popeye2sea

I do not take a stance on sails or no. On the one hand, a sailing ship is missing something when there are no sails. On the other hand, for a scale model, it is very difficult to get sails to look right or to scale. Furled sails can make a good compromise. I have done all my previous models with full sails. One even included all of the studding sails. It is a very impressive sight, but the sails do obscure much of the ship. My current build will have a combination of furled and set sails. She will be depicted as cleared for action with cannons run out on one side, close hauled under battle sail. Do whatever you feel works for you. It's your model. Just an side note. You have mentioned several times in your previous posts something about removing or detaching the clews from the sails. The clew of the sail is physically part of the sail. It can not be detached. I think I understand what you are referring to though is removing the rigging (sheets, clew garnet blocks, tacks) from the clew. Yes? Regards,

I don't mind answering your questions at all, Bill. Happy to help 1. The tack for the lower sails (courses) can either run single or double. For some ships the tack is just a single line coming from the sail and leading forward and down to the deck. For other ships, typically larger vessels where the course is a very large sail the tack runs double. Meaning there is a block at the clew of the sail. This is what is shown in your rigging plan. One part of the tack, called the standing part, will be seized to a ring bolt somewhere on the bulwarks of the ship. The other part, called the working or running part, after running through the block at the clew will belay on deck somewhere. 2. Depending on if the sail is to be set relatively soon or not would determine if the sheet, tack, and clew line were removed from the clew of the sail when furling. It is possible to furl the sail and leave the clews hanging out from the sail bundle a bit with all the rigging still attached. This would make it expedient to let fly and set sail at a moments notice. If the ship was, say, to be in harbor for a long period, the crew would harbor furl or completely un-bend the sail from the yard and remove all the associated rigging. At this point they could attach the sheet, clew line and tack together and suspend them from the clew line block like the diagrams, or they could un-reeve and strike below the sheet and tack and just haul the clew line block up to the yard. One additional point that may be instructive. When a lower course was to be bent on to it's yard, the clew lines, bunt lines, leech lines, etc. were overhauled and brought down till they reached the deck. All of the gear/lines were attached on deck, and then the sail was hoisted aloft to the yard by a sail tackle, it's bunt lines, leech lines, and reef tackles. 3. Yes, for the upper sails (topsail, topgallant, royal, etc.) there is no sheet block at the clew of the sail. The sheet is toggled or bent on to the clew of it's sail then in the case of the topgallants and royals it reeves down through a sheeve at the yard arm. For the topsail you have that sheet block that is sistered to the lift block. In all cases the sheet then passes along underneath the yard and through a leading block near the mast and then down towards the deck. Now, that is not to say that there was no tackle involved. Particularly for larger sails like topsails there was frequently a tackle employed between that leading block and the deck. Regards,

There is a lot to unpack from your question, but I will give it a try. First I need to clarify what we are talking about. This is where proper nomenclature becomes important for explaining what is going on. The loop at the lower corner of a square sail is called the clew. One line that controls this corner is also called the clew, but to disambiguate we refer to this as the clew line. The other lines that control the clew you already know. They are the sheet and the tack. In your diagram above, for the main yard, the blocks that we are talking about are the ones in the triangle arrangement (D, F, and F) hanging from the mainsail clew line (R). In my figure 194 above, the sail corner with its bolt rope is shown. The bolt rope comes down vertically. The eye for the clew of the sail extends towards the lower right and the bolt rope continues around to exit horizontally towards the left. To affix the clew line block to the corner of the sail (the clew) the strop of the clew line block is thrust through the eye of the clew and then brought back over the eye so that the clew block strop now loops around the sail corner eye securing the clew line block to the corner of the sail. Then the two legs of the sheet block strop are thrust through the clew eye from opposite directions, locking the sheet block in place. Finally, the stopper knot on the end of the tack line is thrust through the clew eye, which locks the whole together. So, to answer part of your question ( I hope), the blocks at the corner of the sail are readily removeable from sail when the sail is furled or un-bent from the yard. Now, on to the upper yards. Starting again on the main yard. Out towards the end of the yard are two blocks sistered together (D and F). The upper one is for the main yard lift and the lower one is for the topsail sheet (V). If you follow that topsail sheet line up it terminates at a clew line block (D). This arrangement would look identical to the one described for the lower yard. The clew line block will have a strop which, when a sail is set passes through and around the clew of the topsail. The end of the sheet would be attached to the clew of the topsail with a knot called a sheet bend (I know, so original with their naming of things, right?). The only difference between the topsail and the mainsail being that the upper sails do not require tacks. When the sail is un-bent the sheet is simply bent on to the strop of the clew line block. Last point. For the upper yards there is no sheet block. The sheet is lead through a sheave let in to the end of the lower yard. You can see it, vaguely, when you look at the end of the main topmast yard in your rigging diagram. The main topgallant sail sheet is passing through a slot just inboard of the main topmast yard lift block (D). I know the above is a lot of strange words. But, learning the proper names for things is part of the path towards understanding how ships work. Regards,

