Dr PR

Anyone want a complete Nikon F3 system with a selection of focus screens and a 6X vertical viewfinder that replaces the pentaprism? The two rail bellows attachment allows the lens to be shifted side to side and rotated a bit to accomplish the effects Charles mentions - to a degree. I have used it with Nikon digital bodies, but everything is totally manual. Photo stacking does work, and I don't find it to be much more trouble than editing ordinary photos. This picture was made with 12 stacked photos. The model is 22.5 inches long from the tip of the bowsprit to the ends of the boat booms on the stern, and it is in focus the entire distance! The pictures were made with a Nikon Micro Nikkor 105 mm f2.8 macro lens at f25 and 1 second. However, all is not perfect. I did the stacking in Photoshop and it did get confused at the lower left. Looking at the plank edges you can see where it picked the wrong images and the edges are out of focus. Still, a 22.5 inch depth of field would be very hard to get any other way. Another way to get an extended depth of field is to use a long focal length lens and photograph the object from a long distance with a small diaphragm opening (large f-stop number). You will need a lot of light and a lot of room to set up the shot.

Allan, I used rub-ons that had a noticeable thickness - probably vinyl. I am not familiar with the dry-transfer lettering you mention. Something else to learn about! The technique I described - using the rub-on letters as stencils - has one special virtue. You can use the technique on contoured/textured surfaces and the resulting painted letters conform perfectly with the pattern in the surface. It is difficult to get decals to do this, even with the decal setting solutions, and I can't imagine getting a rub-on to conform to a textured surface. By textured surface I mean vent louvers, corrugated panels, etc. Rub-on work fine with smooth surfaces.

If you have painted something with a thin glossy finish and you want semi-gloss you can just rub it with 0000 steel wool. Just be sure the finish is dry/hard before you use the steel wool. After rubbing with steel wool rub with a clean cloth to remove any fragments of the steel wool. The white stuff used on hull bottoms was something like white lead and tallow. It sealed the wood and inhibited marine growth. It wasn't as good as copper, but was a lot cheaper and easier/faster to apply. Again it was a matter of cost.

I have used rub-on letters in a rather unorthodox way to get neat permanent lettering on models (rub-ons may peel off after a few years). Rub-ons are fairly thick at model scales. This is OK if you are modeling wooden or metal letters/numbers that were attached to the ship. But they are unrealistically thick for painted letters/numbers, so I use them as stencils for painted letters. 1. Paint the surface the color of the letters. Let it dry thoroughly. 2. Rub the desired lettering on the painted surface. 3. Paint over the letters with the desired surface color. Airbrush is best for this. Let it dry. 4. Carefully peel off the rub-on letters/numbers. I originally did this in desperation because I needed some lettering in a font and color that was not produced in decals or rub-ons. But the correct font was available in rub-ons in different colors. The result was perfect letters in the correct font and color, they had no raised edges like decals or rub-ons, and they were permanent.

The friction of the wheels does absorb some of the energy, but as you can see from this video, the gun does recoil until the breech line stops it. In this video there is no breech line and the gun rolls quite a distance.

Hi Paul, It's been a while since I visited your build. You asked a couple of questions, and it looks like you solved the problems nicely. Like you, I have planked directly on bulkheads. They often are not all the correct height. I use a strip of planking to find the low ones and add a bit of wood to the top. When they are all about the correct height I use a long sanding block to make final corrections. Then the planks go down in a smooth deck. I envy you having the real thing to visit while you build your model.

Greetings from Corvallis!

John Leather's The Gaff Rig Handbook has information and drawings for fore and aft rigs. Some of the information applies to 19th century ships, but there is a lot of information about 20th-21st century vessels, including racing yachts. It has quite a bit of the history of gaff rigs, but not very many actual sail plans and rigging diagrams.

