SailingRabbit
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trippwj reacted to a post in a topic:
Question on the rigging of the Mainsail of a Brigantine
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Thanks a lot for this suggestion, I'm reading it (finished the second chapter) and it is a very interesting book. I'm not sure yet if it will provider the answers I was looking for in this particular case, but it is interesting non the less! Through other sources, I found that in Sweden they employed the brigantine rig as early as 1669; with a gaff, but without the gaff-boom. The Dutch had coastal vessels with a gaff and a gaff-boom as early as 1672, but the image shows a vessel with a single mast. Steel, Goddard, & Co. "The Art of Rigging" London (1818) depicts an image of an English two masted vessel from 1725 which shows the complete rig (including gaff sail with gaff-boom) of what we would now call a brigantine. So, I'm less worried about the accuracy of the models I saw. I will be in Paris in a couple of weeks, so I may as well try and visit the nautical museum there and see what more I can learn from contemporary models. /Rabbit
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trippwj reacted to a post in a topic:
Question on the rigging of the Mainsail of a Brigantine
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As far as I know, it snows did not have a boom. I'm aware that in modern terminology the trysail mast is named as the distictive feature, but in older sources (in Dutch in this case) both the lack of a boom and the sharpness of the bow are named. The sharpness of the bow is even metnioned as the source of the name: 'snavelschepen uit zweden' (= beak ships from sweden), where 'snavel' in later times slowly changed into 'snauw' which is transliterated in English into Snow. Where do you find the wonderfull images of the painting from? They are beautiful! I've a 'digital copy' of the book, but it has ISBN: 0-486-27960-X, so that may be the English focused one? I'll see what I can find (I more or less ignored it, because it predates the period I'm mostly intersted in). Thanks for all the help! Regards, Sailing Rabbit
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KevinR reacted to a post in a topic:
Question on the rigging of the Mainsail of a Brigantine
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That raises a very intersting point. If the gaff + boom combination was not yet in common use (on the continent) in 1740, the models I've been studying are either wrongly dated, repaired/changed at a later point in time or simply inaccurate. I delayed my reply here because I wanted to find an answer to the question, but so far I've not been able to get any confirmation (either way). It would mean that I will have to shift the brigantine I'm planning by 10 years or so? What I did figure out is what was more common with regard either (A) brailing it up or ( lowering the gaff to deck. It seems that lowering the gaff to deck became more common later in the 18th century and became a viable alternative because the gaff shrank in size. With a large gaff, brailing it up (option A) is more convenient and the method continued to be used. Regards, Sailing Rabbit
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SailingRabbit reacted to a post in a topic:
Question on the rigging of the Mainsail of a Brigantine
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SailingRabbit reacted to a post in a topic:
Question on the rigging of the Mainsail of a Brigantine
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Hello, This is my fist post on these forums, I hope I'm not going against the etiquette by not posting in an introduction topic first. I'm in the process of drawing building plans for a (scratch build) French brigantine from the 1740s. The problem I'm encountering is that, while a lot has been written on the rigging of ships, the (detailed) information on smaller vessels is scarce. While this makes the research all the more interesting, it also present me with questions now and then. I'm trying to figure out how the mainsail (the gaff sail) was rigged. More specifically, I'm trying to figure out if in the 1740s a gaff sail was more commonly lowered to the deck (like that of more modern schooners) or clewed up to the mast/gaff in the fashion that is common with spankers. I've seen several old painting which suggest that large gaff sails where indeed sometimes clewed up, but I've not been able to find out which was more common on a brigantine. An image to illustrate my qustion: My big question is: does somebody know which option was more common around 1740? or, in other words, is either option A or B more historically correct? Regards, Sailing Rabbit
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