Belay Pins

[shipman]

Here's what is probably another old turkey!

Was there ever a 'standard' belay pin size and shape, say in the 18th and 19th centuries? If so, what were the proportions and dimensions?

[druxey]

I'm sure that there were local variations, but they were generally longer and much thinner than seen on most models. The handles would be less than 2" in diameter (try grabbing a chunky one in your hand!) and the overall length about 18" long. See:

 

https://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/3892.html

[Roger Pellett]

The artistic aspect of ship modeling-  Better that they be too thin than too thick!  That’s why I prefer to turn them from brass and finish them with a light coat of paint.

 

Roger

[Bob Cleek]

4 hours ago, druxey said:

I'm sure that there were local variations, but they were generally longer and much thinner than seen on most models. The handles would be less than 2" in diameter (try grabbing a chunky one in your hand!) and the overall length about 18" long. See:

 

https://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/3892.html

It's sort of surprising that the NMM would collect, inventory, and store such a common artifact made as recently as 1925. I suppose it's almost 95 years old now, though.  It makes me feel old! Another item for my "Kids today" file, as in: "Don't know what a belaying pin looks like!"

[Ryland Craze]

I use this image as a guide when I make belaying pins:

 

[shipman]

Once again, chaps, that's another thing sorted. Many thanks.

[druxey]

QED to my point, Frank!

[Gregory]

No kidding Frankie..  The parts of the drawing labeled 1/3 & 2/3, look more like 1/2 & 1/2..

[Bob Cleek]

26 minutes ago, JerseyCity Frankie said:

Good points. Another error frequently seen on model pinrails is that the coils hanging from the pins fail to correspond to the length of the particular falls depicted. A three=part purchase is going to take a third more line than a two-part purchase to two-block it, i.e. a third more the working length. The length of the falls will also vary depending upon the distance from the uppermost block to the pinrail. Neat coils, all of the same length don't exist in real life. Falls should be the correct length to properly portray the coil in minature.

[shipman]

Ah, the photo's depict something I haven't noticed before.

The line is first looped in a figure of eight over and under the pin, maybe four or five times.

Then the crewman 'hand coils' the line. The coil is NOT passed over the top of the pin (as seen in so many models), but instead a 'loose' loop from the last winding over the top of the pin is past through the coil from behind, then over the top of the coil and then past back and over the top of the pin, securing the coil.

The coil is hung from that loop, which can quickly be lifted off again. The crew member must put his arm through the coil again to support it from falling untidily to the deck. May-be THAT'Swhy so many sailors only had one arm!

That's how I read the picture anyway; my main point being that the bulk of the coil doesn't actually go over the pin!

[marktiedens]

Maybe we could talk Chuck into making some true scale pins to compliment his other fine products.

 

Mark

[mtaylor]

Brass belaying pins in assorted sizes are available at various hobby sites if you don't want to turn them.  Saves a lot of lathe time doing a pile of fiddly bits.

[Bob Cleek]

7 hours ago, shipman said:

Ah, the photo's depict something I haven't noticed before.

The line is first looped in a figure of eight over and under the pin, maybe four or five times.

Then the crewman 'hand coils' the line. The coil is NOT passed over the top of the pin (as seen in so many models), but instead a 'loose' loop from the last winding over the top of the pin is past through the coil from behind, then over the top of the coil and then past back and over the top of the pin, securing the coil.

The coil is hung from that loop, which can quickly be lifted off again. The crew member must put his arm through the coil again to support it from falling untidily to the deck. May-be THAT'Swhy so many sailors only had one arm!

That's how I read the picture anyway; my main point being that the bulk of the coil doesn't actually go over the pin!