Mike, Colors varied by nationality and by the cost of pigments. In the early 1800s in America there apparently weren't many choices. Howard Chapelle says in The Baltimore Clipper (Edward W. Sweetman Company, New York, 1968, page 170): "The painting of the hull seems to have varied widely as yellow, black, green and blue were used, with white or black bands. On privateers, the inside of the bulwarks were often painted red or brown, but the decks were usually bright [unfinished]. Yellow and black were popular colors, however, for pilot boats in 1812-1814. They had yellow sides with black mouldings, wales, or trim. Very few were painted white, as it made them too prominent at a distance, which was considered naturally, a handicap during the war." And that is the entirety of the references that I have found specific to the colors of Baltimore schooners! If it was a navy ship it would be painted with standard navy color for the nationalitys. However, in the late 1700s and early 1800s American ships were often painted in British colors, although the US Navy had no official colors until sometime in the 1820s or 1830s. Some captains or ship owners used unorthodox color schemes. I have read that deck houses and other deck furniture were often the same color as the inside of the bulwarks, at least up to about 1840 (red is popular with ship modelers). Then white deck furniture became popular. If you have ever been on a pitching deck in a rough sea on a dark rainy night you will appreciate the virtue of white or light colored deck furniture! I have also read that less expensive ships were painted with the least expensive paints available, and Baltimore schooners were usually cheaply built.

I have been following this thread with interest. Most of the Baltimore schooners in Chapelle's The Baltimore Clipper do have one or two backstays rigged high on the fore and main top masts and leading down to the channels (aft of the shrouds) where they were rigged with deadeyes (often smaller than the deadeyes for the shrouds) or just eyes with lanyards to hold them taut. Because these ships had extreme rake to the masts the channels were not far aft of the masts and the back stays were almost vertical. This allowed the fore boom (if any) and main boom to swing fairly wide, and the gaffs could swing far out to spread the sails for catching following winds. However, in some cases the main mast had a backstay that ran far aft to the bulwark. These had a tackle with one block anchored to the deck (or hooked to an eyebolt in the deck) and the other on the stay. The running part was attached on one end to a block and the free end was secured to a cleat or belaying pin on the bulwark. When running with the wind the windward backstay was pulled taut to take the strain and the leeward was slacked (and even unhooked) to allow the main sail to swing wide to catch the wind. **** The mainstays were rigged in several ways. The simplest was just a stay that ran from the main top to the fore top above the fore gaff. That way the stay did not interfere with the gaff. The forestays took the load on the main mast. Some plans show fixed dual mainstays (or mainstay and preventer) that ran from the main top to knightheads on deck forward (larger ships) or aft (smaller ships) of the fore mast. In these cases the fore gaff sail (or foresail) did not have a boom, but had port and starboard sheets to the clew (lower aft corner of the sail). When tacking the foresail was hauled over the mainstays with the sheets. They often had a brail to haul the clew to the fore top to help pull it over the mainstays. A third and apparently common method of rigging the mainstays was as mentioned above. Two stays ran from the main top forward to the port and starboard bulwarks forward of the fore mast. They were rigged with a tackle with one block anchored to the deck (or hooked to an eyebolt in the deck) and the other on the stay. The running part was attached on one end to a block and the free end was secured to a cleat or belaying pin on the bulwark. When the ship was tacking into the wind (the force of the wind pushing aft on the sails and mast). the windward side mainstay was pulled tight to take the strain on the mast and the lee side was slackened to allow the fore gaff sail to swing wide to catch the wind from the jib. **** With the tackle rigged backstays and mainstays a change of course or wind required adjusting the stays so the windward stays took the forces on the mast (the leeward stays did not carry a load so they could be slackened to allow more freedom of movement for the gaff sails. **** All of these arrangements seem to be used in modern schooners. If you examine photos closely you can see the same ship with mainstays and backstays all rigged taut or the lee sides slacked when under sail, and not rigged at all when motoring in and out of port with sails furled.

Any measurement taken from a printed drawing is subject to many errors. As mentioned above, line widths make finding dimensions problematic. Some printers do not actually print to scale and add some error to the measurement. However, this isn't always a big problem. Things are not built to random dimensions. Engineers usually work in some units of measurement (inches, feet, millimeters, meters, etc.). For WWII US ships things were designed in feet, inches and fractions of inches (1/2, 1/4, 1/8 and occasionally 1/16 and 1/32). It is a lot simpler if the original units are metric! Engineers usually don't design things in odd fractions, like 1.297 inches. If your measurement from the drawing scales to 1.297 inches (1:1 scale) it's a good bet that it really should be 1.25 inches. If you know the units of measure (inches, mm, etc.) the part was designed in you can correct some of the measurement errors by rounding to the nearest common fraction.

It would be useful if you gave the resulting output file size in kilobytes or megabytes. Some web sites and email systems limit the size of files that can be sent.

