Mayflower

Mayflower in Plymouth Harbor by William Halsall (1882)
Name:	Mayflower
Owner:	Christopher Jones (¼ of the ship)
Maiden voyage:	Before 1609
Out of service:	1622–1624
Fate:	most likely taken apart by Rotherhithe shipbreaker c. 1624.
General characteristics
Class and type:	Dutch cargo fluyt
Tonnage:	180 tons +
Length:	c. 80–90 ft (24–27.5 m) on deck, 100–110 ft (30–33.5 m) overall.
Decks:	Around 4
Capacity:	Unknown, but carried c. 135 people during the historical voyage to what they would call Plymouth Colony

The Mayflower was the ship that transported the first English Separatists, known today as the Pilgrims, from Plymouth to the New World in 1620. There were 102 passengers, and the crew is estimated to have been about 30, but the exact number is unknown. This voyage has become an iconic story in some of the earliest annals of American history, with its story of death and of survival in the harsh New England winter environment. The culmination of the voyage in the signing of the Mayflower Compact was an event which established a rudimentary form of democracy, with each member contributing to the welfare of the community. There was a second ship named Mayflower that made the London to Plymouth voyage several times.

The Pilgrim ship Mayflower was a typical English merchant ship of the early 17th century, square-rigged and beak-bowed with high, castle-like structures fore and aft that served to protect the ship's crew and the main deck from the elements. Her stern carried a 30-foot high, square aft-castle which made the ship extremely difficult to sail against the wind and unable to sail well against the North Atlantic's prevailing Westerlies, especially in the Fall and Winter of 1620. This was the direct cause of the voyage from England to America taking more than two months. The Mayflower's return trip to London in April–May 1621 took less than half that time, with the same strong winds following.

By 1620, the Mayflower was aging, nearing the end of the usual working life of an English merchant ship in that era, some 15 years. No dimensions of her hull can be stated exactly, since this was many years before such measurements were standardized. She probably measured about 100 feet (30 m) in length from the forward end at the beak of her prow to the tip of her stern superstructure aft. She was about 25 feet (7.6 m) at her widest point, with the bottom of her keel about 12 feet (3.6 m) below the waterline. William Bradford estimated that Mayflower had a cargo volume of 180 tons, but he was not a mariner. What is known on the basis of surviving records from that time is that she could certainly accommodate 180 casks of wine in her cargo hold. The casks were great barrels that each held hundreds of gallons of claret wine.

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Wikipedia