Commercial sailing ships kept hauling cargo until around 1960
Steam did not sweep sail off the oceans overnight. Early steamers burned so much fuel that they mostly towed sailing ships or carried mail on short, pricey routes. Only in the 1880s did triple-expansion engines make steam competitive on almost every trade, and the last working cargo sailers did not retire until about 1960.
Long before Europe's Age of Discovery, Asian shipbuilders had designs Europeans lacked. Han dynasty scholars wrote of big Austronesian trading ships with up to four sails, which Chinese Buddhist pilgrims booked for passage to southern India and Sri Lanka. From the 10th century, Song dynasty yards built seagoing junks of teak with watertight compartments and rudders mounted on the centreline. Indian Ocean dhows that carried trade between India and Africa from 1200 to 1500 grew from 100 to 400 tonnes, their teak planks stitched together with coconut fibre instead of nails.
Size could be exaggerated. Legend gives the largest vessel of the Ming admiral Zheng He a length of 400 feet and a beam of 150, but modern research suggests the real ship was probably no longer than about 70 metres.
Europe caught up with the carrack, a sturdy carvel-built hull big enough to carry cargo and supplies for very long voyages, square-rigged at the front and main masts. Such ships could point only about 70 degrees into the wind and tacked clumsily, which made rocky coasts in a storm deadly. Still, carracks carried Vasco da Gama round Africa to India and Magellan's expedition round the world. Navigation improved with the compass, a Chinese invention used for sailing by the 11th century, which reached Europe by the late 12th or early 13th century.
Guns changed warships. Once cannon could be reloaded fast enough to fire again in the same fight, ships grew too heavy for oars and relied on sail. By the mid-17th century warships carried guns on three decks and fought in a line of battle, firing broadsides at close range, while smaller frigates escorted convoys and scouted. In the early 19th century the word clipper came into use for the few sailing ships built above all for speed.
Source: Sailing ship