I have used several bitmap to vector converters, but not recently. Some of the CAD programs I have used have built-in raster to vector converters. Adobe used to have a stand-alone converter long ago but I'm not sure about the name (Streamline?). None of them have worked very well. As mentioned above, bitmap lines have non-zero thickness and vector lines are zero thickness (but they may be displayed with a variety of thicknesses). If the bitmap line is not always the same number of pixels wide - and they rarely are - the converter may have trouble guessing the line center and generate a bunch of slightly zig-zag segments instead of a single straight line. Curves become a series of short segments instead of a smooth curve. Another problem is the way the converters deal with intersecting lines. Many use algorithms that fail to see across intersections to create a continuous line. Instead, at the intersection they switch from the original line to the crossing line. So at an "X" you get two ">" and "<" lines instead of "/" and "\". The result is really bizarre convoluted lines. The result can be extremely large files with huge numbers of short line segments. I agree that it is usually better to just hand trace the drawing. However, the bitmap to vector conversions are not totally useless. You can put the converted drawing on one layer and lock the layer. Then on other layers you can trace it quickly just by snapping to points on the converted drawing. This is a LOT faster than trying to draw over the bitmap image. It isn't perfect though. You will have to go back and make some corrections, especially to get parallel lines actually parallel.

I have used a clear epoxy paint to seal the inside of model hulls. It was a paint model airplane builders used to seal balsa engine mounts to make them fuel proof. It soaks into the planks and bulkheads and make a very strong hull. One hull 35 years old has never developed cracks between the planks due to wood shrinkage - a couple of older hulls have developed cracks. And it doesn't change color as far as I can tell (not a problem inside hulls). One caution about epoxy paints. We used white epoxy paint in the missile house and nuclear weapons magazines on the USS Oklahoma City CLG-5 back in the 60s and 70s. It produced a hard surface that resisted wear better than ordinary Navy paints, even on the decks! This was important because the ship was in WESTPAC for ten straight years and couldn't offload ammunition to clear the magazines for painting. But the white paint yellowed fairly quickly. Here is a related tidbit. The gray paint the Navy provided for painting exterior surfaces wore off quickly. We had to repaint very often. I remarked that we should use gray epoxy paint because it would last longer. I was asked what we would do then to keep the sailors busy! Chip, prime, paint, chip prime, paint ...

I don't recall now where I have seen it, but I remember seeing a picture/drawing showing muskets stowed around the capstan. My guess is that they were placed there before an action for ready access when boarding an enemy ship. They wouldn't normally be stowed there but would be below in the armory. I can see having a swivel gun mount on the capstan. The capstan mount was very strong and could take the force of recoil of the gun. If the ship was being boarded the capstan would give a good field of fire for sweeping the decks of boarders with grapeshot/shrapnel. The gun could also be fired at men in the tops of an enemy ship at close range.

I have followed this topic with interest. I looked around on the Internet and found a company (GoodFellow) that sells very fine high purity wire, down to 0.01 mm, much finer than the "LCD cutting wire." And you can get it in a variety of elements and alloys, even very toxic elements like beryllium. However, a meter of 0.01 mm very pure copper wire was US$459! A source of very fine copper wire is "extremely flexible" stranded test lead wire. We used some of this in a project a while back. It comes in a variety of strands and wire sizes up to 1064 strands of 56 AWG wire ( 0.000492 inch, 0.0125 mm diameter). 10 feet (3.049 meters) for US$26.43 (Mueller Electric WI-M-10-10-0, Mouser 548-WI-M-10-10-0). That is 10 feet x 1064 strands = 10,640 feet (3243 meters). That should last a while! Virtually all metals will burn in air if they are fine enough. But wood, plastic, thread and just about anything else that is 0.02 mm diameter will also burn in air if heated hot enough. So it is pointless to worry about fine wires burning. By the time the wire is hot enough the rest of the model will be ashes.

The breech rope did provide the final stop for recoil. But most of the recoil energy was absorbed by the gun tackle. If you have ever used multiple block tackle to hoist an object and then let the loose end go you will have seen that the tackle slows the fall. The loose end of the gun tackle rope was laid out straight on the deck (or held by the tackle men) so it would run through the blocks without fouling. The line running through the blocks served as a shock absorber to slow the gun. The breech line then stopped it in the loading position. This is described in detail in several 19th century ordnance manuals.

