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Gundalow

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A model of the USS Philadelphia (1776), sunk in the Battle of Valcour Island

A gundalow is a type of flat-bottom cargo vessel once common in Maine and New Hampshire rivers. Up to 70 feet (21.34 m) long, they characteristically employed tidal currents for propulsion, shipping a single lateen sail to harness favorable winds.

Cannon-sporting gunboat style gundalows were built and deployed on Lake Champlain by both British and American forces during the American Revolutionary War, meeting in combat at the Battle of Valcour Island.

A replica gundalow, the Piscataqua, is maintained by a New Hampshire non-profit and employed extensively in grade school educational programs and raising environmental awareness among neighboring New Hampshire and Maine seacoast communities.[1]

References

  • Cross-Grained & Wiley Waters: A Guide to the Piscataqua Maritime Region, Jeffrey W. Bolster, Editor; Peter Randall Publisher, Portsmouth, 2001
  • Ports of Piscataqua; soundings in the maritime history of the Portsmouth, N.H., Customs District from the days of Queen Elizabeth and the planting of Strawberry Banke to the times of Abraham Lincoln and the waning of the American clipper, William G. Saltonstall, New York, Russell & Russell [1968, c1941]
  • The Piscataqua Gundalow: Workhorse for a Tidal Basin Empire, Richard E. Winslow, III, Portsmouth, NH, Peter Randall, Publisher (Portsmouth Marine Society) 2002
  • The Way of the Ship: America’s Maritime History Reenvisioned, 1600-2000, Alex Roland, W. Jeffrey Bolster, Alexander Keyssar, Authors, Wiley, NY, 2007