Running rigging and backstays

[captain_hook]

Hello,

 

I‘m working on an armed Virginia sloop (1-mast cutter-like rig) and wonder if the running rigging (especially gaff throat halliard and gaff peak halliard) run inside the backstays or outside. I mean the segment that goes down to the tackles (sorry, I‘m limited to school english - we didn‘t discuss much about age of sail in german school). My intuition says yes but I have done it otherwise - it just didn‘t look right. Thank god I have used hooks to attach the blocks.

 

Best regards,

Andreas 

Edited November 6, 2019 by captain_hook

[rwiederrich]

I agree with JC Frankie...you've limited the boom's/gaff's latitude by the location of your backstays.  They need to be brought further forward or relocated all together to free up the swing for the boom/gaff.

 

Rob

[captain_hook]

Thank you for the explanation. I agree that the gaff has almost no space to move. So the rigging plan of the kit is wrong in this case? I made 2 photos of the rigging plan segments showing the backstays, I‘ve done them like shown on the plan.  

[Everest]

The backstays are what's called running backstays. If you look at the photo you will see a block on the backstay on each side,one on the port side and one on the starboard side. When in use the weather side is kept taught and the one on the lee side is slacked off. On a down wind run the lee side is unhooked from the deck eye bolt and run forward to the mast.

 I hope this explanation clears up your rigging quandry.

[captain_hook]

Thank you, Everest and Dubz. I used the C. Feldman book for reference and it seems Model Expo also did because they refer more than once in their manual to the model build by Feldman. AFAIK Feldman used plans from the Smithsonian Institution and personal research as reference so I assume his rigging scheme is based at least on historical probability. 

 

In the Feldman book the backstays are also mentioned as „running backstays“ and their function maybe differ from the cutter-rig (i.e. cheerful), where backstays are more permanently fixed for mast stability. Otherwise the AVS-rig includes topmast-backstays which are missing in the cutter-rig (if I remember that correctly). 

[Bob Cleek]

20 hours ago, Everest said:

The backstays are what's called running backstays. If you look at the photo you will see a block on the backstay on each side,one on the port side and one on the starboard side. When in use the weather side is kept taught and the one on the lee side is slacked off. On a down wind run the lee side is unhooked from the deck eye bolt and run forward to the mast.

 I hope this explanation clears up your rigging quandry.

Such backstays are always "running" (i.e. cast off and run forward on the leeward side, set up on the windward side.) This is so regardless of how they might be attached at the hounds (top.) It doesn't matter whether there's room for the gaff throat to swing. Even if they were rigged at the hounds to permit the gaff boom's swing, the lower end of the backstay on the leeward side must be cast off so the main boom (bottom) is clear to run outboard of the leeward backstay. Many a mast has been lost when an uncontrolled gybe caused the boom to fetch up hard against the set up leeward backstay!

 

This does pose a bit of a dilemma for modelers deciding how to present backstays on a model when the booms are set amidships. Running backstays are a hybrid: "standing" rigging that "runs." A fore and aft rigged vessel will never have both running backs set up at the same time under sail. The only time they would be set up simultaneously might be when she was not under sail with the main boom sheeted amidships, as in port, and then only to prevent chafe or to keep the loose backstays from slatting about aloft.  If a model depicts only standing rigging, including the running backs with both set up, it presents a neatly symmetrical schematic appearance but it isn't as the vessel would have looked in actual use. Having both running backstays set up in a model intended to depict the vessel as she appeared in service is a faux pas frequently seen, as is the same error with respect to port and starboard topping lifts similarly simultaneously set up taut.

Edited November 9, 2019 by Bob Cleek

[captain_hook]

@Bob Cleek: Thank you for the detailed information. I guess it is not an easy way to balance modeling design aspects and historical approved aspects.

[Gregory]

Imagine the number of people who have followed those AVS plans and never questioned them...

 

...

Edited November 10, 2019 by Gregory

[Bob Cleek]

26 minutes ago, Gregory said:

Imagine the number of people who have followed those AVS plans and never questioned them...

 

...

Probably about the same number of people who built to those plans and never sailed a boat with running backstays!

 

There's lots of errors like that in ship models, and particularly in kit models. When one has thought through how the vessel they're modeling was actually sailed... what the rigging does, rigging a model becomes far easier and these sorts of errors much easier to notice. If the modeler gets into the mindset of a seaman on the vessel that's being modeled, a lot of questions answer themselves. Trust me, nobody ever hung an anchor buoy and its pendant fifteen feet up the ratlines on the fore shrouds of an Eighteenth Century ship of the line. Guaranteed!  (There's  well documented Admiralty model that has it hanging up there, probably the result of some long-ago mistaken restoration, and the kits of that model have had it  that way ever since. The same for the model of a ship's launch in the NMM that has a mainsheet horse which runs beneath it's tiller. That's the way the "model of the model" has it, too, but, hey... who would rig a launch so you had to pull the tiller out of the rudderhead, thereby losing all control of the rudder, every time you tacked?  )

[Dr PR]

Thanks for this discussion. I am familiar with running backstays, but I wasn't sure how the leeward stay was handled.

 

For what it is worth, another thread discussed the main mast running forestays on a two masted schooner - they run from the main top forward to the deck outboard the fore mast. In some photos they were not disconnected from their normal deck fastening point, but were let out loose enough that the fore mast booms and sails just pushed them aside. Then when the ship tacked it was just a matter of hauling in the line on the windward side to make them taut, and letting out the stay on the leeward side.

 

There are photos of the Pride of Baltimore and La Recouvrance running this way. Another shows La Recouvrance entering port (under engine power) with the sails furled and both stays taut. I suspect this would be the normal configuration in port, just to keep the stays out of the way on deck.

 

I have also seen photos of La Recouvrance running with the wind and neither forestay taut, and apparently disconnected from the normal attachment point.

 

It is clear that handling these lines would keep some of the crew busy at sea. The thing that I was wondering about is where to fasten the running stay when it is disconnected to allow the booms to swing?

[captain_hook]

Thank you all for the comments and inspiration. I thought about it and will redo the backstays. Since it will be a dockyard model and gaff and boom will be centered I don‘t have to worry about the question about historical correctness of symmetrie. But as it is a model it should be optical pleasant as well and doing two single backstay pendants which lean on the sides of the mars instead of one seized together below gives me the possibility to have more space for running rigging.

 

Thank you again. Now I have to continue with the shrouds first.

Edited November 10, 2019 by captain_hook

[Bobb]

I know this thread is 2.5 years old so I hope someone is still watching it.  I have a gaff rigged schooner RC model.   I am trying to figure out how to handle backstays on her main mast.  Right now I have one servo that controls the main and topsail sheet and another servo to control the foresail sheet and partly the jib and staysail sheets.  And a third servo to control the port and starboard sheets so that as one side get pull in the other side gets let out.  I suppose I could add another servo that would be similar to the jib/staysail servo in that it would pull in the windward side while letting out the leeward side but am running out of room below deck.  I am intrigued by some photos I have seen of gaff rigged boats having a line running from the forestay attachment point on the mast to near the center of the mainsail.  That line is attached to a block that has a line running from near the back of the boom to the front of the boom.  The photos all show the windward side and that set of lines seems to be taught.  I'm not sure but it appears there is a equal set on the leeward side of the main that is loose.  My assumption is these are a sort of running backstay that uses the main sheet but I sure don't see how it works.  Anyone know what these are for?