Boarding Axe

Origins

Axes had been carried at sea since the Viking longship, and the Viking Battle Axe and Dane Axe were naval weapons as much as land ones. The boarding axe of the age of sail developed in the seventeenth century as ships grew larger and their rigging more complex. A warship in battle needed tools for cutting away shot-down spars, sails and ropes before they fouled the guns or dragged the ship over, and it needed weapons for the moment when two ships came alongside and one crew tried to board the other. The boarding axe did both jobs, and it became part of the standard equipment of every navy, stored in racks around the masts and on the quarterdeck.

Design & Construction

A boarding axe has a short handle, usually about 18 to 24 inches long, and a head with a broad cutting blade on one side and a long, often slightly curved spike on the other. The British Royal Navy's pattern had a square-ended blade and a long, straight spike, with iron langets running down the handle to stop it from being cut through. The United States Navy adopted its own pattern in the late eighteenth century. Many axes were marked with the broad arrow of British government property or the name of the ship. Some had a belt hook so that a man could carry his axe while climbing.

Combat Use

When ships were locked together, the boarding party went over with cutlasses, pikes, pistols and axes, and the axemen were among the first. They cut through the boarding nets the defenders had rigged, drove the spikes into the enemy's hull to climb up its tumblehome, and fought on deck alongside the men armed with the Boarding Cutlass and Sea Service Pistol. In the chaos of a boarding action, amid the smoke of the 32-Pounder Naval Long Guns and the Swivel Guns, the axe's heavy blade was a dreadful weapon. Pirate crews of the Golden Age Pirates period used the same weapons in their attacks on merchant ships, often carrying axes, grenades and the Blunderbuss for the moment they came over the side. Axes were also used to fight fires and, after the battle, for repairs.

Legacy

The boarding axe went out of use with the end of the sailing warship and of boarding actions in the mid-nineteenth century, although some navies kept it as a fire axe for years afterward. Surviving examples with clear naval markings, especially British broad-arrow or early American pieces, are highly sought after by collectors, and they are often confused with ordinary hatchets or with the fire axes of later ships. The boarding axe's close cousin on land was the frontier Tomahawk, and some American sailors called their boarding axes by the same name. See also Naval Weapons.