Not exactly. The fall is brought down to the pin and around (outboard) the bottom of the pin, then, with the fall held taut around the bottom of the pin, the loose line is grabbed in the free hand and given a half-turn twist and the resulting loop is cast over the top of the pin, forming a half hitch. That's it. No "figure eight over and under the pin, maybe four or five times." (All but the coil on the right of the four in the picture above look like some donkey has been wrapping the line around the pin over and over again.) That's lubberly and you'd get a start from the bosun's quirt if you tried that back in the day. All that is needed is the single half hitch around the top of the pin. the tension on the line and friction in the half hitch will keep it completely secure. Additional turns and hitches only make it more difficult to cast off the line when that time comes, and it sometimes comes in an emergency when seconds count. 

 

Unfortunately, today it seems belaying a line to a pin is almost never seen done correctly. They always seem to over-do it with multiple turns. Seamanship is another of the dying arts.

 

The remaining line laying on deck is then coiled up in one hand (and not around your elbow, either!) Each loop of the coil must be given a half turn with the fingers as it's coiled to keep the line laying fair and not kinking. When the coil is made up in one hand (or sometimes on deck it it's too large to hold, which can frequently be the case in large ships), it is picked up and the free hand is reached through the middle of the coil and a bight is pulled between the line tied off at the pin and the coil and pulled through the center of the coil and over the top of the coil, taking a twist as it does, and the loop resulting from that twist is hung over the top of the pin, thereby hanging the entire coil on the pin. To cast off, the loop is simply pulled off the pin and the line freed from the pin, with the standing part then coming off the coil without fouling.

 

I can do it a heck of a lot faster than I can tell you how to do it. It's one of those details on a model, particularly when restoring an older model, that tends to indicate that the model was "sailor built" by somebody who actually had some blue water under their butt and knew what they were doing, instead of just building a model from a kit.

Edited December 12, 2019 by Bob Cleek

[Keith Black]

The attached Hatton and Hart photos of the USS Tennessee circa 1870ish, port side mizzen. The belay pins are straight without a "handle" top, very utilitarian in shape. The back two are especially huge beast lacking any beauty of the normally perceived shape. 

 

Adding to Bob's point about coils

Edited December 12, 2019 by Keith Black

[ccoyle]

Surprised no one has mentioned it yet, but the fat pins that come in kits can be turned down quickly by chucking them into a rotary tool and giving them a pass or two with some sandpaper or a file. Neatness isn't a particular concern, since most of the pin will be obscured by rigging line. 

[shipman]

Frankie, I agree with what you say, no problem.

Looking at the 'Constitution photo which I based my original observation, the one pin you can see clearly does seem to have at least four turns around the pin. Still I agree with what you say.

My original point remains, that the 'spare' cordage coil isn't over the pin its self. Most models I see; that coil is over the pin.

[shipman]

 

 

[Dziadeczek]

On ‎12‎/‎11‎/‎2019 at 9:26 AM, JerseyCity Frankie said:

one of my biggest pet peeves on ship models are the enormous, squat, out of scale, lightbulb shaped monstrosities that are all too common. Suppliers can’t machine wood small enough at an industrial scale to offer a realistic product. So instead (apparently) they offer the smallest product they CAN produce on an industrial scale and unfortunately they claim they are “scale model belaying pins” but they’re often outrageously huge. Here’s a photo illustrating the point. Compare the size of the pin to the size of the cannon.

Recently I was looking for wooden belaying pins 10 mm long, but all of them were ugly and fat, not proportioned well at all. Someone had 11 mm brass ones looking OK, but it turned out they were out of stock at the moment.

So, I reluctantly decided to make my own.  I used bamboo skewers of appropriate thickness (from supermarkets) and prepared myself a brass former, following advice of Ed Tosti  here:

  He is making here sprockets for his wheel, but the principle is the same. First make a former from metal (I used a short piece of brass rod, which I drilled through on a lathe. Then I filed one side to an appropriate profile for my pins. Finally I inserted skewer into the hole and using only mini files, shaped the pin to an appropriate look. This method allows for fairly quick fabrication of belaying pins and for repetition of identical shapes, which is important.