Correct. Here are a few photos to help. In this instance the tack line is single. Here are the three fitted on to the clew of the sail. The clew uppermost and the sheet to the lower left. Detail on how the clew block is seized onto the sail clew. One way to rig if there is no sail. Regards,

Those works , unfortunately, do not go into very great detail about iron forge type of work that would be involved in making metal grommets or hooks or how one gets intertwined with the other. Getting the strop on after that is the part that is done on board or in the rigging loft and is covered in those books. Regards,

I think there would be two ways to do this, depending on if you were going to be using a metal grommet or not. If using a metal grommet the hooks eye would have to have been formed around the grommet and then the strop of the block would be spliced to fit around the grommet and the block with the seizing then put on between the grommet and the block. If no grommet was to be employed then the strop would be put through the eye of the hook before being spliced together. Then the seizing is put on in order to form the becket (eye). When blocks were stropped with hooks the usual method was to use a grommet in the becket to reduce friction on the rope by the hook. Regards,

Yes, For all lower sails, the blocks for the sheet, tack, and clew lines would be attached to the lower corner of the sail when the sail is set. For your knowledge base, the clew is the line that comes down from the yard and is used to haul the corner of the sail up when furling. The sheet is the line that leads aft from the lower corner of the sail and the tack is the line that leads forward from the corner. One method of rigging these three lines on a model when there is no sail bent is to put the strops of the blocks through each other and then hoist them up part way to the yard with the clew. This is not necessarily what would have been done on an actual ship, but it has become something of a conventional usage on models because it does depict what the lines are used for. Regards,

I think, in general, a ship is a ship in any country or Navy. There is a very definite evolution in rigging practices throughout the age of sail, but for the most part within any given era most countries were doing the same things. If a change worked for one it was pretty much appropriated by all. The functions of any particular spar or line were the same for all ships. That is why a trained sailor could be employed anywhere, for any country. There were minor differences in the peculiar shape of things or the ratios of sizes. In fact, there were differences from one naval architect, or shipwright, to another. You would even find differences from one sailing master to the next on the same ship. Or one captain to the next. That was the process of innovation. If what you tried worked well enough it would be incorporated into the next vessel. Regards,

You never know what your going to get for rigging plans for these smaller vessels. It is possible that they used blocks vs. dead eyes. Jolie Brise is a pilot cutter, yes? Regards,

Two things I see here. First, you are reeving your blocks upside down. The throat of the blocks, or hole that the line goes through should be at the furthest extremes from each other. You have them upside down in their strops. Fixing this should help your blocks stay straighter. Second, for the forward most shroud, simply reeve the tackle so that the working end comes out of the sheave on the same side as the belaying pin. That will eliminate the crossing effect. Hope that helps. Regards,

I was under the impression that the tack was a fixed length and was not led through a pulley but seized to either the stay or the jib boom at the point where they met. Once you haul the sail up it will only go as high as the tack allows and there should be no need to then have to haul down on the tack. Regards,

If you would like a pure reference volume, nothing beats Falconer's Dictionary of the Marine, 1815 edition. Regards,

Well, first heat your iron in a large crucible to above 2800 degrees until melted..... 😉 Regards

Fair enough. But in my case I am not so much trying to make a point, rather I am proving to myself that I can accomplish the goal of doing it the real way. Besides, as far as adding years to the build goes, when you already have 40 years and counting on a build, what's a few more? 😲 Regards,

1:100

I am one of those crazy few who try and make each rope fastening the way it really is. I tie everything from whippings and seizings to doubled wall and crown knots for my tacks and matthew walker knots for my laniards. I do all the appropriate bends and hitches and splices where needed. I even do rose lashings. But beware, all the above takes a special kind of crazy to do at scale😉 Regards,

