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This drawing fragment of a yawl boat under sail is the unfortunate result of a valuable documentary image of an important small craft type being trimmed to use its reverse side for another drawing. It is possible that the boat depicted could have had a short hull with a single-masted rig, or a longer hull with a two-masted rig. Both types were common in Lane’s time.
Yawl boats with sailing rigs were usually not used as ships’ boats, but used around harbors for delivering small goods (Boston Harbor, c.1850 (inv. 48) and "Starlight" in Harbor, c.1855 (inv. 249)), or used along shore for fishing (Gloucester Harbor, 1852 (inv. 38)). Use for pleasure sailing or as party boats for hire was common as well (View of Indian Bar Cove, Brooksville, Maine, 1850 (inv. 61), Ships Leaving Boston Harbor, 1847 (inv. 265)).
Lane the realist often took pains to show wear and tear on the vessels he depicted (less so in paintings where clients’ feelings had to be respected). The patches in this yawl boat’s sail bear witness to a work boat’s hard use.
– Erik Ronnberg
Reference:
Howard I. Chapelle, “American Small Sailing Craft” (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1951), pp. 139, 193, 222, 223.
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The yawl boat was a ninteenth-century development of earlier ships' boats built for naval and merchant use. Usually twenty feet long or less, they had round bottoms and square sterns; many had raking stem profiles. Yawl boats built for fishing tended to have greater beam than those built for vessels in the coastal trades. In the hand-line fisheries, where the crew fished from the schooner's rails, a single yawl boat was hung from the stern davits as a life boat or for use in port. Their possible use as lifeboats required greater breadth to provide room for the whole crew. In port, they carried crew, provisions, and gear between schooner and shore. (1)
Lane's most dramatic depictions of fishing schooners' yawl-boats are found in his paintings Gloucester Outer Harbor, from the Cut, 1850s (inv. 109) and /entry:311. Their hull forms follow closely that of Chapelle's lines drawing. (2) Similar examples appear in the foregrounds of Gloucester Harbor, 1852 (inv. 38), Ships in Ice off Ten Pound Island, Gloucester, 1850s (inv. 44), and The Fort and Ten Pound Island, Gloucester, Massachusetts, 1847 (inv. 271). A slightly smaller example is having its bottom seams payed with pitch in the foreground of Gloucester Harbor, 1847 (inv. 23). In Gloucester Inner Harbor, 1850 (inv. 240), a grounded yawl boat gives an excellent view of its seating arrangement, while fishing schooners in the left background have yawl boats hung from their stern davits, or floating astern.
One remarkable drawing, Untitled, n.d. (inv. 219) illustrates both the hull geometry of a yawl boat and Lane's uncanny accuracy in depicting hull form in perspective. No hull construction other than plank seams is shown, leaving pure hull form to be explored, leading in turn to unanswered questions concerning Lane's training to achieve such understanding of naval architecture.
– Erik Ronnberg
References:
1. Howard I. Chapelle, American Small Sailing Craft (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1951), 222–23.
2. Ibid., 223.
Oil on canvas
12 1/8 x 19 3/4 in.
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Bequest of Martha C. Karolik for the M.and M. Karolik Collection of American Paintings, 1815-1865 (48.447)
A schooner's yawl lies marooned in the ice-bound harbor in this detail.
Vessel Types
