Instructions Stink, Can't Find a Sample Picture

[mikiek]

This should be easy. Working USS Enterprise 1797 and beginning to put in some sails. My first time with gaff rigged. There is a top gaff sail above the main - its 4 sided not 3 sided. Most of it is in place except what I believe is called the tack. The lowermost corner. I can't see from the instructions or plans how this is supposed to be rigged. The rigging plan just shows the sail foot running to the mast and then it disappears. I would  expect some sort of tackle and eventually a downhaul of some sort but thats just a guess..

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Jim Rogers]

I believe there is a block hidden on the far side. There appears to be a line emanating from where the sheet disappears.

[JerseyCity Frankie]

Someone needs to write a decent book about fore and aft rigging on period ships because the topic of gaff topsails doesn’t get any attention. I believe your tack will run directly to the fife rail with no lead blocks as I can not recall ever seeing Topsail Tacks run any other way. Leading the tack anywhere other than straight down to the deck would negatively effect the set of the sail. Hand Reef and Steer by Tom Cunliffe and Sailmakers Aprentice by Emiliano Marino have illustrations of tacks going directly to the deck as does Howard Chapelle in American Fishing Schooners. Emeliano Marino includes clear illustrations of SEVEN different types of Gaff Topsails and ALL have tacks running to the deck. And if you give it some consideration you will see why: any kind of lead block a tack would use would need to be well below the point in space where the tack of the Topsail would be situated, and where would that be but directly on the lower mast itself, and what would that do for you that a direct lead to the deck wouldn’t? Also the Tack winds up serving as the Downhaul and you can’t haul the sail through a tack lead block. Here’s a shot of Lynx’s Topsail set.

[JerseyCity Frankie]

A big issue with the use of Gaff Topsails is that it’s impossible to rig them in a way that allows them to be self-tending on either tack. Meaning: the tack of the sail is usually on either the Port or the Starboard side (nearly always Starboard) so you either have to physically lift that tack up and over the Gaff every time you go about OR keep it on one side all the time and just live with the inefficiency of having it awkwardly set pressing against the underlying Gaff and it’s Peak Halyard. The reason I bring this up here is that if you DO want to rig your Topsail so you can reposition the tack of the sail from Port to Starboard then you need two tacks, one for each side. Plus a halyard that opposes them that will lift the whole lower half of the sail high enough to get it over the Peak Halyard each time you go about. This bothersome aspect leaves most people to rig the Topsail with one disposition only, and to live with the inefficiency on half of the tacks.

A “Dirty Tack”, some efficiency of the Topsail is lost on the Port Tack due to the sail shape being altered.

Schooner Pioneer, the ship I’ve sailed on most. If the tack were run through a lead block it would hopelessly complicate the preparation for setting AND make recovery to the deck in a way that kept the sail out of the water impossible.

Edited August 25, 2019 by JerseyCity Frankie

[mikiek]

Fantastic information! Thanks JFC!  -  was wondering how a tack would be handled regardless of whether the sail tack was run thru some tackle or just straight down to the deck. Kinda clumsy either way.

 

Your pix were great! Spelled it all out perfectly.

[wefalck]

JCF is right, I have never seen an outhaul on the tack of a main topsail. The fact that it can be on the 'wrong' side of the gaff halliards does not impair its efficiency dramatically, given the moderate overall efficiency (by modern standards) of such kind of rig.

 

The situation is different for the topsails to other gaff-sails. Here the triatic stay between masts gets in the way and there can be outhauls that allow to lift the tack and sheet over the triatic stay - or men need to be sent aloft to do this.