Dr PR

Tony,

Yes, these temporary sails lacked much of the rigging the fixed courses had on square riggers, so they couldn't be controlled as well and were used mainly for running with the wind.

However, I read an interesting comment in one of Chapelle's books (The Baltimore Clipper?) about the topsail schooner's square topsail. While the fore-and-aft schooner rig was good for running into the wind, and with the wind from astern the gaff sails also run out to the sides, this rig did have a significant drawback. There was no effective way to stop the vessels quickly. But when going into the wind a topsail could be dropped to catch the wind and "put on the brakes."

I suppose the course - if rigged and furled - could also be used this way.

That is something I had never considered. Obviously sails were used to power the ship forward, and the fore sails and the driver/spanker/main gaff sail could be used for steering.  But stopping the vessel with wind and sails was something new. Well, I have sailed small sail boats and I am familiar with screwing up a tack and having the boat come to a dead stop! But it hadn't occurred to me to do this intentionally.

Here is a fictional account of how this would be useful. You may recall in "Master and Commander" how the Surprise was disguised as a whaler and the French vessel was overtaking from astern. Then suddenly the sails were set to lose the wind so the Surprise would slow quickly and allow the French vessel to pass in front of the guns.

 Having no actual experience operating sailing ships myself, I find the use of the sails for propelling and steering larger vessels somewhat mysterious. Darcy Lever's The Young Sea Officer's Sheet Anchor has 40 pages of Seamanship instructions for operating the vessel, including 14 pages just on how to maneuver the ship for anchoring under varying conditions of wind and currents!

On the ships I served on when we wanted to drop anchor we used engines and rudders to maneuver to the spot. We had to pay attention to currents and winds, but unless they were very strong it wasn't much of a concern. But sailing vessels were totally dependent upon the wind, and strong currents could overpower weak winds. Just getting a ship into the proper position using only the sails was a much more complicated task!

Tony,

I agree with what you have said regarding the topsail schooner's "course." But the largest and lowest square sails are usually called courses - on square riggers. This name is often applied to the lower square sail on topsail schooners.  It is just a matter of semantics whether you call it a fore course or something else. By any other name it would be the same. There is a lot of ambiguity in the use of many nautical terms.

The schooner's "course yard" was called a "spreader yard" when the sail was not attached (and none of the course sail hardware was installed on it). In this case it was a topsail spreader yard. Some called it a "crossjack" like the yard on the mizzen mast of square riggers that didn't have a lower square sail and the yard just spread the foot of the mizzen topsail.

There are several variations on the schooner "course" sail. Apparently it was sometimes rigged and furled to the yard, so it was deployed like the fore course on a square rigger. But I have the impression that it was more common to keep it in the sail locker until needed, and then it was hauled up to the yard with several "halliards" or bunt lines. Sometimes the sail had a short spar attached to the top center and this was raised with a halliard while the ends of the head were pulled up with other lines. Sometimes the sail had a separate spreader yard attached to the foot - it has a name I can't recall right now. This yard sometimes was fastened to the cap rail on the bulwarks. I recall seeing a triangular "storm sail" that was attached across the topsail spreader yard, with the third corner belayed on deck. And there is the "half course."

I guess if you searched long enough you could find unique names for all of the variants. But I doubt if any of these names had widespread use.

I know this has bee said many times, but it is worth repeating.

1. First paint one color on one side of the masking line and a little beyond.

2. Then apply the masking tape and other masking material.

3. Now paint along the edge of the masking tape with the first color. If it bleeds under the tape it doesn't matter. But the paint will seal the edge of the tape so the second color cannot bleed under the tape.

4. Then paint the second color.

Good discussion! Based upon what has been said/speculated here is another guess.

It just looks to me to be a quick way for boats to tie up alongside.

If these vessels regularly took alongside small boats or barges to transfer mail, cargo or passengers, having the fixed lines for the boats to tie up to would be simpler and faster than having the ship's crew dealing with mooring lines and such. It appears (in some photos) that the free or aft end has an eye spliced in it. That would be convenient for the boat's crew to tie on to quickly. That end would be on the boat while they were tying on, and that would be easier to tie to than trying to tie onto a fixed part of the ship with the boat bobbing alongside. This would work with the ship moving, so the ship wouldn't need to anchor.

