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Flying Fish... sucuring studsail yards


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Im building the Flying Fish Clipper and seem to be having trouble finding information on how the yards for studsails were secured and operated under sail.

 

I have the yards through the hoops atop the each yard arm. They slide in n out very nicely but how was it controled by the men? I can just lash it in place but it wont look very authentic will it?

 

Thanks

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I believe that the spars you refer to are the studdingsail booms. The purpose of these was to support the clews, the lower ends, of the stuns'ls above and also to suspend the yard of the stuns'l below.  These booms were housed just off the line of the yard by boom irons with circular straps somewhat larger than the maximum boom diameter.  The inner boom irons could be opened to allow the inner end to be hauled upward to allow men on the yard to bend or reef sail.  The stuns'l yards that were suspended from these were kept below, or sometimes in the tops,  and mounted only when required with the sails pre-bent.  In the retracted position the booms were usually lashed to one of the jackstay stanchions with some rope threaded through a hole in the inboard end.  There was probably no one standard way to secure these, so tying them off in various ways would be acceptable. Bands on the boom irons were somewhat larger than the maximum diameter of the boom and sometimes fitted with a roller - usually on the outer iron that allowed the boom to slide out more easily.  A temporary tackle was generally used to haul these out.

 

Harold Underhill's Masting and Rigging of the Clipper Ship and Ocean Carrier is probably the best reference available on clipper ship rigging - out of print but can be found online.

 

Ed

 

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Thank you very much. It just doesn't sound right they only get lashed. The rocking and the booms sliding free??>.... counds like a lot of fingers were lost on that job. I expected them to be on some sort of pulley system for safety. BUT Im also forgetting they werent union workers. :10_1_10:

 

again thanks. Im a bit more at ease with it now.

 

 

BTW I bought that book just around when it went out of printing.

Edited by paul ron
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