[Bob Cleek]

4 hours ago, JerseyCity Frankie said:

There’s tremendous confusion in ship modeling circles about how to belay on a pin but there is zero debate on the topic in the tall ship community. On a tall ship it is always THREE figure eight turns around both parts of the pin never two or less, never four or more. The turns are ALWAYS clockwise around the top of the pin, they NEVER go in the other direction. Debate creeps in on the subject of using a locking hitch on the third turn, some ships do, some ships don’t. Note that the decision to use a locking hitch is never at the discretion of the sailor, each ship will have a stated shipwide policy on locking hitches. Believe it or not. 

The use of the three turns has everything to do with FRICTION for it is the friction that holds the line to the pin, not the binding force of a hitch. Three turns is all it takes to create enough friction to prevent any line in any load on any ship from “rendering” around the pin by itself. A line that would have sufficient force to render on three turns would break the pin or part the line itself and loads that are too strong for that wil go on bits or the like, not pins.

Well, what do you expect from anybody who calls them "tall ships?" Rubes for sure!  There wasn't any such thing as a "tall ship community" in the age of sail. Neither did real seamen spend half their time singing "sea chanteys" to the music of insufferable amateur concertina players.  

 

Three turns will hold without a locking hitch, but that takes more work than a single turn and a half hitch twist. The three (or more) turns build an unnecessary wad of line on the pin and take that much longer to cast off.  Consider doing it that way with soaking wet inch and a half diameter line and I think you'll agree. Some say multiple turns are required with modern synthetic cordage which is more slippery than natural cordage, and there may be some truth to this, although I've never experienced it in practice. Others say they do it that way on the "dude schooners" because they can't be sure the "guests" really know what they are doing.

 

It is not uncommon to take two opposing half-hitches on a mooring cleat, however, when the intermittent strains imposed by the vessel's surge alongside a pier or dock may cause a single half-hitch to work loose.

[Gregory]

I apologize if i missed it in all of this,  but what is a good generic overall length for a belaying pin?

 

( I'm not particularly concerned about the rivet counters surveying one of my models and proclaiming that my belaying pins are 2 scale inches too long..  )

Edited December 12, 2019 by Gregory

[BETAQDAVE]

    I find it quite interesting to learn the reasons why and how things were done on a ship the way that they were.    I'm sure that a lot of us here without any actual sailing experience can learn a lot from those that have.  All of that knowledge can only help to improve our models.

[Bob Cleek]

18 hours ago, JerseyCity Frankie said:

The other reason for multiple figure eight turns on the pin, as opposed to just a single knot on the pin, is so the crew can “ease under strain”. By taking off just one of the three turns 1/3 of the friction is removed, right? Two turns removed remove 2/3 of the friction, When the time comes to ease a load back onto the deck-for instance when lowering a Mainsail on a schooner- you can’t just cast the line off the pin and let the line run. This would likely break the gear. The load has to be controlled, not allowed to run away. To do this the single crewperson removes turns on the pin until the line begins to render by itself due to the load-the weight- on the line. In this way a single person can control the line as it is eased, and can control the speed too. The friction is still doing the work and the crewperson isn’t holding the weight, they’re allowing friction on the pin to control the speed at which the line pays out. 

Another place the single knot on a pin idea can’t work is on sheets. Sheets have to be constantly adjusted and if it’s windy the sheets are under a great deal of strain. But a single crewperson can ease a sheet by easing turns on a pin. Easing a sheet tied to a pin with only a knot is possible but would be dicy and require the attention of a team of crewpeople. And a sheet with a knot attaching it to a pin is constantly tightening that knot as the wind tugs on the sail and I’m afraid after a short while that sheet would need a knife to get it off.

I hear what you're saying, Frankie, but it doesn't comport with my own experience. Myself, I've never had any problem easing off a length of line from a pin, or horsing up from one, either. If you can hold the line before you even throw it around the bottom of the pin, you ought to be able to hold it just as well when casting it off. If for some reason, you want more friction, it's easy enough to take a quick turn around the top of the pin. 