As I understand it, the snow mast allowed the gaff sail to be raised and lowered without interference from the main course spar and rig, and any bands or other features on the main mast. In this way the sail could be operated independently of the other sails and yards, much like the gaff sail on the mizzen mast of three masted ships. The gaff boom and the sail were attached to and moved along the snow mast. On later ships the snow mast was replaced by a cable that the sail could ride on, and later still it was done away with entirely.

Bob, Thanks for the info. I want to emphasize one point you made. I have been painting (art) with oils since I was a kid. Artists oils take a very long time to dry properly - I suspect some of Rembrandt's paintings aren't fully dry yet! Actually, the stuff I used took about three weeks to harden so it wouldn't smudge. As you said, this is a virtue for artists because the colors can be mixed and spread easily on the canvas, and can be retouched for a week or so. Faster drying paints are far less forgiving! For modelers the long drying time is a nuisance. You can mix a fast evaporating solvent to make the paint dry faster. But like you said, this results in a duller finish - like satin or even flat. And this is the part I want to caution people about. If you are going to use oil paints and dilute them with a thinner, always use the exact same paint to thinner ratio if you are going to go back over with multiple layers or spot touch up. Different ratios of paint and thinner dry with different amounts of "dullness." Touch up spots or overlapping layers that are done with a different paint/thinner ratio will stand out like a sore thumb if viewed in the right light. I speak from experience!

I don't know what the experts do, but I have a suggestion. IF you are planking on a plank on bulkhead hull, and IF you haven't installed the deck, and IF you are doing single layer planking THEN don't sweat the edge gluing. Plank the hull and then paint/coat the inside of the planking with thin epoxy - epoxy paint. It will soak into the wood of the planking and bulkheads, and between the planks. It makes a very solid hull and the planks will never open up with gaps between the planks. At least it hasn't in hulls I built over 35 years ago. After the epoxy has hardened you can finish the hull with sanding.

Thanks for the references. I have followed your build. Your name caught my eye. I had a friend many years ago in grad school named Bob Garcia. Dr. Bob now.

Brewerpaul, You are lucky that you have the real thing to volunteer on! Where I live there are not many historical things to work on, and certainly no ships. We do have a pre-Civil War frontier fort, Fort Hoskins, that I have volunteered to help with, but that is a very slow project.

Seahawk, I remember reading about that method of controlling the fore course yard, presumably in Chapelle's The Baltimore Clipper. It would help control the yard as it was being raised or lowered while the ship was rolling. There has been a fair amount of discussion and speculation about the double main stays on schooners on the forum. The best came from someone experienced in sailing one of the existing ships. Right now I don't remember who or where this post is. The problem is that a stay that runs from the main top to the deck forward near the base of the fore mast, as is common on square riggers, will interfere with the swing of the fore sail (and fore sail boom if there is one) when the ship changes course. It is desirable to swing the sail out over the side to catch the wind, either running with the wind or when tacking into the wind. With a fixed main stay when the ship changed course it would be necessary to lift the fore sail and boom over the stay and that would be a slow process. It wouldn't be as much of a problem on ships that did not have a fore sail boom. The clew of the sail would have double sheets, one port and one starboard, and the sail could be pulled over the main stay with the appropriate sheet. I have also seen photos of ships with brails near the foot of the sail that could be hauled in to loosely furl the sail (no fore boom) close to the mast. These could be used to haul up the sail for lifting over a fixed main stay. One solution was to have two main stays, port and starboard. Each stay had a tackle (gun tackle or luff tackle) with the lower block hooked to a point on deck. The stay on the windward side was drawn taught to take the forces of the wind and ship's motion, while the lee side was slacked to allow freedom of motion of the fore sail (and boom). When the wind changed to the opposite side the stay on that side was drawn taught and the new leeward side stay was loosened. This was a much faster process that working around a fixed stay. Many of the drawings and plates in The Baltimore Clipper show this rig, dating back to 1800 or earlier. Several modern topsail schooners also have this rig. However, Lennarth Petersson's Rigging Period Fore-and-Aft Craft (page 80) shows a double fixed main stay anchored to bitts aft of the fore mast on the Experiment. His drawings were made (mostly) from a model of the Experiment in a Swedish museum. Another solution was to rig the main stay from the main top to the fore top. Then the fore stay took the load for both masts. In this case the fore gaff swung below the main stay. I have seen a few drawings showing this configuration. But the gaff peak halliard rigging would also have to be below the main stay and this would require the gaff to be some distance below the stay, resulting in smaller sail area.

