popeye2sea

You are talking about two different things. One is the halyard. The other is the truss/sling. Allans photo above is for the truss/sling which will hold the yard in close to the mast. The halyard hoists the yard. Your instructions call for the halyard tye to be seized in a bight at the center of the yard. If you look at my build log for the soleil royale and scroll back a few pages (post #154 last few photos ) you will see a photo of how this should look. In that photo the only part that is missing is the seizing of the two parts together just above where the hitch crosses the standing part of the tye. On mine there are two tyes because it is a lower yard. Regards,

I will try to answer your questions, but you must realize that my answers are only generalities, you should do some research for what is appropriate for your particular ship/situation. 1. Building up your mast collars with thread wrappings glued around the mast should work. 2. Yes, the deadeyes for the backstays can be the same as the shrouds. 3. The backstay tackle should be at least double blocks. Treble is good too. 4. Wood hearts were sometimes used on the fore stays. 5. Ship riggers always take into account the loads that each part of the rig must bear. The height of the mast was not the important part. Rigging diameter was calculated based on the weight of the yards and sails and those numbers decrease as you go further aloft. 6. Laniards for shrouds should be half, or a bit less, than their respective shrouds. The same goes for stays. 7. In my opinion if you are going to set up your yards in the normal manner (not set flying) then you need to have halyards, lifts, braces, and parrels for all. I hope that helps. Regards,

I'm really liking this build. Such great character to all the buildings. Regards,

My guess is that it is rigged this way because the treble block at the mast head is fixed. As the gaff is lowered to the boom the peak halyard will have to extend, be payed out, along with it. At some point the upper block of the tackle on the port side will jamb up against the treble block. At this point the hauling end can be payed out to give more length to the peak halyard. The reverse should be true for raising the gaff. Haul away on the hauling end at the same time as the throat halyard while tending the tackle on the port side so that it does not jamb. When the gaff nears the top the upper tackle block on the port side should be nearer the top, which would give you the needed room to haul the gaff the remaining distance and top up the gaff as necessary to fully extend the sail. The tackle blocks would be getting closer together during this final haul. Again this is all a guess on my part, but that is what I would do if saw something like that. Of course, all of those complications could be avoided by simply rigging the peak halyard so that the standing end starts from a becket on the treble block (actually, I think you would only need a double block). Then the hauling end would be coming down singly on one side only. My two cents. Regards,

Another interesting point is that most of the languages on the blood chit are from the indonesia area. Regards,

The date on the legend for the drawing does not allow this to be that ship Genova. It is dated 1928. The plan looks to be from the Society of Electromechanical Foundries Liguria, which is the region where Genoa is located. The legend at the top shows that this is schematic diagram for the electric cable runs to some cabins and to the machinery spaces on the secondo ponte (second deck). Also looking at the legend for the side elevation drawing she had cabins for first, second, and third class passengers. Under dimensioni principali (principal dimensions) it looks like her length p/p was 87.6 m and her maximum beam was 12.2 m. The height of the covered deck is 6.5 m and that of the second deck is 4.1 m. Maximum draft(?) is 4.5 m. Looks like a passenger ship to me. Was he assigned as a radio operator on a convoy ship? Regards,

