popeye2sea

Basically , any yard that has to traverse up and down its mast requires a parrel or truss parrel arrangement to facilitate the movement. When the main and fore yards were no longer lowered for reefing sails they no longer required parrels and a truss was substituted making them essentially fixed in position (other than bracing round). The crojack yard on the mizzens only function is to spread the foot of the mizzen top sail so it too does not require a parrel. Occasionally, an upper sail: royals, skysails, moonrakers, etc., was set 'flying'. Meaning it was hoisted aloft by its halyard from the deck without parrels, trusses or lifts. Regards,

In the History Buffs video it mentions that HMS Surprise was sent after USS Norfolk in the Pacific. This is incorrect. The ship that Surprise was sent after was the USS Essex, Captain David Porter commanding. If you ever want to read about that fascinating voyage check out the book by Robert Booth, Mad for Glory- A Heart of Darkness in the War of 1812. Regards,

pictures not visible

Not sure what you mean by reef line. Are you referring to reef points or a reef tackle? Also to my knowledge Constitution does not set a crossjack or mizzen course. The sole purpose of the crossjack yard is to spread the foot of the mizzen topsail. Regards,

Nice work on the carriages. I particularly like the way you did the carriage bolts. Much less time consuming and fiddly than the way I did mine. Wish I had thought of that. IMO the molded notches for the trunnions sit a bit too high and the pegs/pins for the attachment points for the cap squares are too large. The cap squares are the the parts that hold the gun barrel to the carriage. They fit over the trunnions. One end hinges on one of the pegs the other is fastened with a through pin. Regards,

This would also only be possible if the port was fitted with a port scuttle

Great information! Though I am not convinced about the gun port being closed after each shot. The port would have had to stay open to allow for the rammer, swab, and worm to be able to be inserted into the muzzle for loading the next round. Regards,

From what I have been able to find, looking in the Royal Navel Handbook of Field Training 1926, the MK II Carriage Land Service was used for the MK I Howitzer. However, that is a 6 inch diameter shell so they would not be fitting into those holes Regards

Modern signal flags are made with a ring spliced into the top of the tack line, which runs through the tabling on the hoist of the flag and extends beyond the bottom of the flag, and a snap hook spliced into the bottom of the line. The snap hook also has a hole with a sharpened edge that takes the marline that can be used to make up the flag for breaking after running it aloft in a rolled bundle. If you look closely in the WWII flag bags (still used today) you will see that the flags are held in racks of "fingers" that have slots to hold the rings and snap hooks of the flags vertically. Each set of fingers holds two of the same flag. The flags are arranged in the flag bag grouped together by type and alphanumerically (letters, numeral flags, numeral pennants, special pennants, substitutes). In operation you have a flag bag operator and a man on the halyard uphaul. The halyard uphaul has a snap hook spliced in the end. The flag bag operator snaps the hook on to the first flag of the hoist and the up haul is hauled pulling the ring out of the fingers. While the flag is coming out of the bag the flag bag operator is snapping the hook from the first flag onto the ring of the second flag. This continues until the hoist is complete. The last flags snap hook is then hooked into the halyard downhaul and the hoist is the raised to the required height (at the dip which is halfway up, or close up which is fully raised to the yard arm). Depending on the ship you can fit a half dozen flags or more in a single hoist. Additional halyards are employed until the signal is complete. Signals are hoisted from outboard in. A well trained signal crew can raise a hoist of flags in seconds from receiving the coded signal. Regards, a USN Signalman

Just a thought along the lines of mooring lines. You will find that ships, especially ones with high freeboard, place mooring line chocks on the hull closer to the water line. Sometimes they are set into the hull, other times they are mounted in a sort of blister. Perhaps? Henry

Probably. You see the red sails mostly on coasters and fishing vessels. I doubt it would be used too much for naval vessels. Regards,

Barking or Tan Barking of sails produces the color you see in the photo. It was done in order to give more longevity to the sails, but it was generally deemed to be too expensive to do on larger vessels with a lot of canvas. Regards,

