popeye2sea

To be honest, it seems rather strange to me to have a gaff rigged sail here in the first place.  A better option, especially with a square fore sail set, would be a stay sail.

Regards,

I suspect that the sail would be set outside the stays and not between them.  It also looks like the sail is too big.  I doubt it would extend beyond the main mast.  The lee sheet would be slack over the stays.  That is how the sail gets to the other side on the opposite tack.  The sail would be brailed up and the clew hauled over the stay using the sheet.

Regards,

That is an amazingly life-like painting!!

Regards,

Henry

22 hours ago, shipmodel said:

Hi Tom - 

 

One small point - the name of those extended sails is 'studding sail', not 'stunning sail'.  The confusion is easy, since the sailors' contraction was spoken and written as "stun'sl".  I don't know how the word slid down the alphabet, but it may have had something to do with all those English dialects and accents mixing in the early Royal Navy.

 

Dan

The word is actually a multiple contraction similar to Fo'c'sle for forecastle.  It's really spelled stu'n's'l.

Regards,

In many cases the weather deck was not intended to be watertight. Some ships, if they had enough free board, even did away with gunport lids.

Regards,

Here are my thoughts on this subject, and I may be wrong, but I think a little common sense may apply.

The reason to have the knight on a lower deck was to have it on the same level as the capstan.

The hole for the halliard should be just large enough or slightly larger than will fit the six parts of the tackle fall plus the top rope so that they run fair to the rams head block on the tye.

The hole should be above the knight otherwise you will have much abrasion and loss of purchase due to friction.

The halliard would be free of any service to allow it to pass readily through the sheeves on the knight and rams head blocks.

Regards,

I would hate to be using the latrine when the quarter gallery sheared off. 

The one with the screw elevation is a true carronade. It is also mounted differently to it's slide with a pin that runs underneath the barrel.  The other type of cannon is called a gunnade and is more like a cross between a carronade and a traditional cannon in that it has trunnions and a quoin but is mounted on a slide.

Also the carronade carriage is fixed in place via a pintle inside the gun port.

The gunnades were made for the ship in error during her 1920's refit.  Currently the ship has only two carronades.

Oops, didn't read on in the posts.  Already explained!!

Regards,

In your last picture it looks to me like the companionway will interfere with the working of the capstan.

Regards, 

In my experience a companionway and a ladderway are synonymous. A companionway will always have a ladder.  The skylight is a separate thing entirely; it only provides light to the lower deck.  There is no place for your `companions` to make their `way`below deck.  Zu Mondfeld is wrong.

Regards,

She's a beauty.  Quite an accomplishment.  

I see. Interesting that the one 3 beams aft of the beam ends is wish bone shaped also.

Regards,

Not familiar with that term.  What is a beam arm?

Regards,

I think that you may have to make custom ones any way.  By changing the width of the bow you have significantly increased the length of the span between the side of the beakhead bulkhead and the stem piece at the figurehead.

Regards,

Just glad to see they are working out.  Can't wait to see what's next.

It fills the need of having a large knot put into the end of two married up lines that can be thrust through the clew.  Large enough to not pull out on its own, but still able to be removed from the sail when necessary.

Here is a two part answer. 

The lead of the spritsail sheet varied by country and by date.  Some, at the middle of the century had very short or no pendants.  The standing part of the sheet is made fast somewhere near the fore shrouds and the hauling part goes inboard abaft the fore rigging.  Towards the end of the century the English, the Danish, and the Dutch took to using very long pendants that came well aft, sometimes abaft the fore channel. The pendant passed trough a bullseye or thimble either affixed to the fore channel or hanging from the fore most shroud.  This would answer your last point as to how to keep the sheet from dragging in the water.

As you can see in your diagram the spritsail sheet block is unusual.  It has a rim or collar around the top and the strop is fitted in a particular way.  The ends of the strop are put through holes in the rim so that the block lies in the bight and the two ends go to the clew of the sail forming the pendant.  The two legs of the strop were twisted together into a sort of cable laid arrangement and the ends were formed into a spritsail sheet knot which goes through the clew of the sail.  The spritsail sheet knot is a special form of wall and crown knot made from all six strands of the two legs of the strop instead of the usual three strand wall and crown.