 

Contrary to your assertion, the coefficient of friction in line under load is not a "linear equation." Each of the turns does not carry an equal portion of the friction or of the load. The first turn carries most all of it. Additional turns are just "window dressing." Ever notice how nothing comes free until you get down to the last turn or so? And, obviously, nobody ever "casts the line off the pin and lets the line run" more than once. 

 

Belaying pins are designed to take vertical strains more or less parallel to the direction of the pin and never horizontal (shear) strains at right angles to the pin, which can snap a wooden pin. The pin itself isn't meant to take the majority of the strain from the line, but rather it's the pin rail itself where the greater part of the strength, as well as friction, comes from. Sheets, which generally carry horizontal strains, should never be belayed directly to a pin rail.  Sheets should be carried through a block or around a winch to provide a fair lead to a cavel or deck cleat. Pin rails are for halyards and other lines from aloft. 

 

I've belayed lots of lines to pins and hitched lots of sheets to cleats in my 70 years and I've never, ever, "needed a knife to get it off," nor even a fid.  That's the advantage of a half-hitch.

 

This thread got me curious and I did a bit of googling. It seems there are many sites purporting to show how to belay a line and hang a coil and almost as many ways the people posting those instructions say it should be done as there are people posting. Welcome to the internet, the world's largest collection of self-appointed experts!  As the saying goes, "Different ships, different long splices." I suppose. Being "of a certain age," when I was growing up and infatuated with all things maritime, having a father in the shipping industry in San Francisco when it was the busiest working seaport on the West Coast, there were still a fair number of old timers around "on the beach" who'd served their apprenticeships "before the mast" sailing around the Horn in the big four-masted barks and all sorts of smaller sailing craft. Some were kind enough to share what they knew (and probably nobody else cared to hear them talk about) with kids like us. That's how we learned our basic seamanship. Somewhere along the way, we lost the continuity of that maritime culture. Today, it's become quaint and of interest to many, but it seems much of it has had to be recreated, rather than handed down in a direct line. A lot of the detail got lost along the way. There was a lot more to it than those "playing pirates" and singing "sea chanteys" today will ever know.  

 

 

 

 

Edited December 13, 2019 by Bob Cleek

[el cid]

Well, no “tallship” experience here, just small power and sail boats and modern warships.  I’ve found that a properly led single figure 8 with a final twist seems to hold most everything fine, even with synthetic lines.  As for needing extra figure 8 turns to safely slack a line under tension, in my experience it can be done easily with only half a figure 8 turn around a cleat (and presumably a pin). Even large mooring line tension can be safely slacked with only half a figure 8 on the bitts.  It was  however common practice to make extra figure 8 turns on bitts when moored.

 

fwiw,

 

Keith

[Bob Cleek]

3 hours ago, Gregory said:

I apologize if i missed it in all of this,  but what is a good generic overall length for a belaying pin?

 

( I'm not particularly concerned about the rivet counters surveying one of my models and proclaiming that my belaying pins are 2 scale inches too long..  )

One might as well ask the same question about a gentleman's privates. If it looks right, it is right. It takes looking at a lot of them in real life to instinctively judge whether one is too short or too long. It depends on the use intended and is relative to the size of the line that going to be tied to it.

[mtaylor]

7 hours ago, Bob Cleek said:

Well, what do you expect from anybody who calls them "tall ships?" Rubes for sure!  There wasn't any such thing as a "tall ship community" in the age of sail. Neither did real seamen spend half their time singing "sea chanteys" to the music of insufferable amateur concertina players.  

I suspect that the term "tall ships" comes from a marketing department somewhere to advertise for one the "tall ship" gatherings that happen. It separates them from the regular steel navy/cargo ships.

[Jim Lad]

I believe the term 'Tall Ships' was thought up some years ago by the European sail training mob in a advertising campaign.

 

John

[Bob Cleek]

2 hours ago, mtaylor said:

I suspect that the term "tall ships" comes from a marketing department somewhere to advertise for one the "tall ship" gatherings that happen. It separates them from the regular steel navy/cargo ships.