Gregory, I'm working on it. But if you can't wait - and it may be some time before this is continued - I recommend Lennarth Petersson's Rigging Period Fore-and-Aft Craft. He includes very good drawings and deck plans showing the rigging of an American topsail schooner, including belaying points. Just about all of the sail variations I have shown have rigging similar to his example.

I have been researching topsail schooner rigging and sail plans. I found many questions, answers and comments on the Forum, but no one place that discussed the many variations. I decided to post information that I have found to help others who are interested in these ships. This is a sail plan for a "typical" two mast topsail schooner with one topsail on the fore mast and no topsails on the main mast. Schooners with three or more masts normally repeated the sails and rigging shown here on the main mast. The sails are: 1. Flying jib 2. Jib 3. Fore staysail 4. Fore gaff sail or fore sail 5. Main gaff sail or main sail 7. Main gaff topsail 9. Fore course 10. Fore topsail 11. Fore topsail studding sails There were many different rigs for the fore sheets. Here are a few examples. Keep in mind that the sizes of the sails and the attachment points for the stays varied quite a bit from ship to ship. These are just general guides. The position of the fore mast and distance to the bow influenced how the fore stay was rigged, and therefore the fore staysail. Some vessels had the foremast far forward, just aft of the foot of the bowsprit and knights heads. Rigging the forestay to the forward end of the bowsprit (A) was more effective (stronger) and allowed a larger fore staysail than rigging it to the deck at the bow (B). But if the fore mast was positioned farther aft from the bow, as was common, configurations B and C provided adequate strength for the forestay and allowed a suitable sized staysail. Another variation seen on some schooners is a boom for the fore staysail that is anchored to a post on the deck at the bow or on the bowsprit and controlled with sheets similar to the main sail boom. A. This arrangement was common on smaller ships, but some fairly large topsail schooners also used it. The fore staysail (3) is large and rides on the forestay attached at or near the bowsprit cap and to the lower fore top. The jib (2) is also fairly large and rides on the jib stay attached near the end of the bowsprit and to the lower fore top. These sails and stays do not interfere with the fore topsail. The flying jib (1) is shown dotted because not all ships carried one. It rode on a stay attached at the end of the bowsprit and above the working position of the fore topsail yard. If it was present it could be larger than shown here and rigged lower on the stay. There was a lot of variation in the flying jibs. B. Here the fore staysail (3) is smaller, and rides on the forestay attached to the hull near the bow of the ship and to the lower fore top. The jib (2) is smaller than in the first example and rides on the jib stay attached to the bowsprit cap and to the lower fore top. The flying jib (1) is fairly large. It may ride on a separate flying jib stay attached to the end of the bowsprit and above the normal working position of the fore topsail yard, or it may ride on the fore topmast stay that attaches at the end of the bowsprit and near the top of the fore topmast. C. This rig was found on larger schooners that often had a topsail and topgallant. The fore staysail (3) rode on the fore stay attached to the hull at the bow and the bottom of the fore top. The jib (2) rode on the jib stay that was attached near the bowsprit cap and to the upper foretop. However, this arrangement would not have been used on a topsail schooner - the stay would interfere with the topsail. The stay would have been rigged to the lower top. The outer jib or fore topmast staysail (1a) rode on the fore topmast stay that attached near the end of the bowsprit and near the top of the fore topmast above the working position of the topsail yard or topgallant yard. The flying jib (1) rode on a stay attached at the end of the bowsprit and near the top of the fore topmast. Larger ships also carried a flying jib boom (not shown) attached to the jib boom that extended farther forward, and the flying jib stay was rigged to the end of the flying jib boom. Up to five jibs (main jib, second jib, third jib, storm jib and spitfire jib) could be rigged forward of the fore staysail (but not all at once) , even on small ships like a single mast cutter! These ships were called topsail schooners because unlike pure fore-and-aft schooners they carried spars and square sails on their topmasts. The arrangement of square sails on the foremast were also found on the main mast of some topsail schooners, raising the question of whether they were actually brigs or brigantines. Smaller ships carried just the fore topsail (10) on the fore mast. They may also have used studding sails (11) to increase sail area for speed. Larger ships may have carried a fore topgallant (12) above the topsail. Up through the early 1800s the topsail was typically taller than the topgallant. In the mid to late 1800s some ships carried lower (10) and upper (12) topsails that were about the same height. Both arrangements can still be found on modern topsail schooners. Studding sails may also have been carried for the topgallants. A