JerseyCity Frankie
-
Posts
1,338 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Gallery
Events
Everything posted by JerseyCity Frankie
-
You could have your cake and eat it too if you present the sails as furled, then you can include all the running rigging. The hauling yards will be in the lowered position. Furled sails are relatively easy to portray on the model since all you have to make look convincing is bundles of sailcloth in neatly folded packages- tissue paper or light fabric tamed with some diluted white glue.
-
There are some modern schooners with no ratlines, but the ones I know also have rod rigging, Bermuda riggs, or mast furling systems in which the sail rolls up INTO the mast, forsooth. FAR from traditional rigs. There is a schooner in New York harbor called America 2.0, which has carbonfiber masts and NO SHROUDS AT ALL, which is just weird to look at but she is the fastest boat in the harbor.
-
Here is a photo of the Fore on Pride of Baltimore II. You can see the foresail, which is loose footed, is brailed to the gaff and yard. http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3594/3629456516_d33b6d3575_z.jpg?zz=1 I just deleted a paragraph I had written about how to furl the sails aloft ( two guys standing on the crosstrees furl the sails into neat packages lashed abaft the masthead) when I did a google image search for Phantom and I see photos of Phantom models with NO RATLINES on the lower shrouds. I am EXTREMELY skeptical that this was ever a practice on a schooner with topsails or staysails, or any schooner for that matter. I'm willing to keep an open mind though, maybe it was possible? With no knowledge of the Phantom I have to hold my tongue I guess but I can't believe anyone would trade the dubious extra 1/20th of a knot speed advantage removing ratlines from the rig would give you against the certain maintenance and safety issues not having safe access to your rig would cause. I would love to learn more about this apparent impossibility.
-
Brion Toss has an excellent book on rigging for actual sail vessels and devotes several pages to ratlines and how to install them. He claims a spacing of 16" is "standard". His book is called The Complete Riggers Apprentice and covers modern and traditional rigging. I checked Darcy Lever but he doesn't appear to give a spacing. William Brady says "15" is a good distance between the ratlines" on page 70 of The Kedge-Anchor(1847). Nares Seamanship (1862) asks "haw far are the ratlines apart? Fifteen or Sixteen inches" on page 55. Harold Underhill, in Masting and Rigging of the Clipper Ship and Ocean Carrier(1946) gives "About 15" apart" on page 83. Finally Lees, in Masting and Rigging of English Ships of War (1979) says ratlines "were spaced 13" to 15" apart. Its funny. Before I went back and checked my references I would have said it was 16" to 18". Its also funny that none of the experts I sited were exactly specific, except Brion Toss who's book is more about present day real world rigging and is certainly not intended for the model builder. Its still a great well written book with something of interest for anyone who is at all nautical.
-
Something I always look at in a ship model is how the ratlines are tied. In actual practice on ships that used rope ratlines the clove hitch was used for all the inner shrouds but the ends of the ratlines were not tied or knotted to the shrouds, each ratline end terminated in an eye splice. These eye splices were lashed to the shrouds with small stuff. Its my opinion that using a knot for the termination of the ratline ends leaves too big of a lump- the eye splices and lashings were more of a smooth taper that did not protrude outboard or inboard of the shrouds at all. Its an unpopular opinion I know, but I believe you should avoid knots at the ends of the ratlines altogether- unless you are working to a very large scale and then you are cursed to tie hundreds of tiny lashings on all your shrouds. A solution that would avoid the bulge of the knots at the ends would be to sew the end of your model ratline through the shrouds at the ends and use a spot of glue to anchor them. Or perhaps unlay the ratline stuff at the end and glue the fanned out strands to the shrouds? As I say, this is an unpopular opinion and I have not seen the process I have just described put to use on any model under 1/4" scale, and rarely even then, but I assure you this is how it is done on actual ships.
Our Emblem ®