Mike, My question back to you is this, are those collars on the mast already there or are they something you are expected to add to the masts yourself? The reason for this is that those collars are what is going to support your rigging. For instance, the topgallant stay, backstay, and topgallant yard lift blocks should all be supported by that uppermost collar. There are other collars depicted on the masts that to me are superfluous and in fact would impede the raising and lowering of the yards. For example, that first one above the mast cap and the small one depicted just above the level of the topgallant yard. As for the level of the topsail yard lift blocks, since the topmast and topgallant mast are combined here as a single stick, it is up to you to decide the exact point to put the collar that represents the separation of the two. you could arbitrarily locate it midway between the cap and the topgallant mast head collar. Or you could determine where to place it based on how deep you want to make your topsail. The other way to determine all of the above would be to do some research into mast lengths for this type of schooner. Yes, the fore yard halyard or jeer blocks hanging at or just below the level of the trestle trees sounds right. I am assuming that when you mention a piton for the backstays you are referring to some sort of ringbolt or padeye?. Backstays should be set up with deadeyes or multiple sheave blocks at least. I would seize, or hook, a deadeye or block to the ring bolt and turn another in on the end of the backstay. Connect the two with a laniard or tackle fall. For the thickness of the stays, shrouds, and backstays, no you do not have to use the same diameter line. Generally, the stay will be the largest diameter because it runs single. Since there are multiple shrouds to spread the load they can be smaller than the stay. For any given mast, the shrouds and backstays are going to be about the same diameter. But, the diameters for the shrouds and backstays will get smaller as you go further aloft, i.e the topmast shrouds will be smaller than the lower shrouds and the topgallant shrouds will be smaller still. This is due to there being less load on those lines from the smaller spars and sails. I believe there are tables available in various sources that will give you the dimensions for all the rigging I hope this helps. Regards,

I can't imagine ever having the time to do such detailed carving. My SR has already been 40 years in the making. I would never finish it. Your work is incredible!! Regards,

Very interesting rigging diagram. In my opinion most of the lines for the fore yards are mislabelled, which would lead to much confusion. Here is what I see when I look at this rigging plan. On the fore yard (the lowest yard on the fore mast) the brace has been labelled as a flag halliard. Also line number 37 appears to be the topsail sheet tackle. If you follow it up from the deck you first come to the single block for the tackle then the sheet leads up through a block hanging under the yard( next to the number 36 on the diagram) passes along underneath the yard and up through a sheave at the yard arm and then up towards the block for line number 35, which appears to be the topsail clew. This all makes sense if you are rigging as shown in the diagram with no sail set and the yard in its lowered position. However, all of the above has been labelled the fore sheet, which makes no sense at all. The fore yard has lifts that lead up to blocks just under the cap, line number 36. But there is no halyard shown for this or any of the other yards. On the topsail yard( the middle one). This is again shown in its lowered position with no sail set. The brace is labelled as the upper topsail brace. It has lifts (line 34) leading up to blocks at the collar at the top mast head. It also has no halyard shown. However, the line number 33 which is the combined topgallant sheet and clew (similar to the topsail) is missing its lower lead once it passes through the sheave at the topsail yardarm. It is mislabelled as upper topsail sheet. On the topgallant yard (the uppermost yard) , line number 31, which is the topgallant lift is labelled topgallant sheet. Once again no halyard shown for this yard With regard to the halyards, I do not know if they were led through sheaves in the mast or blocks seized to the mast but they should be placed above the point where the yard is at maximum height but below the attachment point for the corresponding lifts. Also, in my opinion, the fore topgallant backstay (number 16,17) should attach at a point closer to the topgallant stay (thats the uppermost stay). They should be working in opposition to each other. Regards,

The halyard and lifts perform two separate functions. One does not duplicate the other. The halyards sole purpose is to hoist the yard. The lifts control the cant of the yard. The lift also supports the ends of the yard when in the lowered position. For such light yards as could be set flying the lifts are mostly unnecessary. The yard is kept in control with the braces and through the sail via the sheets. Also unnecessary for these light sails are the reef tackles and bowlines. These eliminations considerably reduce the complexity of hoisting the sails and yards from the deck. Regards,

Usually a yard that is set "flying": rigged from the deck: is hoisted aloft by its halyard. The halyard would be nippered along the length of the yard so the yard went up vertically and not foul the stays on the way up. There would be no lifts or parrels used at all. The braces were either attached to the yard on deck or attached by the top men when the yard reached the level of the top where they would also cast off the nippers to allow the yard to swing horizontal again. Regards,