The lines would automatically position the boats alongside at convenient positions for transferring cargo, etc. Since you wouldn't want a boat alongside the shrouds the best place for the shipboard end is at the shrouds, with the other end trailing aft to position the boat away from the shrouds.

One thing I find interesting is that this seems to be a local custom. So some ship starts doing it and other local vessels catch on to the idea. But it didn't spread much farther before sailing vessels became history.

vaddoc and Mark,

Thanks for the comments.

I think the sheathing would have been applied with minimal shaping since it plays no part in watertight integrity or structural strength.

In hind sight I suspect it would have been applied in a simpler way than I did. I used the herringbone pattern because I didn't want a lot of plank ends to align in neighboring planks. Reading through the blueprints yet again for clues how the sheathing was to be applied I did come across a brief note on one blueprint sheet that said there were to be three full planks between adjacent plank ends - a 1 in 4 planking pattern. Unfortunately I had already started a 1 in 3 pattern above the bilge keels.

So plank ends on neighboring planks should not be aligned. However it would have been much simpler installing the sheathing if all the planks below the bilge keel were parallel to the garboard strake or keel, with the front ends cut and tapered to fit at an angle against a single plank of the sheathing above the bilge keels that fit at an angle against the front of the garboard strake. The after ends would also have been fit against one of the planks angling down from the aft end of the bilge keel. But this would align all of the tapered ends of the planks below the bilge keel.

Who knows how the boat yard actually did it?

Steve,

It was a learning experience! I was unaware that a sacrificial layer of sheathing was added to wooden boats to protect the hull planking.

I am really glad that Gary (FriedClams) posted the photos and information about the sacrificial sheathing on fishing boats!

The sheathing layer is finished!

The port side has three places where the sheathing extended above the boot topping. At the bow the sheathing protected the hull planking from the anchor. The stern sheathing protected from damage caused by lowering and raising one of the minesweeping "pigs" (floats). The sheathing just aft of midships protected from damage when handling the ship's boat and when deploying buoys.

The bottom sheathing protected from damage due to grounding. The odd herringbone pattern is not visible when the model is resting upright. It was an interesting exercise in parquetry.

The brass stem bands are back in place at the bow. Now I am back to where I was in January, before the fuss over the sheathing came up!

I used a two part 15 minute epoxy from Bob Smith Industries to glue the metal to wood. It was messy, sticky, and required some clean-up on the model and the tools (and my fingers) but epoxy is the best way to bond metal to wood (or metal, glass, and any non-porous surface).

This was some epoxy I bought at my local hobby store - back when it was still in business. I have had it for many years now and it is still good.

The planking at the stern faired very nicely onto the skeg/dead wood. I was concerned about covering the swelling around the propeller shaft, but the thin planks formed around it smoothly.

The sheathing on the garboard strake blended smoothly with the other planks. I think this outer layer of planking may even be better in this region than the original hull planking that was painstakingly carved, filed and sanded to get a smoothly curved hull!

The new sheathing has been filed, scraped and sanded to get a smooth surface. I will go over the gaps between the sheathing planks once more and then paint the new wood with a thin coating of sealer. Then I can get on with installing the deck house framing and the deck planks.

Jerry,

Do I detect some "pride of ownership" in your use of the term "Baltimore Clipper?" You are from Maryland, and you mention the Pride of Baltimore replica.

This raises the question "What is a Baltimore Clipper?"

Howard Chapelle describes the evolution of the topsail schooner in The Baltimore Clipper. It seems a number of influences came together in the late 1700s to create this type of vessel. Vessels built in Bermuda and Jamaica in the late 1700s had high deadrise and large rake at the bow and stern and raked masts. These were common in the American colonies. New Englanders developed the two mast schooner rig for several purposes. These influences seem to have come together in the Chesapeake Bay area by 1780 to create what Chapelle calls "Virginia-built" vessels. Soon this type vessel was being built in Baltimore and other places around Chesapeake Bay.

They were fast and able to avoid the English, French, Spanish and pirate vessels that plagued American shipping, so they became popular. The type was commonly used by privateers and slave traders. It wasn't long before these topsail schooners were being built all along the American coast. The design was very popular for pilot vessels in New York and other parts of New England.

