"At the poop they have
two rudders, one on each side to steer with." E por poupa dos ballos, tem
2 lemes, hum en cada lado pera o governo. (Malacca, l'Inde merid. et le
Cathay, Bruxelles, 1882, 4to, f. 26.) - H. C.]
The midship rudder seems to have been the more usual in the western seas,
and the double quarter-rudders in the Mediterranean. The former are
sometimes styled Navarresques and the latter Latins. Yet early seals
of some of the Cinque Ports show vessels with the double rudder; one of
which (that of Winchelsea) is given in the cut.
In the Mediterranean the latter was still in occasional use late in the
16th century. Captain Pantero Pantera in his book, L'Armata Navale
(Rome, 1614, p. 44), says that the Galeasses, or great galleys, had the
helm alla Navarresca, but also a great oar on each side of it to assist
in turning the ship. And I observe that the great galeasses which precede
the Christian line of battle at Lepanto, in one of the frescoes by Vasari
in the Royal Hall leading to the Sistine Chapel, have the quarter-rudder
very distinctly.
The Chinese appear occasionally to employ it, as seems to be indicated in
a woodcut of a vessel of war which I have traced from a Chinese book in
the National Library at Paris. (See above, p. 37.) [For the Chinese words
for rudder, see p. 126 of J. Edkins' article on Chinese Names for Boats
and Boat Gear, Jour.
