Big and small sailing ships

Striving for superlatives is elementary fun. Superlatives are asked in the field of sailing ships too. The point is to get attention, to find and get sailing guests on board, to get the daily press writing articles about a sailing ship at the different maritime events and in addition to boast at the regulars' tables. Superlatives are good for a status symbol when you think on the owners of sailing yachts.

But the core of the question for superlatives is also astonishment: What we have all over the world! Large sailing ships, small sailing ships, the oldest windjammers, the fastest tall ships or even the largest national flag on the stern of the ship. Every sailing ship has a superlative to offer, because there are many criteria for comparing sailing ships with one another. Not all superlatives are so clearly visible. Some are hidden and so I would like to invite you to look for them in this collection of data about sailing ships.

What is the name of the biggest sailing ship?

If you take the length over all as criterion, the mega yacht "SY A" is considered the largest sailing ship in the world. But purists immediately claim with their doubt whether a sailing ship that is not only moved by wind power can even be considered in this category.

The  HMS Warrior, a fully-rigged ship, is one of the largest sailing ships recorded in this data collection. It was built in 1860 and was the first ocean-going Ironclad with an iron hull. But in addition to the sails, it has a powerful steam engine too. The "HMS Warrior" was intended to underpin the supremacy over the world's seas by the British Royal Navy. The sailing and steamship is still preserved today and is moored as a museum ship in Portsmouth.

The  Royal Clipper is another sailing ship in this data collection, which holds the record in the categories length of ship, sailing area and number of masts. She is a cruise ship under sails and with the 5 masts she remembers to the legendary "Preußen".

Her length but also the age of the 4-masted bark  Moshulu are possibly record-breaking. Formerly built for the transport of saltpeter, coal and grain and used as a storage ship in ports for a long time, it is now a museum in Philadelphia and houses a restaurant.

The big Russian sail training ships are an attraction at every sailing event, the 4-masted bark  Sedov and the former Flying P-Liner  Kruzenshtern. They are still sailing today. More contemporary witnesses of the era when the sailing ships of the Hamburg shipping company F. Laeisz, famous for their speed and safety, were among the queens of the seas, are the  Passat, the  Peking and the  Pommern, which are now preserved as museum ships.

What is the name of the smallest sailing ship?

The smallest sailboats recorded in this data collection are the "Flotte Lotte", the "Kronprinzessin Ute" and the "Bonsai".