Probably more info than you needed, but interesting anyway.

Regards,

I concur with Dave and Frank.  I do notice that all of the lines in that plan are depicted as permanently fixed to the rails.  In fact the hauling ends would not be seized to the rails but belayed at some point, either to belaying pins or some other fixture.  That may be what generated your confusion as to them being fixed and immovable.

Regards,

I believe the Royal Caroline has a lateen mizzen. So the the cross jack yard is only used to spread the bottom of the mizzen topsail and there would not be a sail set from this yard. It does not need to move much.  A lateen mizzen is not meant to swing widely like a gaff rigged fore and aft sail.  It is only meant to increase or decrease the turning effort of the aft rigging; helping to keep the ship on or off the wind.

It would help to know what you mean by "bracers" also.

Regards,

Looks like the additional demand has driven the price up to $26.49 each.

Most of the references I have read give the max diameter as being at or near the deck level.  The mast tapers above and below this point.  If that is so then the diameter would not include the fish plates or other filler pieces.

Regards,

The standing (non pulling) end of the boom topping lift is seized to the becket (bottom loop of the strop) of its block.  The standing end of the gaff throat halliard is seized to its becket in the same way.  It is unclear in your rigging diagram, but the standing end of the gaff peak halliard could be seized around the mast head just below its blocks.

Regards,

You should start by picking up a book on the subject of rigging period ships.  There are many and most are quite good at explaining the basics of rigging.

Here are some generalities:

The motive power of the ship is via sails which are laced to poles called yards that are held aloft on poles called masts.  In order to add more sails additional sections of masts are erected above one another (topmast, topgallant, royal). You need some way of holding the masts in their near vertical orientation and that is accomplished via the standing rigging.   At or near the top of each mast section you will find a cluster of standing rigging that will be working in opposition to each other.  The stays lead forward and hold the mast from shifting aft while the shrouds and backstays lead aft and to the side to hold the mast from shifting forward and sideways.

At the bow of the ship is the bowsprit, which works the same way as a mast.  It has additional sections called the jib boom and flying jib boom.  The rigging for these mimics the masts with bobstays keeping the bowsprit from shifting upwards and shrouds preventing sideways movement.

The rigging of the yards and sails is called the running rigging. 

The position of the yards and their orientation to the wind are controlled by the following lines:

Halyard:  raises or lowers the yard into position for setting sail or reefing sail

Jeers:  same function as halyards but in different time period.

Lifts:  controls the vertical orientation of the extreme ends of the yard (yard arms)and helps support them.

Braces:  controls the horizontal orientation of the yards for trimming the sails for any given wind direction.

For fore and aft sails the yards are known as the boom at the bottom of the sail and the gaff at the top of the sail.  These spars have rigging that works the same way with topping lifts and braces (vangs).

The sails are controlled by the following lines:

Sheet:  hauls the lower corner of a sail down or aft. In the case of a fore and aft sail it performs the same function on the lower aft corner of the sail.

Tack:  confines the lower corner of a sail down and forward.  In fore and aft sails it works on the lower fore corner of the sail.  Note that the upper square sails do not require a tack because the sheet functions to confine the lower corner of the sail to the yard below.

Clew line:  hauls the lower corner of the sail up towards the middle of the yard for furling.

Bunt line:  hauls the lower edge of the sail up to the yard for furling

Leech line:  hauls the sides of the sail up to the yard for furling.

Fore and aft sails will also have a halyard to extend the upper corner of the sail along the stay or gaff

I hope this helps a bit.

Please remember that this is only a general description and your ship may have variations specific to it.

Regards,

The same was true of the lower yards. Although in the case of the yards there were additional reasons due to the large stresses placed on them.  Again, the upper yards (topgallants and royals) were able to be single pieces due to their carrying less of a load and small enough to be made of a single tree.

For the upper masts, being generally smaller, trees were still available of a suitable size to make a pole mast (not sectioned).  Much of the forests in Europe had been over harvested to the point that trees of the size necessary to make the large lower masts were no longer available so shipwrights resorted to what were called 'made masts' which were constructed from four to eight lengths of wood held together by iron hoops or rope wooldings.

Regards,