I know this may not translate well without a diagram, but if you notice when tying a clove hitch one end exits above or below the starting end depending on which way you cross the bight. If you alternate the way you tie each clove hitch such that between each shroud the lead of the clove hitches are top to top or bottom to bottom you my be able to avoid the tendency of forming that sine wave shape between the shrouds. Regards,

There is really no such thing as the "right" guns for Constitution. They were changed out fairly frequently over her career. The ships guns were not considered to be permanent property of the ship, so to speak. They were loaded aboard for the duration of a cruise and were often off loaded when the ship came back from the cruise when the ship would undergo maintenance. The cannons would then be employed wherever the Navy needed them ashore or on other vessels. When the ship first made ready for sea, 22 July 1798, she had an armament of thirty, iron, 24-pounders from Furnace Hope, in Pennsylvania, sixteen 18-pounders borrowed from Fort Independence on Castle Island, and fourteen 12-pounders of unknown origin (probably Furnace Hope). Constitution must have had a few brass 24's at some point because a letter from the Secretary of the Navy in 1807 ordered the transfer of two brass 24-pounders to USS Wasp. 32-pounder carronades first replaced long guns on the spar deck after the Tripoli campaign in 1804 where they were mounted in the waist. Four of the carronades were transferred to USS Hornet in 1807 and the remaining four were mounted in pairs on the quarter deck and forecastle. The 1812 spar deck battery of carronades consisted of sixteen 32-pounders on the quarterdeck and six 32-pounders on the forecastle. Constitution's armament changed many times until 1900 when she had none at all. In 1834 she had twenty two 24 pounder long guns, twenty 32-pounder carronades and two Congreve 24 pounders. In 1842 the ship received four 68-pounder Paixhans guns mounted in pairs in midship ports on the gun deck, replacing four 24-pounders. In 1847 she mounted twenty six 36-pounder long guns and four 8-inch Paixhans guns on the gun deck and twenty 32 pounder long guns on the spar deck. For the 1907 restoration she had 24 pounder long guns throughout. Because of limited funding and no precise research the design of these guns was based on data found in an eighteeth century book on ordinance, Theodore Roosevelt's The Naval War of 1812, and Louis de Toussard's American Artillerists Companion. In 1927 the spar deck long guns were again replaced with carronades. This restoration also saw the entire battery of guns re-cast for the ship. While far better representations than the 1907 castings they were still not completely accurate to the War of 1812. These are the current weapons on board and they all carry the King George III monogram. Since then, Navy Department files have been discovered which contain a drawing detailing the actual guns the ship carried early on. Regards,

The first method shown is called a gasket coil and would not be employed on a belaying pin where the coil needs to be able to be cast loose quickly. The gasket coil, as the name implies, is used to coil up and secure the sail gaskets when not in use. The coil is designed to allow the coil to be suspended from it's standing part. The belaying coil (I don't know the name) hangs the coil from the pin or cleat and can be readily cast off. Regards,

It has been my understanding that another name for right hand laid rope is hawser laid. Three hawser laid ropes twisted up left handed into cable laid rope. So named for it's usual usage for anchor cable. Shroud laid rope is four strand or three strand around a central heart. So named for its common use as shrouds. Regards,

RC Anderson, The Rigging of Ships in the Days of the Spritsail Topmast 1600-1720: page 94 - 95

It is not just the starting point, or the reeving direction that is important. When using cable laid (left hand lay) rope the upper deadeye is turned in by passing the end under the deadeye from right to left as one looks at it from outboard. Then the end crosses behind the standing part and comes up on the right side of it. With right hand laid rope the end goes from left to right under the deadeye and comes up on the left side of the standing part. The end result is that with cable laid rope the ends lie forward on the starboard side and aft on the port. With right hand laid rope the opposite is the case. The laniard always starts from the hole furthest from the end of the shroud. Regards,

USCG Roger B. Taney

Reseting the steeve of the bow sprit should not be a problem. The complication is getting the doubling for the spritsail topmast back to vertical afterwards. Regards,

The standing end of the top rope would be seized to an eyebolt under the cap, opposite the block. You are also correct that the top rope would only be rigged when raising or lowering the top mast. BTW, in the second photo, the second image makes no sense at all. If you just consider the first and third images you have it right. Regards,