Too much rope

[captainbob]

I’m getting closer to figuring out where all the blocks, fittings and belaying pin need to be so the schooner can be rigged.  Most models I see use the same five or six rounds of line to make up the hanks of rope for each belaying pin but that is not correct.  Last night as I was studying the main throat and peak halyards, the engineer in me took over and I suddenly realized just how much rope is required.  If the distance between the lowered gaff and the raised gaff is 30 feet and you have, as Chapelle shows,  two double blocks at the crosstree and a double and single block on the gaff jaws, that’s a total of six lines going up and down.   At 30 feet each that’s 180 feet of rope.  When the sail is raised and the halyard is belayed the remaining line is made into a hank.  If the hank is 2 1/2 feet top to bottom or 5 feet around that is 36 turns of rope.  That is too much line for one pin but I have never seen on any of the pin diagrams that more than one pin was used.  So what did they do with all the excess rope? 

 

Bob

[jud]

Maybe it was coiled on deck with the end at the bottom, bound up with marlin and hung up out of the way until it was needed. Doubt that it was left on deck to tangle and rot.

jud

[Mirabell61]

I’m getting closer to figuring out where all the blocks, fittings and belaying pin need to be so the schooner can be rigged.  Most models I see use the same five or six rounds of line to make up the hanks of rope for each belaying pin but that is not correct.  Last night as I was studying the main throat and peak halyards, the engineer in me took over and I suddenly realized just how much rope is required.  If the distance between the lowered gaff and the raised gaff is 30 feet and you have, as Chapelle shows,  two double blocks at the crosstree and a double and single block on the gaff jaws, that’s a total of six lines going up and down.   At 30 feet each that’s 180 feet of rope.  When the sail is raised and the halyard is belayed the remaining line is made into a hank.  If the hank is 2 1/2 feet top to bottom or 5 feet around that is 36 turns of rope.  That is too much line for one pin but I have never seen on any of the pin diagrams that more than one pin was used.  So what did they do with all the excess rope? 

 

Bob

 

 

Hi Bob,

 

good question I`ve been asking myself the same thing when Tackling the doublesheaved blocks for running rigging with extreme Long runner Ends. probably the coils lay on deck under sail Operation and only get belayed in a tidy way when the call "clear up ship" is given. On a large sailing ship it is a must that every rope is belayed to the proper Location (find in the dark)

 

Nils

[TBlack]

Bob,

Back in the late 1950's I sailed on a 42 foot Alden schooner with double gaff rig. The masts probably we're not as tall as your project, but there was still a lot of line to deal with. Especially holding the coil in one hand while feeding the line to the coil with the other hand. Putting the coil on the pin is not really an issue, because the coil, itself, doesn't go on the pin. As you may know, when coiling the line you leave some line, say a couple of feet between the coil and the pin. When the line is fully coiled and held in your hand, with your other hand reach through the hole in the coil and grab the line running between the coil and the pin (those couple of feet); pull it through the hole and around the top of the coil, creating a loop. This loop goes over the pin, not the whole coil.

Tom

[captainbob]

Jud and Nils, thanks for joining in.

 

Tom, when sailing smaller boats I would hang coils on cleats in the same way you described but that seem like an awfully big coil to hang. Thanks for the answer.

 

SpyGlass, as it turns out the halyard was, as you say, “double tailed”.  But the other end went to a set of blocks and was called the halyard jig.  The halyard was used to lift the sail and the halyard jig was used to tighten by lifting that last little bit.

 

Bob

[TBlack]

Bob,

I finally decided to read what you have written, and I think I understand a little more about the issue. Two halyards, one for the throat and one for the peak. The peak halyard: fastened at the end of the gaff, leads up to a double block at the crosstrees, back to a single block about midway out on the gaff, back up to the other side of the double block and then down to belaying point. Throat halyard: double block at the jaws of the gaff and double block at the crosstrees.... the end of the halyard is attached to the upper block; down to one side of the lower block; up to one side of the upper block; down to the remaining side of the lower block; up to the remaining side of the upper block; down to belaying point. That makes 5 lines for that halyard, Does that help?

 

Also, from my experience, even though the peak halyard has less back and forth through blocks, it ends up being the longer because of the extra distance.

 

Tom

[JerseyCity Frankie]

I have sailed numerous times on the Lettie G Howard, although not at all recently. Her hailyards, like on all schooners, represent a large amount of line to deal with on deck when the sails are set and as you point out, you could never hang a coil of line that size on the low pinrails of a schooner. On Lettie and again on many schooners like her, the line is coiled on deck under the pin the line is belayed to.  Sometimes its just a large coil, other times its a Balentine coil:   http://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&hl=en&q=ballantine+coil&gbv=2&sa=X&as_q=&nfpr=&spell=1&ei=a0y_U8aYApOryATas4LoAQ&ved=0CBIQvwU

 

Other schooner coil the line on deck then hang this large coil above the pin on the shrouds, tied temporarily in place with a short pice of line with a toggle and an eye on its ends.