In this case it probably means Significant Other. Regards

I meant no offense in my reply. But, what I did mean is that every square yard is hoisted by some form of halyard and every yard is controlled by braces. Unless you are talking about the very smallest of yards, like skysails, moonrakers or stunsails, they are going to have lifts and parrels also. As you move up the mast and the spars get lighter they require less power to move around, so for lower yards you may have the halyards doubled whereas they will be single for the upper yards. The parrels will get lighter as you move up the mast also, with the lower yards having perhaps three rows of trucks and the upper having two. The circumference of the line employed will reduce commensurately. If you have a particular ship in mind I could give you more specific answers. Regards,

Personally, I think it is a bit of a misnomer to say that the yards are fastened to the masts. They are not at all. They are hoisted by jeers/halyards: sometimes suspended by slings or lifts: and there movement is controlled by lifts and braces. The parrels hold them confined in towards the mast and allow for smoother hoisting. I think you will find that all square yards have a combination of the above in order to make them work. Regards, I suppose I should edit my response to say that in later years of steel ships some yards were indeed fastened to the mast with a fixed truss.

The term applies to both. Regards,

Yes, but I chose that in honor of the French ship I am working on. Regards

Thanks for the correction. I was basing my estimate on memory. Regards,

I tried to do some scale work for you. Here is what I come up with. If you start with Zu Mondfeld's table for chain thickness. I took for example a 100 ton vessel requires a chain thickness of 20mm. My guesstimate is that the length of the link will be about 5 times the thickness. That gives you a length of 100mm for each link which equals 3.875 inches. You mentioned your model is 3/16 : foot or 1:64. So a scale link is 0.06 in long That works out to about 16 or 17 links per inch (LPI).. Which will be the specification you will find most chain sold by I do not know the tonnage of your vessel but I am sure you can look that up. Someone correct me if my math is wrong. Regards

The hanging in chains part was when they hung the bodies up in port so that other pirates could see their fate when caught. Regards,

Here is a copy of a page out of Seamanship in the Age of Sail by John Harland.

The answer is a bit complicated but I hope you get the gist. You are referring mostly to the stuns'l boom which is run out by means of a jigger tackle that is hooked on one end to the ring on the inside end of the boom and on the other end is hooked to a convenient point near the outer end of the yard arm. The same tackle can be employed to haul the boom in by hooking it to a point near the mast. Foot ropes are not needed because everything is rigged prior to running out the boom. The booms are lashed in place whether hauled in or out. At the outer end of the stuns'l boom there are seized two jewel blocks. Through the lower one of these is rove the stuns'l halyard, by which the stuns'l is hoisted up to the end of the boom. The top of the stuns'l is bent on to a short spar called the stuns'l yard. The halyard is hitched to the center of the yard. At the bottom of the stuns'l there are the inner and outer sheets attached at the clews. The outer sheet reeves through a jewel block on the lower stuns'l boom. The inner sheet is sometimes taken directly inboard. At the inside top of the stuns'l a tack line is seized and runs inboard to extend the head of the stuns'l along the yard. The stuns'ls are set flying (no lifts or braces and lightly bound to their yards to be loosed after being hoisted aloft) Regards,

Unless I am mistaken, Mayflower was built in a period prior to the use of bobstays for the bowsprit so those holes could be for the fore sail tacks which were often taken through holes in the stem before leading aboard on the opposite side. Regards,

I see an interesting phrase that I do not know the meaning of. Can anyone shed some light on "half-seas over"? Perhaps it means mostly drunk?

In the first picture the lead for the spritsail yard brace seems at least probable. However in the second photo the lines leading from the spritsail yardarms to the fore and fore topmast yard arms do not make any sense. The same can be said for the lines from the main topsail yard to the fore yard and the main royal yard to the fore topsail yard. In fact I see many questionable leads throughout the whole rig. It looks like whomever rigged this model took the approach of lets throw as many lines on this as possible regardless of function. Regards,

The only reference I found in Falconers Marine Dictionary referred to sharp as in sharp bottomed as opposed to flat or full bottomed. Regards,