History can be just amazing. It really can. I have always been interested in history, but that almost ended when I was introduced to history in school instead of stories of the events that took place, I was forced to memorizes dates, names and places. All of which was very, very boring and held no interest to me what so ever. Lucky for me, my father collected some paperback books on history and I would read them at home for fun and enjoyment.

Here is a great little story that took place during “The Great War”, also known as World War I. It involves a German airship and a beautiful Norwegian schooner. Now schooners are beautiful craft. And this one was a nice Gaff-Rigged beauty.

The schooner is a classic sailboat, by definition having at least two masts with the main master being longer than the foremast. Or in other words, the rear mast is taller than all the other masts.

A gaff rig employs a spar on the top of the sail and typically other sails can be set in conjunction with that mainsail with the gaff. Often, on the smaller, non tall ship, gaff rigs, there will be a small triangular sail that fits between the main and the mast like a puzzle piece – this is the topsail.

Now, many of the readership could probably care less about these terms. They want to know the latest news about APPs on their iPhone, not some kind of archaic explanation about how the sails are mounted on wooden boats. But, seriously people, these gaff-rigged schooners were beautiful.

Anyways…

Back during World War I, German has a fleet of lighter than air military craft called zeppelins. And they were used to conduct military operations at that time alongside the biplanes and tri-planes of that period.

Zeppelins were also very interesting.

A Zeppelin is a type of rigid airship named after the German Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin who pioneered rigid airship development at the beginning of the 20th century. 

Zeppelin's notions were first formulated in 1874 and developed in detail in 1893. They were patented in Germany in 1895 and in the United States in 1899. After the outstanding success of the Zeppelin design, the word zeppelin came to be commonly used to refer to all rigid airships. 

Zeppelins were first flown commercially in 1910 by Deutsche Luftschiffahrts-AG, the world's first airline in revenue service. By mid-1914, DELAG had carried over 10,000 fare-paying passengers on over 1,500 flights. During World War I, the German military made extensive use of Zeppelins as bombers and as scouts, killing over 500 people in bombing raids in Britain.

-Wikipedia

Anyways, I came across this pretty interesting bit of history in an old (now long gone) internet web page. Then rediscovered this event in an article on futility closet. I found it fascinating. I think that maybe you would as well.

Sky Pirates

The following is a reprint from futilitycloset titled “Sky Pirates”. It has been edited to fit this venue, and all credit to the authors.

The only instance during World War I of an airship capturing a merchant vessel occurred on April 23, 1917, when the German zeppelin L 23 descended on the civilian Norwegian schooner Royal off the Danish coast. At the airship’s approach the crew abandoned the Royal in boats, and the zeppelin made a water landing to capture them.

The ship turned out to be carrying pit-props, a contraband lading, and Kapitänleutnant Ludwig Bockholt saw her conducted into the Elbe escorted by two German destroyers. “The capture of the Royal — actually a schooner of only 688 tons — hardly affected the trade war against England,” writes historian Douglas H. Robinson, “but Bockholt’s flamboyant gesture appealed particularly to the men, and tales of the exploit were told from Tondern to Hage.”

(Douglas H. Robinson, The Zeppelin in Combat, 1962.)

Conclusion

Can you imagine what it must have been like? The skipper and crew are sailing “close hauled” and then the sky darkens and a huge zeppelin descends. There above you are a crew of angry Germans brandishing rifles and lowering ropes from above to land upon your decks. I cannot help but to think that the uniqueness of the moment had a greater impact than any rifle might have held otherwise.

It might make for a nice little scale model diorama, or a scene in some kind of adventure movie. As I keep trying to tell everyone, history need not be dull, stale, and boring. History is alive with stores of experiences and trials.

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