[captainbob]

Tom,

 

Thanks for your concern that I get this right.  What you say is true for some boats and I was going to rig the Lettie that way until I read Chapelle’s book.  He tells how boat rigging changed with size and year.  The attached drawings may explain what I am doing and why the question.  With the blocks shown there are six lines and the port side fall has a block attached as a becket.  This becomes part of the Jig shown in the other sketch.  The drawings were taken from two different parts of the book.  I will take the main throat halyard to the starboard side and the jig halyard to the port.  The fore sail being smaller and not as heavy will not need the jig and it will be gigged the way you describe.

 

Bob

 

 

[testazyk]

I've never considered this issue before in deciding whether to tie off, coil, etc. but definitely will in the future thanks to your question!

[Stockholm tar]

Having sailed on a couple of schooners when I was younger, I have to say I don't remember this problem. The throat and peak halliards were normally made fast to the pin , and the coils hung from them, as mentioned previously. Yes, the halliard was 'double ended', i.e. it was primarily belayed to one pin, but could be tightened that bit extra on the second fall.

 

As Spyglass said, I have never seen or heard of this Ballantine coil either. Interesting and thanks for the pics of it. Perhaps you only have it across the pond?

[JerseyCity Frankie]

More on the Ballentine coil: I remember a discussion about it on a different model ship website, there were questions about when this type of coil came into use- I remember points made about there not being any documentation for it. It could be it was ALWAYS in use but nobody ever thought it worth mentioning?  Anyway, the Ballentine coil does two things that a regular Round coil doesn't. First, it fits the same amount of line into a much smaller more compact shape on deck. This is a very attractive feature for smaller ships with limited deck space. The second thing it does is that it has a robust nature that resists having its inner workings disturbed when kicked or stepped on by sailors feet. An ordinary round coil is just a stack of bights or rope, a "stack of circles" and a wayward foot can knock the side of this stack in and the resulting overlapping of the "circles" or bights can cause snarls when the sails are dropped and the coil has to run. Having the Throat Hailyard jam while the Peak Hailyard is running can cause an awful mess of things so a coil that runs perfectly is essential. The Ballentine is made with three inner smaller radially symmetric coils laid down so that they overlap each other at the center of the coil- there is a small triangular core to the coil all the way down to the deck where the three smaller coils overlap. These inner three use up the otherwise wasted  interior volume  of  the coil and this makes the Ballentine smaller and denser than a regular Round Coil. To make the Ballentine  you first make a "dirty coil" of the entire line, which is just a quick rough round coil on deck which you form by starting from the point of the rope closest to the pin. You do this to make sure the line has all the twists out of it, the twists will come out of the bitter end which is free to rotate. Now that you have got your line to behave nice, you lay the Bitter End of the rope on deck at the point where you want the coil to live then you make a large bight with the line, this initial circle of rope establishes the diameter of the entire coil, then three smaller radially symmetrical bights that all have their outer edge resting on top of the edge of that first larger bight and their inner edges overlapping each other, then another large bight the exact same size as the first large bight and resting directly on top of it and the three smalls, followed by three smalls again, each the same size as and directly over the first three smalls, and so on until the line is expended. In this way, when the coil runs, the line comes off the top of each bight in an ordered measured sequence. The interlocking nature of where all the bights overlap each other within the structure of the coil are what make the coil feel solid and resist the accidental kick and it also ensures that the coil can run smoothly when it pays out. The "hole" down the center of the coil makes visual inspection of the coil very easy since if you can look down the center and see the deck- or feel it with your hand- you know the interlocking bights have not been disturbed and the coil will run.

[usedtosail]

Very interesting, Frankie. Thanks for the description.

[jud]

If I understand what you are saying, you make two separate coils to get the one Ballintine Coil that will run off of the top without kinking. Do this by putting a twist in the line while forming each turn of the first coil, that twist comes out of the line as the Balleintine Coil is formed starting at the bitter end on deck. Think I can see how that would work but will need to try it.

jud

[Landlubber Mike]

Thanks for sharing this.  Very interesting!  I might have to try this approach with my garden hose, which is always getting twisted and in knots 

[Stockholm tar]

Mike,

 

I can see it now – 'I'm just going out to ballantine the hose, dear.'

 

Frankie,

 

Thanks for that detailed description. I'll have to try it. Btw, any idea why it's called a Ballentine coil? My guess is it's from the man who invented it.

[popeye2sea]

Has anyone got any information on older vessels of halyard buckets being used to coil and hold the long lengths of halyard that you end up with when the yards are hoisted?

[allanyed]

Frank,

 

Never too old to learn I say.  I had never heard of the ballentine before, but once I saw it, I thought, ah, yes, just like the beer symbol! 

 

Allan