The American Revolution pretty much eliminated most other types of small vessels in the Americas, and the "Virginia-built" or "Baltimore schooner" type became a fairly standard design for American ship builders. It seems this design originated in the Chesapeake area, and Baltimore Maryland seems to have been the center of the largest concentration of shipyards building these boats. So they became known as "Baltimore Clippers." But I haven't found when this term was first used, and when this type of ship became commonly known as the "Baltimore Clipper."

But maybe this is irrelevant. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, is it a duck? Does it matter where or when a vessel was built of the type now known as a Baltimore clipper?

I had the same problems you are facing with my topsail schooner build. This was a mid 1980s kit with one page of instructions and two drawing sheets. I built the hull and then life intervened until late 2018 when I restarted the build. Here is where I started working on the masts and bowsprit:

https://modelshipworld.com/topic/19611-albatros-by-dr-pr-mantua-scale-148-revenue-cutter-kitbash-about-1815/?do=findComment&comment=863237

Later I get into the rigging and then making the sails.

Hope this helps.

Ian,

I have no "faith" with regard to any statement about schooner rigging (or in most cases modelling in general). I have seen too many pontifications saying "this is the way it was done" about schooner rigging, only to find another "authoritative" claim saying exactly the opposite. This is the main reason I started this thread. As I have said many times, if it is possible to rig a schooner in a particular way it is likely that someone has tried it somewhere and sometime.

Half courses? 10 different ways to rig just the main gaff topsail?? Whodathunk?

And I am certain that some of the things I have said might be questionable! If you see something you think is wrong please let me know! Some of these guys call me the "godfather of schooner rigging" but I am actually just a mere mortal trying to learn!

Peter,

Thank you very much for clearing this up! The two part course makes sense for several reasons.

First, these are lighter sails and can be handled by a smaller crew than a full width course. One of the advantages of schooners is that they can be operated with smaller crews than a similar sized full square rigged vessel.

Second, if the ship is flying a fore staysail it would likely chafe against a full width course. The split course allows one or both sheets to be raised independently, including having both the half course and fore staysail up at the same time, as in the photo in post #88.

I wonder how many more variations in schooner sail plans will come up?

Ian,

Welcome to the forum! With your background you should be a valuable addition to the membership.

Thanks for the links. I just ordered the Bertha L. Downs book!

As for the meaning of "gore" I looked in my go-to text Falconer's Universal Dictionary of the Marine (1769) and it says:

"GORING, langue, that part of the skirts of a sail, where it gradually widens from the upper part or head, towards the bottom : the goring-cloths are therefore those, which are cut obliquely, and added to the breadth."

The gore is created by adding triangular or trapezoidal cloths to the sides of the sail, with the point of the triangle, or the shorter horizontal side of the trapezoid, at the top.

Since you are interested in Australian schooners you must have Marquardt's The Global Schooner. It is a very good book but I found a fair number of typos or ambiguous phrases.

You are right about modelling testing your understanding of how ships were built. I have had to change my mind about how things worked several times during my topsail schooner build. If you can't sail on the real thing modelling is a good way to get a better understanding. Of course it can never be as good as you would get living on and operating the real vessels!

Interesting discussion. Here is an additional "factoid."

I think it was on the three masted iron ship Balclutha in San Francisco where I read that some ships sailing to San Francisco around Cape Horn would carry large round mill stones as ballast. These could be sold in California and other west coast areas because these lands were being settled and needed mills to process the locally grown wheat.

But after a while the market was saturated so the mill stones would be heaved over the side as new cargo was loaded. And when the 1849 gold rush started hundreds of ships were abandoned by their crews and eventually sank. Much of the San Francisco waterfront was built over these rotting hulls.

As a consequence San Francisco Bay has many mill stones scattered on the bottom.

It seems to me that your water line (LWL) is a bit too low, especially at the stern. Not much, but a bit low. I am looking at Howard Chalelle's drawings of Grecian in The Search for Speed Under Sail (page 223). These "Baltimore clippers" had deep "V" shaped hulls that displaced much less water than the commercial vessels' "U" shaped hulls. This meant less buoyancy so the hulls sat deeper in the water. But it also meant they were very fast.

About even with the main mast the distance from the waterline to the wales was about 2/5 the height of the wales and maybe 1/3 the height of the bulwarks.

I made this same mistake on my topsail schooner build and had to go back and repaint the waterline a bit higher.

tmj,

That is likely true. Shipyards/boatyards have their own "right way" to do things that doesn't have to be explained.

