Ships
Historic ships to build layer by layer, as decorations on the water: a Viking longship, an East Indiaman, a fluyt, a States yacht, a botter and a skûtsje, an English galleon and ship of the line, a cog, a galley and a Chinese junk. The hull is worked out station by station from length, beam, depth, sheer and section shape. Click blocks you have placed to keep track of where you are. Vikings? Also have a look at the longhouse.
Hull
Decks and castles
Rig
Decoration
Materials
Side view from starboard, with the bow on the right. The blue dashed line is the waterline, the orange dashed line the sheer (the deck height from the formula), the orange line the selected station. The cross-section looks forward from the stern; the orange line is the calculated half-beam on every layer. Click in a view to choose a layer and a station.
Build breakdown
Table of offsets
This is how shipbuilders measure a hull: the keel, the deck and the half-beam at 11 places from stern to bow. Click a row for the cross-section.
| Station | Keel | Deck | ½ beam water | ½ beam deck |
|---|
Per layer, from top to bottom
Build the hull up from the keel. Only add masts and sails when the deck is finished.
| Layer | Most blocks | Blocks |
|---|
Build tips
- Lay the keel first, one row of blocks along the whole length, and then the cross-section at a few stations from the table. Fill in the rest of the hull between them.
- Build the ship in its place in the water: dig a basin around the hull and fill it with water later. That way you do not have to work under water.
- Use stairs and slabs along the edge of the hull if you want it smoother. The shape from this planner is the base.
- A wool sail may hang at an angle and bulge: that looks much more real than a flat surface.
- A ship with furled sails looks good in a harbour. With set and braced sails it looks like it is sailing.
- Hang lanterns on the stern and in the rigging. At night a lit ship at sea is a beautiful sight.
3D and layer-by-layer build plan
To Minecraft
Download the design as a schematic file and paste it into your world with WorldEdit, or rebuild it from a hologram in Litematica. Hull, deck and trim get the materials you choose on the left; sails, ports and rigging have a fixed block.
Shopping list
Add the amounts of this design to your list. There you see everything together, converted to stacks and shulker boxes.
How it is calculated
History and fun facts
From galley to cog
For centuries galleys sailed the Mediterranean: long, narrow ships with rows of rowers. In Venice they were built in the Arsenal, a huge shipyard.
In the north the Vikings sailed slim drakkars. Later the cities of the Hanseatic League built the cog: a wide, tall cargo ship with one mast and a square sail.
The age of sail
From the fifteenth century European ships crossed the oceans. A galleon had tall castles at the front and back, several masts and cannons on board. Francis Drake sailed around the world in the Golden Hind between 1577 and 1580.
A ship of the line was the largest warship, with two or three rows of gun ports. HMS Victory was the flagship of Admiral Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805.
Dutch ships
The Dutch East India Company, the VOC, was founded in 1602. Its large East Indiamen sailed to Asia and back, loaded with spices. The Batavia was wrecked off the coast of Western Australia in 1629.
The fluyt was designed in Hoorn around 1595. It had a large hold, a narrow deck and needed only a small crew. That made it cheap, and it sailed everywhere.
On inland waters flat bottomed boats sailed, such as the botter, used for fishing on the Zuiderzee, and the Frisian skûtsje for cargo. A state yacht was a fast and richly decorated ship for important people.
How was a ship built?
Building started with the keel, a long beam at the bottom. The frames were placed on it, like the ribs of a skeleton. Then the planks were fixed around them.
Shipbuilders measured the hull in a table: at fixed points the depth, the width and the height of the deck. The deck often rises towards the front and back. This is called the sheer. This tool calculates the hull in the same way.
The Chinese junk
Chinese junks had sails with wooden battens, which could be reefed quickly. The hull was divided into watertight compartments, so the ship stayed afloat if it got a hole.
In the early fifteenth century Admiral Zheng He sailed with large fleets of junks to India and East Africa.
Where can you still see them?
A replica of the Batavia has been built in Lelystad. HMS Victory lies in a dry dock in Portsmouth. In Stockholm you can see the Vasa, a warship that sank on its first voyage in 1628 and was raised almost complete.
Botters and skûtsjes still sail today. Every summer skûtsjes race on the Frisian lakes in an event called skûtsjesilen.
Did you know?
- The word yacht comes from Dutch. King Charles II of England received a yacht as a gift from the Dutch in 1660.
- HMS Victory was launched in 1765 and is still in service with the British Royal Navy.
- The replica of the Batavia was built in Lelystad between 1985 and 1995.
- The Bremen cog from 1380 was found in the river Weser in 1962.
- The Flying Dutchman is a legend about a ghost ship. Richard Wagner wrote an opera about it in 1843.
- In Minecraft you can find shipwrecks with chests and sometimes a treasure map.
About this tool
With this Minecraft ship planner you build historic ships layer by layer, as decoration on the water. You choose from eleven types: VOC East Indiaman, fluyt, state yacht, botter, skûtsje, galleon, ship of the line, Viking ship, cog, galley and Chinese junk. Examples include the Batavia, the Golden Hind, HMS Victory, a Hanseatic cog and the Flying Dutchman.
The hull is calculated frame by frame. You set the length, beam, depth, draught and sheer, and choose a hull section: round, V shaped, flat bottomed, tumblehome or pear shaped. You also choose the bow and the stern, plus lower decks, a forecastle and sterncastle, the railing and gun ports.
For the rigging you choose 1 to 4 masts, square sails, lateen sails, gaff sails or junk sails, and whether the sails are set, reefed or gone. You can turn the yards, add a bowsprit, jib and rigging, and decoration such as a golden lion, flags, shields, oars and lanterns.
The side view, top view, cross section and table of frames show how the hull runs. The layer plan, the 3D preview and the materials counter help you build it. Download the design as a .schem file for WorldEdit or Litematica.
Great for a harbour, a pirate bay or a fleet in Minecraft. For Viking ships with more detail, see the longhouse tool.
Frequently asked questions
How do I build a ship in Minecraft?
First place the keel, a row of blocks along the whole length. Then build the cross section at a few frames from the table and fill in the hull between them. Masts and sails come only when the deck is finished.
How do I build a ship in the water?
Dig a pit around where the hull will be and build the ship dry. Fill the pit with water afterwards. That way you do not have to work under water. The draught in the tool tells you how many layers are below the waterline.
Can a built ship sail in Minecraft?
No, in normal Minecraft a built ship stays where it is. It is decoration. To make it look as if it is sailing, set the sails and turn the yards.
How do I make sails that look real?
Use wool and let the sail bulge a little with the sail curve setting. A sail that is angled and curved looks much more real than a flat wall.
How do I make the hull smoother?
Use stairs and slabs along the edge of the hull. The shape from the planner is the base, and you smooth the edges with stairs.
Does this work in Bedrock?
The layer plan works in every version. The .schem file is for Java Edition with WorldEdit or Litematica.