When is the best time to attach sails?

[Bishophobbies]

I'm currently building the Heller HMS Victory and have a set of aftermarket sails I want to use. When I built my Model Shipways Privateer Rattlesnake I added the sails after I had installed and rigged the yardarms and that worked ok - but the rigging on the Victory is more complex and perhaps it's better to attach the sails to the yardarms before they are installed and rigged on the ship. Any thoughts?

 

 

[rwiederrich]

Your vessel is a bit different then my ship...Great Republic(clipper).  However, in the past(I have yet to get to the sail portion yet), I always attached the sail to the yard of ship....so that I could make all the rigging additions such as leach and bunt lines an most importantly the blocks at the jackstays that they run through.  Once finalized it was only a matter of running these lines through their appropriate blocks underneath the cross trees.  Plus you can hang the mast via parrels or truss and sling.

 

I built a jig to hold the yard from tip to tip and dressed it with sail and rigging..then fixed it to the yard.  No rustling or wrestling fore and back stays.

 

Good luck....OH..were those sails premade that you got aftermarket..ready to hang?

 

Rob

[mathewp]

I'm far from expert level, but I just finished a set of sails,(my first), and I added as much as possible to the attached sail before securing to the masts. Basically, I put the reefs, bunt-lines, and clew-lines etc on to save fiddling on the model, and I did that after the standing rigging. I found the blocks easier to thread off the model than they were attached. 

 

All the best, Matt.

[Ulises Victoria]

Hello.

I usually do all that can be done off the ship, hanging sails included. I usually first dress all the spars,mount them on the mast, hang the sails, and attach all possible lines to the sails. Only then, I put the masts in place.