When researching the Cleveland class cruisers (27 built) I discovered I sometimes could tell from photos which of the four shipyards each ship was built in. Although they were all built from the same blueprints each yard had a "better idea" and created their own unique designs and builds, often significantly different from the Navy blueprints. Some of these changes were adopted by the Navy and sent out to all the yards as revisions. I suspect no two ships were built the same, not even when laid down side by side in the same yard.

Wooden ships, old and modern, were built the way the shipwrights thought they should be built. Since the MSIs were designed and constructed in yards that made fishing boats, I am sure a lot of the things the yards normally applied to fishing boats also went into the MSIs. So the blueprints left many things open for the boat builder to do as they had always done. And of course, everyone who built fishing boats knew how to apply the protective sheathing, so why bother to spell it out? However, the 300+ pages of MSI blueprints do specify a LOT of nit-picking details, like how long the threads on bolts should be, how different timbers should be joined, and how many coats of a specific type sealant should be applied.

I found this same approach to design and building applied to topsail schooners (Baltimore clippers) when I researched my schooner build. Every builder and shipyard had their own way of doing things. And there were no blueprints, just a specification saying "this is what I want." And it was up to the yards to build it.

I have almost completed the sheathing on the starboard side. I am waiting to see if this works out before continuing on the port side.

CAUTION! This planking pattern is speculative. The blueprints say the entire hull below the boot topping had an extra planking of 3/4 inch red oak planks that were spaced 1/4 inch apart, with nothing in the gap between them. Other than that there are no instructions how this sheathing was to be installed. As noted above these planks were not tapered at the ends. So this is my best guess (and only a guess) as to how to apply these planks!

In the photo above you can see that when the planking parallel to the top of the boot topping is extended below the bilge keels it comes together at an angle. And there is planking parallel to the keel and garboard strake that also intersects the upper planking at an angle.

You can see in this photo the sheathing does angle downward at the bow, just like in the photos of the modern day Cape. The lower planking has a bit of an upward curve as it comes to the bow. It was apparent that something had to give, and some of the planks must be cut at an angle to join with the others.

But how? After thinking about this for a while I came up with the idea of joining them in a herringbone pattern, alternating between the upper an lower planking.

Here you can see the junctions between the planking (left) with red lines to outline the herringbone pattern (right).

If you look closely in the photos above you can also see I have planked the garboard strake and the keel with sheathing. But as instructed in the blueprints I didn't sheath the worm shoe at the bottom of the keel.

This section of a blueprint shows how the sheathing fit around the garboard strake and keel. The more or less horizontal planks were installed first, and the vertical side trim was applied next.  Cutting and fitting these pieces was tedious and tricky!

The real problem is shaping up at the stern along the skeg/deadwood and stern frame (propeller and rudder frame).

The blueprints show clearly that the sheathing planks on the skeg were parallel to the bottom of the keel. It was easy to fair the sheathing on the garboard strake into the sheathing above and below it, carrying the planks straight out to the stern frame. But as these planks come out onto the body of the hull they develop a significant curve (requiring wet heat for bending).

The planks laid parallel to the boot topping are bending inward toward the center line near the stern. But the curvature is not as great as the planking meeting the skeg. The gap at the narrowest point (arrows) is three planks wide, so the upper and lower planking will come together nicely, except for a triangular space that will require a filler/stealer.

The upper and lower planks come together at an angle, so they will have to be trimmed in a herringbone pattern like I have done at the bow. But it is a very narrow angle, requiring the planks to be cut to a sharp point. And as we all know, this is supposed to be a no-no! But I really don't know what else to do given the constraints on the sheathing planks.

Is this a perfect solution? How can it be when I don't even know what it was supposed to be!? Is it a good solution? Maybe, maybe not. But it does allow me to move on past this part of the build and get on with all the complex deck houses and minesweeping gear. I have already started on the CAD drawings!

Very nice work. The books say Grecian was a fast ship, and the hull looks it!

Wefalck,

I agree. I tried some wooly knitting thread, but when pulled tight it made a pretty thin chafing mat at 1:48. Maybe if it was wound in two or three layers it would work. Or roll a paper tube and wind the thread around it?

