these configurations will be saved for each time you visit this page using this browser
Although the term "hulk" can be used to refer to an abandoned wreck or shell, is much more commonly applied to hulls that are still performing a useful function. In the days of sail, many hulls served longer as hulks than they did as functional ships. Wooden ships were often converted to hulks when the hull structure became too old and weak to withstand the stresses of the sailing (i.e. their planking would admit too much water when moving in rough seas).
More recently, ships have been converted to hulks when they become obsolete (e.g., when motorized ships replaced sailing ships) or when they become uneconomical to operate (e.g., some large oil tankers.)
A sheer hulk (or shear hulk), in the days of sailing ships, was used in shipbuilding and repair as a sort of floating crane, primarily to place the lower masts of a ship under construction or repair. The masts of the hulk (known as sheers) would be at an angle, and the ends could be effectively raised or lowered by rotating the hulk's hull, either by pulling on ropes attached to the hull, or by shifting the ballast within the hull. The lower masts were the largest and most massive single timbers aboard a ship, and erecting these masts was extremely difficult without the assistance of a sheer hulk.
In the Royal Navy, the use of impressment to collect sailors resulted in the problem of preventing escape of the unwilling "recruits." The receiving ship was part of the solution; it was difficult to get off the ship without being detected, and in any case most sailors before the mid-19th century did not know how to swim.
Receiving ships were typically older vessels that could still be kept afloat, but were obsolete or no longer seaworthy. The practice was especially common in the age of wooden ships, since the old hulls would remain afloat for many years in relatively still waters after they had become too weak to withstand the rigors of the open ocean.
Receiving ships often held hospital duties as many were assigned in locations that had yet to build station hospitals. Often the afloat surgeon would take up station on the receiving ship.
Hulks were used in pairs during salvage operations. By passing heavy cables under a wreck and connecting them to two hulks, a wreck could be raised using the lifting force of the tide or by changing the buoyancy of the hulks.
The famed clipper Red Jacket ended her days as a coaling hulk in the Cape Verde Islands.
When lumber schooner Johanna Smith, "one of only two Pacific Coast steam schooners to be powered by steam turbines," was hulked in 1928, she was moored off Long Beach, California and used as a gambling ship, until a fire of unknown origin finished her off.
One vessel rescued from this ignominious end was the barque Polly Woodside, now a museum ship in Melbourne, Australia.
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
