Talk:Cog (ship)

Early discussion

In expanding this article I kept the external link. It has other valuable links and good pictures. But, I disagree with some of the refernced site's dates, especially for development of the cog. Lou I 20:11, 24 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I reduced the Seal of Lübeck b/c it can be easily seen at a smaller size and added a pic of "Lisa von Lübeck" to illustrate what a complete cog looks like. Naufana : ^talk 02:01, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Just an FYI links 7 and 9 are broken.

Jargon

This article makes no sense to the layman. Full of technical terms that have no explanation. Entirely useless.

I added a {{cleanup-jargon}} because the text, while certainly interesting, is quite difficult to understand without a great deal of prior knowledge of fairly archaic ship-building terms. Some examples from the first paragraph:

• flush-laid
• strakes
• posts
• full lapstrake planking
• garboards
• rabbet
• plank hoods

Peter ^Isotalo 18:38, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, almost unreadable —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.237.136.207 (talk • contribs)

Those are not archaic terms. I have linked some of them to existing articles. Tag removed. Meggar 01:00, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Jargon, Cogs, and Stupid Corrections

This is ridicules! First of all, these terms are not “archaic ship-building terms�? but common nautical terminology – if you do not want to use them, do not correct this article! Second of all, if you want to describe ship’s structure you need to use precise technical terminology because otherwise you only confuse people. Finally, what an idiot added Peter von Danzig, which was a carvel-built vessel (completely different shipbuilding philosophy!!!), to an article about a cog? If you do not understand the difference between bottom-based cog, nordic lapstrake, and carvel-built shipbuilding techniques and methods switch to something you have at least a slight idea of. --Bojan7 20:12, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

The Peter von Danzing was erroneously labelled as a cog at List of world's largest wooden ships, until someone corrected it about two weeks ago. It could certainly stand to be removed from this article. --Grimhelm 08:02, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Lisa von Lübeck picture

On the Lisa von Lübeck page, it lists her as being a caravel, not a cog. Does anyone know which one is correct? --Tabun1015 02:01, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

I removed the picture. It is listed as a caravel in both the English and German articles, plus the design and method of construction, as seen in the photograph, are inconsistent with that of a cog.--Tabun1015 05:18, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Request for clarification

Can someone please revise this article so that it does not say "from 12th century and earlier". This puts no bounds on when it first appeared, or why the 12th century is mentioned. If things are not clear, it could say, "from 12th century (and perhaps earlier)". Or maybe "clearly apparent in the 12th century, and probably earlier". Please free to delete this section after clarifying. Thanks! Another cog in the wheel - RedKnight7 07:12, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Fixed. It says in the history section that they appeared in the mid-10th century. --Grimhelm 11:15, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Fewer than what?

From the lead paragraph: "Even though this type of rigging prohibited sailing into the wind, it could be handled by a smaller crew, which reduced operational costs." A smaller crew than what? and how many, in either case? J S Ayer (talk) 01:54, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Additionally, real life sailing tests with reconstructions of other square rigged ship types (mainly the older viking style ships) have shown that they're quite capable of sailing into the wind even though not as close as modern rigged ships, so the paragraph may be highly misleading. Does anyone have info specifically for the cog on sailing into the wind? It's still quite possibly true, but then it's caused by the combination of square rigging and hull shape rather than the square rigging per se HenrikOlsen (talk) 22:12, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Seal of Lübeck

I removed the image of the Seal of Lübeck . It doesn't show a cog but a Knarr.

• No bow or stern post
• No castel
• Side-mounted rudder instead of stern mounted rudder.
• Plus note the figurative heads at bow and stern.

--82.113.119.20 (talk) 14:15, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Note that this is indeed a cog except that it's of an older design that shares some characteristics with Scandinavian vessels. See Ellmers in Gardiner (1994), page 37. Peter ^Isotalo 16:04, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

If you read the text of the source you mention, it states that the citizens of Lübeck used a (then) archaic ship design for the illustration used in their city seal. So to conclude that this is an image of a cog is directly contradicted by the source. ThoughtIdRetired _TIR 08:11, 15 July 2025 (UTC)

See also sources such as Crumlin‐pedersen, O. (2000). To be or not to be a cog: the Bremen Cog in perspective. International Journal of Nautical Archaeology, 29(2), 230–246. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1095-9270.2000.tb01454.x ThoughtIdRetired _TIR 08:20, 15 July 2025 (UTC)

biggest cog?

Its mentioned that the biggest cogs were over 1000 tons, is there a source for that assertion? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:569:7019:0:F47F:C541:AD04:1296 (talk) 03:48, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

I ask this because all of the sources on this page asserting that 1000 ton cogs exist dont claim that — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:569:7019:0:F47F:C541:AD04:1296 (talk) 04:05, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

The biggest medieval ship was the royal buss at about 80 metric tonnes of capacity. The first 1000-tonne sailing carrier had its maiden voyage in August 2024 ( https://maritime-executive.com/article/high-tech-sailing-ship-starts-maiden-voyage-with-1-000-tonnes-of-cargo ) so claiming that for any pre-modern ship is wild lol ChekovsMoustache (talk) 19:51, 14 July 2025 (UTC)

Ambiguation with mechanical cog

I don’t have the skills myself but I say we get a disambiguation link with the mechanical cogs attached to this page so the people who use Siri and google will get to actually hear what they’re asking for. Anyone feel like taking up the charge and doing this? Destrypants (talk) 20:42, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

Please update this with newer sources!

Hello all, this entry is missing an essential article about cog ships and their development history, as well as how they actually sailed. This would affect multiple sections so I didn't want to just plunge into doing it without giving previous contributors a chance.

There are lots of copyright-free examples with their article that could illustrate this entry nicely too.

https://www.medievalists.net/files/11031401.pdf ChekovsMoustache (talk) 19:25, 14 July 2025 (UTC)

I agree that the article is problematical. However, is your new source a peer-reviewed journal? I note that it ceased to be published a few years ago. The article could do with basing more of its content on authoritative sources, such as Crumlin‐pedersen, O. (2000). To be or not to be a cog: the Bremen Cog in perspective. International Journal of Nautical Archaeology, 29(2), 230–246. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1095-9270.2000.tb01454.x (already cited in the article, but could be used more.) ThoughtIdRetired _TIR 08:25, 15 July 2025 (UTC)

Hello again - the Journal changed names to Studies a few years ago. The scholarly group behind it is the "Association Villard de Honnecourt for the Interdisciplinary Study of Medieval Technology, Science and Art" since 1984. More infos: https://brill.com/display/serial/MTSA ChekovsMoustache (talk) 12:14, 15 July 2025 (UTC)

Also the article by Cushing is the foundational text in English for the 21st century. But since that work there are many new cog finds with interesting historical implications by Jan Hill in Denmark, André van Holk in the Netherlands, and Daniel Zwick in Germany. Poland has a lot of new ship finds if anyone can help with Polish here too. The dendrochronology of the southeastern Baltic has come a long way too, and the Maritime Museum of Estonia has done important new studies on the many finds in that country. Linguists like Karin Thier have made important advances in tracing technology using vocabulary.

Sadly this article is terrible - it needs updates and to cite sources, as there are loads of unfounded and outdated assertions here, making learning difficult for the secondary school students and the general reader. ChekovsMoustache (talk) 19:15, 3 February 2026 (UTC)