Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2020 September 27

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September 27

What was the first ship too big for Baltimore Inner Harbor?

If you like flat fractal fjords that go from leagues wide to tiny sea level harbors far inland you'll love Baltimore. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 23:36, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

This page has all of the navigation maps for Baltimore, prepared by the United States Army Corps of Engineers: [1]. You can use the information in those maps to figure out the size of various ships that can fit in various parts of the Baltimore Harbor. It's also worth noting that the Inner Harbor is very different than it was in the past. Much of it was remade to be a pedestrian and tourist area some decades ago, and the management of the waterways is likely to be very different than when it was an active port. --Jayron32 18:47, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

Here is the pre-dredging figure: 17 feet prior to 1836. So any ship that drew 17 feet or more would not have fit in.

The problem would be finding a complete and relevant list of historical vessels to check against. For example, SMW, if you check the (very probably incomplete) List_of_large_sailing_vessels, of the five listed that were built before 1836, the earliest that would have been too big to fit would have been HMS Victory, 1765, with a 29-foot draught. Or if you check List of ancient ships, Syracusia, 240 BC, was 360 feet long so very likely drew over this limit (the article doesn’t give a draught, but other ships of this length on List of longest wooden ships are drawing around 20 feet). If you want a ship that actually also sailed to Baltimore, it complicates your search considerably. Wikipedia has an article on everything, but incredibly is missing List of biggest wooden ships that ever sailed to Baltimore :p. 70.67.193.176 (talk) 17:52, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

As hinted above, however, the Inner Harbor is fairly inland; Baltimore has several deepwater ports even today, see Port of Baltimore, notably further down the Patapsco River in the Dundalk area, where large container ships still go. The Inner Harbor is basically what was historically the farthest navigable point up the Patapsco, but today is much shallower and is basically a tourist area. Ports require maintenance (dredging, etc.) and when the Inner Harbor stopped being the main port (it used to be the main port 100 years ago) it has since ceased to be as navigable. While today it might be less than 20 feet deep, the numerous historical piers that used to offload many large ships are a testament to the fact that it didn't used to be as shallow. --Jayron32 18:04, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

By the way, the USS Constellation is currently IN the inner harbor, and has a 21 foot draft. --Jayron32 18:08, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

Maybe it'll be trapped there if something silts up enough lol. Without much practical effect as it's a moored museum now. I do not recall any branch of the Patapsco in the Inner Harbor actually, the main river is another part of the city but not as good for ships apparently or the colonial port would be there. There may have been a stream going in in the past but it would've been turned into permanent land for downtown purposes and storm drains by now. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 21:11, 30 September 2020 (UTC)