Theflyboat (also spelledfly-boat orfly boat) was a European light vessel of Dutch origin developed primarily as a mercantile cargo carrier, although many served aswarships in an auxiliary role because of their agility. These vessels could displace between 70 and 200 tons, and were used in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. The name was subsequently applied to a number of disparate vessels which achieved high speeds or endurance. At the beginning of the 17th century, they were replaced by thefluyt, which in England was also known as a fly-boat.[1]
The name "flyboat" is derived fromDutchvlieboot, a boat with a shallow enough draught to be able to navigate a shallowvlie or riverestuary, such as theVlie.[2][3] Armed flyboats were used by the naval forces of the Dutch rebels, theWatergeuzen, in the beginning of theEighty Years' War, and comprised the Dutch contribution to theEnglish Armada. The type resembled a smallcarrack and had two or at most three masts, a high board, and a dozen iron cannons. Small, inexpensive, and manoeuvrable, it was ideal forprivateering activities in the European coastal waters, and was soon imitated byprivateers orpirates of other nations. The Dutch navy, and their enemies, theDunkirkers, at first extensively employed flyboats. In 1588, the army ofAlexander Farnese was blocked inDunkirk by a fleet of 30 Dutch flyboats commanded by Lieutenant AdmiralJustin of Nassau, preventing him from joining theSpanish Armada to invadeEngland.[4]
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In the early 17th century, the warship type became obsolete by the invention by the Dunkirkers of thefrigate, then a smallgalleon type, although flyboats continued to be adapted in wartime for naval use until the 1670s. However, civilian Dutchvlieboten continued to be built and evolved during the 18th century into much largercromsters (kromstevens), then flat coastal cargo ships up to 1200 tons. At the same time, the term flyboat was used for a swift fishing vessel on the Atlantic. In the 19th century, the term was used in England for canal boats, resembling small Dutch cromsters.
What might be seen as a prototype of the flyboat was the fleet ofwar galleys that were developed byRichard the Lionheart in the 12th century.[5] They were similar to Viking longship design and were created for fast movement andriverine warfare, and were stationed fromPortsmouth toRouen toLes Andelys and other points along theSeine.[5]
An "express boat" service was started on theGlasgow, Paisley and Ardrossan Canal in 1830. One of its employees, William Houston, was guiding an empty horse-drawn boat when the horse took fright and bolted. Expecting the horse soon to tire, he hung on, but was amazed when the boatrose up onto its bow wave and shot off along the canal at high speed. Mr Houston was canny enough to realise the potential, and soon travellers were being hauled along the canals at high speed in an early example ofplaning.[6]
This canal—11 miles without locks into the centre of Glasgow—was an ideal situation for this venture. Once the boat was planing, the wash that damaged the canal banks largely disappeared, and by 1835, flat iron boats up to 65 feet made 323,290 passenger trips at 10 mph in a year. Services were established on the Forth and Clyde and on theShropshire Union Canal flyboats with single horse-pulled, 22-ton loads at 10 mph as late as 1847.[7][8] They were also called "swift boats" or "gig boats".[9]
Occurring a year after the opening of theLiverpool and Manchester Railway, this development sparked enormous interest in the canal world. Books were published by SirWilliam Armstrong Fairburn[10] and SirJohn Benjamin Macneill.[11] The latter records experiments on the Paddington Canal in London attended byThomas Telford andCharles Babbage. They hoped that steamboats running on the canals would be able to attain these high speeds, thus fighting off the threat of the railways.
A series of experiments conducted by the youngJohn Scott Russell, for which he eventually received the gold medal of theRoyal Society of Edinburgh and initiated research insolitons, demonstrated that the phenomenon could only be achieved in very shallow canals, and that steamboats needed very different conditions.[12]
Flyboats pulled by one or more horses continued to be used in Britain and Ireland[13] for a number of years, and even in America, butultimately the railway proved the winner.
High-speed running of this kind is no longer permitted on UK canals, with a blanket speed limit of four miles per hour in the modern, leisure-dominated era.[14]
A fly-boat is also anarrowboat which works all day and all night (24/7) on theEnglishcanal system without mooring.[15] All-male professional crews, chosen for their skill and experience, slept indifferent watches at night and day to keep progress as fast as possible.[16] They became common around 1834[17] and later attempted to emulate the railways by running to timetables so that deliveries could be assured.[16][18] Some of these boats were operated byrailway companies, as a method of providing services into rival railway territory.[16]
Thedesign of the hull lines was finer and more streamlined than other narrowboats, limiting cargo capacity but increasing top speed.[16] Being operated by the canal owners, these express services had priority over all other traffic when encountering congestion such as atlocks.[16] Time-sensitive cargoes such ascheese and other valuable produce paid a premium for the fast delivery,[16] which survived until the outbreak ofWorld War I.[16]
One 1906 fly-boat from theShropshire Union Canal,Saturn, survives in preservation today and is used for historical trips and education.[19]