Rubbish or Riches? Ship’s ballast, commodities, and global mobility at sea in the 19th century

Show notes

This episode delves into the history of ship’s ballast, extra weight which ships carried whenever they travelled without cargo. Today, ballast had become a metaphor, but until the early 20th century, ballast was a very concrete and crucial resource, millions of tonnes of sand and stones which ships transported around the world. When stowed in their hold, this ballast stabilized ships and was an essential component of global mobility at sea.

Following ballast, we discover a rich social history of workers and sailors in port cities and on ships who produced, loaded, and clandestinely disposed of ballast. Getting ballast into a ship took effort and cost money, yet it was unloaded or even thrown overboard as soon as new cargo could be found. In theory, the key quality of ballast was its commercial worthlessness and for this reason, ships travelling “in ballast” often received preferential treatment. But following the history of this supposedly worthless non-commodity, we find numerous attempts to use substitute various trade goods for ballast, and even attempts to turn ballast into a profitable commodity.

This episode explores ballast as part of the fundamental infrastructure that enabled maritime globalization in the 19th century. The need to carry ballast shaped life both in port and at sea, and various attempts to transform and overcome ballast did not change its fundamental importance. The story of ballast is one about the persistence of seemingly primitive and obsolete technologies during a century of technological change and acceleration. At the same time, both the presence and the absence of ballast could have profound disruptive effects on the global connections it enabled. Ships were delayed in port or did not arrive on time. Dumped ballast obstructed waterways while substitutes and alternatives were not always reliable.

The history of ballast is more than a story of unremarkable piles of sand and rocks, but rather part of the story of how the world was connected at sea.

The global dis:connect podcast is hosted by the Käte Hamburger Research Centre global dis:connect at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München and funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research.

Episode idea and research: Paul Blickle Written by: Paul Blickle Podcast idea: Roland Wenzlhuemer & David Grillenberger (global dis:connect) Podcast concept: Roland Wenzlhuemer (global dis:connect) & Daniel Fürg (48forward) Production: The 48forward Studios