Yes, indeed!

30 minutes ago, Jim Lad said:

I believe the term 'Tall Ships' was thought up some years ago by the European sail training mob in a advertising campaign.

 

John

Absolutely correct.

 

The term "tall ship" was popularized by a poem by John Masefield called Sea Fever:

 

I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking.

 

The first line is often misquoted as "I must go down to the seas again." The original version of 1902 reads 'I must down to the seas again'. In later versions, the author inserted the word 'go'. Source: https://poemanalysis.com/sea-fever-john-masefield-poem-analysis

 

Author Joseph Conrad who spent 1874 to 1894 at sea and was quite particular about naval terminology used the term "tall ship" in his works; for example, in The Mirror of the Sea in 1903. 

 

Henry David Thoreau also references the term "tall ship" in his first work, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, quoting "Down out at its mouth, the dark inky main blending with the blue above. Plum Island, its sand ridges scolloping along the horizon like the sea-serpent, and the distant outline broken by many a tall ship, leaning, still, against the sky." He does not cite this quotation, but the work was written in 1849.

 

These early usages appear to be simply poetic descriptions as would be "a big car" or "a long train."  It had no other specific nautical meaning.

 

Modernly, "tall ship" is often used generically in reference to large, classic, sailing vessels, but is also a technically defined term invented by Sail Training International for its purposes and of course, Sail Training International helped popularize the term. The exact definitions have changed somewhat over time, and are subject to various technicalities, but by 2011 there were 4 classes (A, B, C, and D). Basically there are only two size classes, A is over 40 m LOA, and B/C/D are 9.14 m to under 40 m LOA. The definitions have to do with rigging: class A is for square sail rigged ships, class B is for "traditionally rigged" ships, class C is for "modern rigged" vessels with no "spinnaker-like sails", and class D is the same as class C but carrying a spinnaker-like sail. Sail Training International has extended the definition of tall ship for the purpose of its races to embrace any sailing vessel of more than 30 feet (9.14 m) waterline length and on which at least half the people on board are aged 15 to 25. This definition can include many modern sailing yachts that few who use the term to describe large sailing vessels would recognize as "tall ships."

 

Outside of Sail Training International's unique commercial parameters, the term "tall ship" is meaningless as nautical nomenclature and people who use it to describe any particular sort of vessel, such as a large square-rigged one, are only proclaiming their status as landsmen.  

 

 

 

[Gregory]

On 12/13/2019 at 1:35 AM, Bob Cleek said:

Outside of Sail Training International's unique commercial parameters, the term "tall ship" is meaningless as nautical nomenclature and people who use it to describe any particular sort of vessel, such as a large square-rigged one, are only proclaiming their status as landsmen.  

Which the majority of people are, and don't feel particularly challenged in that regard.  

 

 

[Bob Cleek]

7 hours ago, Gregory said:

Which the majority of people are, and don't feel particularly challenged in that regard.  

 

 

As long as they stay on dry land, ignorance can be bliss, I suppose.

 

Edited December 15, 2019 by Bob Cleek

[shipman]

Seasons Greetings.

I'd call this a Robin.

An Ornithologist knows it as Erithacus rubecula. But he would accept the rest of us calling it a Robin.

Unless you know the (to a layman) subtle differences between the myriad rigs of historical sailing ships, then the layman is quite justified using the term 'Tall Ships'.

I agree, each type has it's own correct description.

But even in the 'historical' periods, some rigs were confused with others.

If a family has a day out at the bay and has the luck to see any kind of sailing ship close up, a youngster may, just may be inspired. Perhaps later in life that child will have that memory and use it to develop a more profound interest and learn what is what. Today a child will have no issue with the term 'tall ship'. It's simply a ship with sails. It's JUST A NAME.

To deny that SMACKS OF ELITEISM, pure Snobbery.

Perhaps (just to show what we're talking about) we should be tarring our hair, get covered in crude tattoo's and walk with knuckles dragging on the ground.