combination of set and furled sailes - yard angles

[keelhauled]

Hi,

I'm rigging my clipper with the royals and sky sails furled, but the topsails set.  I want to rig it close hauled.  do the furled sails brace slightly corkscrewed with the topsail yards or are they braced perpendicular to the keel?

 

Thanks

Marc

[JerseyCity Frankie]

They are braced. It's tough to find contemporary photos of sailing ships underway and tougher still to find shots like that with some sail furled. All the ones I found in the excellent two volume Medley of Mast and Sail, a Photographic Record (hundreds of period photos) were braced alike with the yards that had canvas set. I found only one photo where it was not the case-see below. Yards braced at different attitudes just look wrong but also if you wanted to brace yards in unalike dispositions some of the running rigging would have to be longer to allow for the disparity between yards you can see in the only example that I could find, the disparity is not that much anyway, it's not representing a very dramatic difference so this one photo isn't an argument in favor of bracing weirdly. Possibly photos exist showing more dramatic differences but that's all I came up with in the two volumes I flipped through just now.

[keelhauled]

thanks Frankie.  

 

I thought that there might be a rule.  It doesn't seem like there is.  

 

I spent more time looking through period photos and painting with the same observations that you made. It does appear that the majority have the furled yards raked like those yards with their sails set.

 

Thanks again!!

 

Marc

Edited January 27, 2017 by keelhauled