variation of the topsail was the raffee topsail (13) that was used on some vessels. Still another variation on this sail did away with the top spar and just flew a triangular sail. The topsail and topgallant yards were not attached to the masts with trusses, slings or parrals, but were supported entirely by halliards and in some cases by lifts. The course yards often were also not attached to the mast. This allowed the yards and attached sails and rigging to be lowered to the deck and raised again without requiring crew to go aloft. While this may sound strange this practice was also used on large square rigged ships for topgallants and royals. The sails could be rigged to the yards on deck, complete with halliards, lifts and braces, and then hauled aloft. It was a quick way to set sail or reduce canvas as needed. A consequence of this is that some schooners did not have rat lines on the shrouds. When necessary to go aloft the crew climbed the hoops for the gaff sails or were hoisted aloft in a sling or bosuns chair. The courses (9) were not always flown. They were effective when sailing with a following breeze (wind from astern). It seems to me that if a ship was flying both fore course and main course it would be a brig. The course could be rigged to the yard and used like the fore sail on square riggers. In this case the yard was called the "fore course yard." However, some vessels did not carry a course and the yard was called a "spreader." On some schooners the course was not laced to the yard, but was hauled up by lines attached to the head of the sail. In some cases there was a short spar or club yard about one third the width of the head of the sail attached to the center of the sail, and this spar was raised with a halliard. In some cases a "bonnet" was attached to the lower edge of the sail. This was a rectangular sheet that increased the sail area of the course. On very large ships an additional rectangular sheet called a "drabbler" was attached to the lower edge of the bonnet to increase sail area further. However, I have seen no reference of a drabbler being used on schooners, and I'm not sure bonnets were often used on schooners. There was a consequence to adding square sails to the schooners. Pure fore-and-aft schooners have rather slender light-weight masts because there isn't much weight high on the masts and the force of the wind was distributed on the lower masts. When the topsails were added the masts had to be more robust to carry the added weight of the sails, spars and rigging. The standing rigging had to be heavier to take the added force from the square sails. Ships with square sails on the fore mast only often had fore masts of significantly larger diameter than the main masts. Another consequence, quite pronounced in the Baltimore clippers, is that the beam was widest forward at the foremast instead of midships as in other vessels. The amount of load a hull can carry is related to the amount of water displaced, so the wider beam forward produced more lift for the heavier mast. On ships with topsails on both masts the masts were the same diameter and the beam was widest midships between the masts. The largest sails were the fore and main gaff sails, also known as the fore sail (4) and main sail (5). These were suspended from gaffs or booms that attached with jaws to the lower masts just below the tops. The gaffs typically were angled upward to increase the sail area. The gaffs could be lowered to reef the sails. The sails were laced (bent) to the gaffs and attached to the lower masts with rope loops or wooden hoops. The main sail (5) was always bent to the main boom, a horizontal spar that attached with jaws to the lower mast at the lowest position that allowed the boom to swing free from side to side without striking objects on deck, railings or bulwarks. Some schooners had a triangular main sail with the peak hauled up with a halliard. This was called a "Bermuda rig." The fore sail (4) sometimes was attached to a boom - this was common on fore-and-aft rigged schooners. But many topsail schooners had "loose footed" fore sails that did not carry a boom (as shown above), and the clew (lower aft corner) was rigged with port and starboard sheets to positions on the deck or bulwark aft of the main mast. This allowed the sail area to be larger than if a boom was used. When the sail was shifted from side to side the windward sheet was loosened and the lee sheet was tightened to draw the sail around the main mast to the leeward side. A "ringtail" (8) was sometimes hoisted to the aft edge of the mainsail to increase sail area in the same way studding sails were attached to the spars. The ringtail boom attached to the main boom with hardware that allowed it to be pulled in when not in use or run out to carry the ringtail. The ringtail yard was hoisted to the end of the main gaff, raising the ringtail sail with it. It was possible to attach a bonnet (rectangular sail to the bottom edge of the sail or boom to increase sail area. The lower corners were controlled with sheets. I do not know if bonnets were actually used on the gaff sails. Another method was to attach a triangular "watersail" to the lower edge of the sail or boom, with a single sheet controlling the loose corner. Yet another version of the watersail was rigged like a horizontal studding sail, with the yard attached to the aft