Likewise, at larger scales the ordinary pipe cleaners I used would probably be too small. But I did notice some larger multi-colored pipe-cleaner-like "craft" things that were about 5 mm/1/4 inch diameter. For "crafty" people who smoke big pipes?

rhephner,

As you know, wood will bend, but it has a grain that tries to straighten it back to the original shape. To get it to curve around the shape of the hull you have to "retrain" it to the new shape. Virtually every tutorial about bending wood mentions water and heat. Some people just use water and clamp the wet wood into a form with the desired curvature. Eventually the wood will adapt to the curve - I'm not sure the water has anything to do with it.

Steaming wood to get it to bend is a very old technique. The heat is what does the work, and hot water or steam is used to convey the heat into the wood quickly.

You also need to taper the planks to compensate for the difference in distances around the large midships bulkheads/frames and the shorter bow and stern bulkheads.

The best way I have found for getting planks to form to the shape of the hull is to heat bend them on the hull. This gets all the correct curves and twists - you won't get this with an off-hull bending form.

I use an inexpensive ($35) quilting iron (Mini Iron II - Clover No. 9100) as a plank bending tool. I put the plank on the hull in approximately the position it should go. Then I wet the plank with water, using a paint brush. Then the bending iron is applied to turn the water to steam and heat the plank. Quite often a single pass along the plank is enough to get the desired bend. I usually give it three passes anyway, just to be sure. After heat forming the plank It will just lay on the hull with the correct shape without clamping. Then it is easy to glue in place. This is far and away the best way to bend planks that I have seen!

This link shows how I have been doing this:

https://modelshipworld.com/topic/37060-uss-cape-msi-2-by-dr-pr-148-inshore-minesweeper/?do=findComment&comment=1075263

Henry,

This could be a browser problem. I'd do a Google search for problems receiving PDF files with your browser.

Several years ago high-zoot programmers had a convention to discuss how to "improve" the Internet. One of the problems is that the file type (name.type) for the file names can be anything, thanks to the less than brilliant programmers who created this crap. Anyone can rename a text file type to be a picture file type, or anything else. Computers use the file type to determine which programs should open the file, but in fact, because there is no security built into the system, file types are meaningless. Hackers use this bug to plant software "bombs" that can take over programs that open the files.

So the later day geniuses decided that file types would be used no more. The file type must be embedded in the file header (part of the information in the file). Returning from this convention, one of these less than brilliant programmers changed a popular email program to reject all PDF files that did not have the file type embedded in the header. And in one incredibly stupid stroke this idiot denied the program's users access to virtually all the collected wisdom in the world that was in PDF format because this new "standard" had not been implemented yet!! And, of course, most of those old files will never be updated, nor will much of the software that generated them.

This is the sort of stupidity that passes for intelligence among the folks who manage the Internet and develop software, web pages and such. And it is quite possible that one of these bozos created an update for your browser that rejects old format PDF files - or any other file created before this convention of idiots.

Chuck,

Push a pin into a piece of wood. Stack thimbles on the pin until you get to the number you want to package (25?). Clip off the pin above the stack.

Now to measure the number of pieces you don't have to take the time to count them. Just stack them on the pin, dump into a bag, repeat.

And I would do this over a large bowl or baking pan, with the parts in the bowl/pan. That way they can't roll away.

Thanks Steve.

I rigged the port anchor buoy about the same as the starboard buoy, mainly because I couldn't think of a more reasonable way to deal with the buoy while the anchor was being fished. In this scenario after the anchor was hauled up horizontal the buoy was pulled in, tied to the forward shroud, and the rope coiled and tied in place to get it out of the way.

Now I just need to add the flag.

wefalck,

I have seen the triangular course as well. And there is a triangular topsail (rafee topsail).

The sail in the photo is flown on the windward side where it would have some effect. Because the fore staysail is also raised a full course would probably chafe against the staysail. So from a functional standpoint this makes sense.

Or maybe they were just drying laundry?

****

When I started this thread I naively thought there was a "way" to rig a schooner. But after finding 10 different ways to rig just the main gaff topsail I realized that if a way to rig a sail is possible someone has probably tried it!

Just when you think you have seen it all, something new pops up. Look at the sail marked with the red arrow on this nice photo (by Tyler Fields) of the modern replica of the Lynx.

What do you call this sail? It might be a studding sail, bit it isn't attached to the studding sail yard. It is attached to the course yard (spreader). Is it a "half course" as opposed to a "full course?" It might be a triangular sail.