Could it be that what we are looking at here is a misrepresentation of several lines leading down to the same area? I can picture the shrouds being set up with blocks instead of deadeyes, but could the rigging plan designer be confusing fixed runners from other lines, i.e. halyards? These would lead up inside the shrouds and communicate with tackles on the opposite rail. Just a thought. Regards,

Dropping an anchor from a ships boat is one thing, but there is no way the crew of a boat is going to be able to weigh or raise an anchor. After all, the job did require a windlass or capstan on the main vessel to accomplish. As far as dropping one anchor and then maneuvering to drop another goes, the ship, at the end of her anchor rode was certainly less mobile but not immobile. There was considerable ability to warp the ship to any location within its anchor circle. The more anchors you put out, however the less maneuverable the ship becomes. The submarine rescue ship that I served in did exactly this when we set out a "4-point moor" (four anchors, one from each bow and one from each quarter in an X pattern). By hauling on one or more of the anchor cables we could position the ship over the downed sub in order to lower a diving bell. Granted a ship under sail is not as maneuverable as one under power, but it can still be done. Regards,

My guess is that it is a fashion piece at the end of the top rail. It is not exactly clear on this drawing which is inboard and which is outboard. But there is a gangway and a couple of ladders there. Above one ladder at the end of the cap rail has plain stanchions and above the other ladder is a timber head. Is there a companion ladder on the outside of the hull that comes up to this point. It is also interesting how the perspective changes for the hammock cranes at this point.

On many locomotive boilers there was not a sight glass, but a set of three valves aligned vertically. If you open the top one and got water the boiler was full. If you got air or steam them you had to add water. You could roughly check the level of water by cracking open one or another valve. Regards,

The method of attaching the robands to the yard as well as the method of attaching them to the sail varied according to the time period and the size of the yard. Robands were generally fastened through grommets sewn into the head band just below the head rope two per sail cloth. Whichever method was employed to pass them around the yard or jack stay they were finished with a simple square knot atop the yard. Regards

Another name for the heel ropes used on the top mast and topgallant is a "top rope" Regards,

Ringtail boom in green at the bottom of the sail. Ringtail yard in yellow at the top. Regards

No clue what that line could be. It appears to have no function. The dashed line at the top could be indicating a leech line running before the sail (we appear to be looking at the aft side of the sail) Regards,

Like everything else aboard ship there are definite trends in the development of rigging. The steeve of the bowsprit initially was much greater and gradually became lower over time. At first the bowsprit was intended and used to rig bowlines to and so it needed to be very high to give a proper lead to those lines. It started to become more of a supporting structure for the fore mast, and so longer, when additional sections were added to the fore mast to increase sail area, but it still retained it's high angle. Next the spritsail top mast was added to increase head sail area and the bowsprit steeve started to come down. Additional lowering of the steeve of the bowsprit was done to increase the head sail area when stay sails and jib sails were added following the era of spritsail topsails. I believe that most of the changes that occurred were due to trial and error on the part of shipwrights and captains and only adopted generally when shown to give some advantage in real world use. For example, the spritsail topsail was eliminated because it proved to be too cumbersome and useless on most points of sail and the benefits derived from it were able to be provided by triangular stay sails and jibs. Regards

Yes

I remember building this kit back in the day. I have no idea what happened to the model. Regards,

The only thing I can definitely say about vacu-formed sails is that you should glue a bolt rope in all around. If you try to make holes in them to add robands, hanks, blocks, rigging, etc. they will rip and pull out. The bolt rope will allow you to fasten all these items to it without tearing your sail. If your feeling very ambitious you can fashion the bolt rope into the various cringles needed to attach sheets, tacks, bowlines, buntlines, etc.. You can even run a line across at the reef bands in order to attach reef points. Regards,

This lead for the sheets seems kind of odd to me. If you had sails set here the clews would be pulled off in the direction of the shrouds. Not very efficient. Regards,