ballast rock question

[barnacle]

I need an aprox. estimate of amount of ballast rock carried by average galleon either cu ft or weight and also what a privateer might carry . lots of variables here but just a guesstimate will help me out. also has anyone seen ballast rock(granite) the size of a c b s block . the pile i'm looking at has regular river rock but also large rocks with n o sharp edges but far from round or oval. thanks barnacle

 

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[billinstuart]

Ever been to Savannah? The riverfront area was built/paved with "Ballaststones" from England. They would sail over empty with ballast, dump the ballast, and load up with cotton.

I'm not 100% convinced all the treasure fleet carried alot of ballast. If they were heavily loaded with treasure, they didn't need much ballast. Frankly, I believe some of the missing ships of the 1715 fleet, the small, light ships, may have had little if any ballast. We may never find ballast piles simply because they didn't carry much ballast.

 

[ivan salis]

amount of ballast varied by the load carried voyage to voyage -- to mantain a upright condition in rolling waves a certain amount of weight had to be carried (ballast)-- the amount depended upon several factors --size (tonnage--- how long and wide she was --length to width ratio) and the type of ship ( how they were built warship or cargo design)-- if paying cargo could be had it was used for wieght -- if not stone was often used--- it could and would vary in size and make up depending upon where it was loaded at . --so in effect there is no "standard load"