end of the boom and hanging vertically. The sail was bent to the yard and the loose corners were controlled with sheets. I have seen pictures of watersails used on schooners but I do not know when these came into use, or if it was very common. Some schooners carried a fore gaff topsail (6a), also called a jib-headed topsail, behind the fore topmast (this sail was also rigged as in 7c below). The top corner attached to a halyard near the top of the mast. The clew (lower aft corner) attached to a sheet at the end of the fore gaff. The throat (fore lower corner) was pulled down with a tack line. It has the advantage that it swings outboard with the fore gaff sail when the ship is running with the wind and increases sail area. The main top stay interferes with it, so it would be raised after the ship set a course. I have seen a few sail plans showing the fore gaff topsail on 19th century vessels, but it is not common on modern ships. Other ships carried a main top staysail (6b) that rode on the main top stay. A halliard raised the upper aft corner, a tack pulled the lower fore corner to the fore mast, and a sheet pulled the lower aft corner to the main top. This is a much simpler rig and is the most common configuration on topsail schooners from the 18th century to modern times. However American New England fishing schooners often carried a larger version of the main top staysail, often called a fisherman's staysail. These were four-sided sails with the peak pulled to the top of the main mast by a halliard, the throat was fastened to the fore top, the tack was pulled down to deck near the fore mast, and the clew was pulled down and often secured to the main boom. The most common form was as shown in 6c with the sail extending about half way down the fore mast. A more extreme version (6d) found on some racing vessels had the tack and clew extending almost to the deck. These sails had to be hauled down when tacking or jibing and raised again after the new heading was set. The main mast also carried a gaff topsail (7), but there were many different types of gaff topsails. The simplest version (7a), a jib-headed topsail, was the same as the fore gaff topsail (6a) described above. It was a "flying" sail with no attachments directly to the gaff or main topmast. It could be raised and lowered from the deck. The second type (7b) was the standing gaff topsail, also called a "shoulder-of-mutton" type. It attached to the topmast with lacing or hoops. It used the same halliards, sheets and tack as the flying sail to control it, but it had to be reefed by crewmen in the top. But on some vessels a brail was rigged to the corners of the sail allowing the sail to be pulled together into a "wad" to reef it by pulling on the brail from the deck. The yard topsail (7c) had the sail laced (bent) to a yard or spar that was hoisted to the top of the topmast with a halliard. The lower corners were controlled with sheet and tack like the flying gaff topsail. The American version (left above) had the halliard attached below the midpoint of the yard. This raised the upper part of the sail above the top of the topmast to catch higher breezes. The lower fore corner had to be pulled down hard with the tack to keep the spar upright. The sail was approximately triangular. This rig was very common on Baltimore clippers. The European version (7d), called a "lugsail" type, allowed the spar to hang more or less horizontally, like a studding sail or ringtail spar. The sail was trapezoidal or rectangular. Both versions 7c and 7d could be raised and lowered from the deck. A fifth version (7e) is similar to the shoulder-of-mutton (7b) except the top of the sail is bent to a small gaff that rides on the mast with jaws. The forward edge of the sail is attached to the mast with hoops. The lower corners are rigged like the shoulder-of-mutton sail. The final version (7f) is similar to the American version (7c), but the lower end of the spar was attached directly to the fore top cap. The sail was laced to the spar. A halliard was attached above the center of the spar to raise it erect. With arrangements 7e and 7f the sail could not be lowered to the deck so crewmen had to go into the top to furl the sail. Version 7f was uncommon, and may have been used only in 20th century racing boats. I have seen no evidence it was used on 18th or 19th century topsail schooners. I included it just to emphasize the variety in the configuration of gaff topsails. The Cornish yard topsail type 7g was similar to 7f except the spar was attached to the gaff boom. In some cases the bottom of the spar was attached with a metal fitting on the boom, and in other cases the bottom of the spar was tied to the boom. The jackyard topsail (7h) was introduced in the late 1800s to cheat on racing rules that limited gaff topsail sizes in some classes of racing boats. The rules were vague as to where the sheet attached, and adding the jackyard (which wasn't mentioned in the rules) allowed the sail size to be enlarged. In some cases the jackyard topsail was about equal in area to the main sail! **** Remember that these examples do not cover all possible variations in the rigging of topsail schooners, but they do show the more common rigs. If you are building a model of one of these ships, and you are having trouble interpreting the plans (or if you don't have plans), maybe these drawings will help.