19th Century Sailing Routes

[genjen]

Hello,

Please can anyone with knowledge of nautical trading routes in the 1880s point me in the direction of an online map to show me the route which a sailing ship might have taken from London to Guyana. I am plainly not using the correct Google search terminology! 

Also, just to show my total ignorance of sailing vessels, would that be a clipper, a schooner, or something entirely different?

Thanks, Jen

[ShaunJ]

Which ship and when exactly?

[RJ_Paton]

I don't think it would have been too far off this relatively modern route
http://ports.com/sea-route/port-of-felixstowe,united-kingdom/port-of-georgetown,guyana/#/?a=0&b=0&c=Port%20of%20Felixstowe,%20United%20Kingdom&d=Port%20of%20Georgetown,%20Guyana

Re the ship types Clippers were smaller ships but much faster than their counterparts, Schooners were two masted ships as were Ketch & Brigantine and by the 1880's there were possibly steam ships or steam/sail hybrids operating.

[Andy J2022]

I don't think it would have been too far off this relatively modern route
http://ports.com/sea-route/port-of-felixstowe,united-kingdom/port-of-georgetown,guyana/#/?a=0&b=0&c=Port%20of%20Felixstowe,%20United%20Kingdom&d=Port%20of%20Georgetown,%20Guyana

If we are talking about sailing ships, I would have to disagree with the above statement. Obviously such ships relied on the wind and the winds at the equator (ie where the horizontal yellow line appears on the modern map you linked to) tend to blow in a Westerly direction (the so-called trade winds), but from about 30 degrees North of the equator in the horse latitudes, the wind blows towards to the South West, and so it makes sense to sail diagonally North East to South West from about the Canary Islands off the coast of Morocco and follow a great circle route to Guyana. https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/tradewinds.html

[RJ_Paton]

A map constructed from 1745 to 1850 ships logs shows ships did use a similar route to the more modern one with the exception of the last leg where instead of heading west directly from the coast of Africa they appeared to use two routes
1. same start as modern map but just off the north east coast of Africa they headed in a more direct south westerly route.
2. Across to North America and then sailing southwards along the coast

https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/apr/13/shipping-routes-history-map

[Top-of-the-hill]

   When I was researching some 19th century sailors a year or two ago, I gleaned a lot of information about the routes taken from newspaper reports. Some even report that such and such a ship was spoken to at sea, and the exact date and position was given. I was working on the mid 19th C, when the reports were several months out of date, which could be confusing, but Jen is in the 1880s, when I believe telegraphs were in operation?
   Just a different slant on things!

[Andy J2022]

Thanks for the link Falkyrn. The first map of the British routes pretty much bears out what I was saying.

[genjen]

Thank you for your replies, it's all very helpful.
As to the name of the ship and the exact date, I only wish I knew the answer. I am working from a diary, written by one of my partner's ancestors and there is very little in the way of clues.
I know that he was at home in London in 1881. My guess is that this voyage was taken shortly after that as, if his diary is accurate,  he and his wife had only one child and by the middle of the decade there were definitely more!
The only clues as to which ship it was are that shortly before the trip to Demerara, the second mate, a Mr Parkins, was fatally injured when he fell from the main yard and then, as the ship was somewhere off Deal, they collided with a vessel named Rona/Rosa ( unclear writing) and had to go into Dover for repairs.
There are no other names, of people, or of vessels. He gives the day and the month but not the year!
I have no idea why this man went to sea. None of his census entries give any indication of him being a sailor. He did live in striking distance of the East India Docks, so maybe it was an obvious thing to happen at some point in his working life.
My reason for looking into the route and what he might have seen is that I am a singer in the world of folk and traditional music and I thought it might be fun to try to write a song around this short diary, so a fact or two and a bit of historical accuracy would be useful.