine said in a story, "The deck hands on the liners contemptuously refer to [sailing vessels] as 'wind-jammers'."
• In 1917, the American Dialect Society recorded residents of the U.S. state of Maine referring to fore-and-aft sailing vessels as "windjammers" in a list of regional word usages.^[3]
• The Oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea calls windjammer "a non-nautical name by which square-rigged sailing ships are sometimes known".
• The Oxford Essential Dictionary of the U.S. Military calls windjammer "a merchant sailing ship".
• The following languages have adopted "windjammer" as a loanword from English in reference to sailing ships:
  • Czech: windjammer^[4]
  • Dutch: windjammer^[5]
  • German: Windjammer^{[6] [7]}
  • Japanese: ウィンドジャマー^[8]
  • Polish: windjammer^[9]
  • Russian: винджаммер^[10]
  • Serbo-Croatian: виндјамер or vindjamer^[11]
  • Ukrainian: вінджамер
• Green's Dictionary of Slang has a variety of non-nautical definitions for the term.

Examples

Any of the following ships may be called a "windjammer":

• Barque
• Barquentine
• Brig
• Brigantine
• Clipper ship^[12]
• Full-rigged ship
• Iron-hulled sailing ship^{[13] [14]}
• Sail-powered cruise ship^{[15] [16]}
• Schooner

In literature

Windjammers have figured prominently in both historical and fictional literature. Some examples include:

• Book: The Windjammers. registration. Allen, Oliver E. 1978. The Windjammers. Amsterdam: Time-Life Books.. Allen. Oliver E.. Books. Time-Life. 1978. Time-Life Books. 9780705406253. en.
• Book: Lubbock, Basil. The Last of the Windjammers. 1953. Brown, Son & Ferguson. en.
• Book: Noppen, Ryan K.. German Commerce Raiders 1914–18. 2015. Bloomsbury Publishing. 9781472809513. en.
• Book: Richardson, V. A.. The House of Windjammer. 2006. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. 9781582349848. en.
• Book: Runciman, Walter Sr.. Windjammers and Sea Tramps. 1902. At the Unicorn. London. en.
• Book: Simpson, Paul W.. Windjammer. 2017. Lulu Press, Inc. 9780244305727. en.
• Book: Thomas, Lowell. The Sea Devil - The Story Of Count Felix Von Luckner, The German War Raider. 2013. Read Books Ltd. 9781446548196. en.

Notes and References

1. Web site: Laird . Scott . 2022-04-12 . A Windjammer Cruise on Penobscot Bay Is the Best Way to Experience Maine's Coast . 2022-07-13 . Condé Nast Traveler . en-US.
2. Book: Crowell, Ed . Barefoot pirate : the tall ships and tales of Windjammer . 2003 . Orion Press . Robert W. Schachner . 0-7570-0128-9 . [New York] . 52985865.
3. Book: Chase, George D.. https://books.google.com/books?id=c1NFAQAAIAAJ&q=windjammer+etymology&pg=PA6. Dialect Notes. 1917. American Dialect Society. 1. IV. en. Lists from Maine.
4. Web site: windjammer - Czech translation - bab.la English-Czech dictionary. en.bab.la. 2019-06-28.
5. Book: Van Veen. Pieter A. F.. Etymologisch woordenboek: de herkomst van onze woorden. Van der Sijs. Nicoline. Van Dale Lexicografie. 1997. Utrecht Antwerpen. Windjammer.
6. Book: Mit Deutsch durchs Jahr: Sprachkalender Deutsch. Hueber. Bönzli. Werner. 2009. Hueber Verlag. 9783190079209. de.
7. Book: Penzkofer, Markus. Thematisches Wörterbuch Deutsch-Englisch (2): Aufbauwortschatz. 2017-09-27. BoD – Books on Demand. 9783744822619. de.
8. Book: Nguyen, Nam H.. Essential 120000 English-Japanese Words Dictionary. 2018-02-03. Nam H Nguyen. ja.
9. Book: Maritime dictionary Polish-English. Milewski. Szymon. Zadrożna. T.. 1965. Wydawn. Naukowo-Techniczne. en.
10. Web site: Винджаммер - translation - Russian-English Dictionary. Glosbe. en. 2019-06-27.
11. Web site: Виндјамер - translation - Serbian-English Dictionary. Glosbe. en. 2019-06-27.
12. Book: Simpson, Paul W.. Windjammer. 2017-05-11. Lulu Press, Inc. 9780244305727. en.
13. Book: Historian), Tom Bennett (Shipwreck. Bells from Shipwrecks -after 1830: Victorian and Modern Ship's Bells. 2016-11-24. TOM Bennett. en.
14. Book: Marsden, Ben. Uncommon Contexts: Encounters Between Science and Literature, 1800–1914. 2015-07-28. Routledge. 9781317320357. en.
15. Book: Williams, Deborah. https://books.google.com/books?id=rDEDAAAAMBAJ&q=windjammer+etymology&pg=PA31. Cruise Travel. September 1999. Cruise Travel. en. Windjammin' in Maine.
16. Book: Kerr, Jim. https://books.google.com/books?id=UTEDAAAAMBAJ&q=windjammer+origin&pg=PA43. Cruise Travel. September 1994. Cruise Travel. en. Fantome—Setting sail for romance with Windjammer Barefoot Cruises.