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Panart Royal Caroline - Beware rigging plans


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Beware plans for rigging the Royal Caroline by Panart.

Plan rigging sheets 4 and6 have a major omission.

The lower mizzen yard must have a line from each yard tip running aft to an aft belaying pin.

This is missing from the plans.  Without these lines, the yard cannot be properly held in place.

The line is not shown on the plans, but is shown on the box cover photo.

Alan

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Hi Alan,

Sorry to start off with questions, my apologies.   Are you referring to the mizen yard (angled yard fore and aft yard) or the cross jack (horizontal square yard)? Do the plans show any kind of braces at all?  The cross jack for the time of Royal Caroline, would have had running lifts and braces.  Brace pendants were taken along the foreside of the yard and the braces would have led forward, not aft.  The standing part was normally seized to the main mast shrouds, led through the cross jack pendant blocks attached to the cross jack, then forward and through blocks seized on the main mast shroud, then down to the deck.  The braces cross each other going port to starboard and vice versa.  There are only  the truss, slings, lifts and braces on the cross jack.  I don't think that the braces would be belayed to pins,  but rather, to cleats at the area of the break of the QD.     If you are referring to the mizen yard, which angles as a lateen, this has a totally different set of rigging as it carried a sail, unlike the cross jack.   Hope this is of at least a  little help.

Allan

PLEASE take 30 SECONDS and sign up for the epic Nelson/Trafalgar project if you would like to see it made into a TV series.   Click on http://trafalgar.tv   There is no cost other than the 30 seconds of your time.  THANK YOU

 

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Hi Allan,

Thank you for your much valued response. I apologize for my ignorance on nautical terms. I was never a sailor and this is only my third historical ship build.'

I was referring to the lower mizzen cross jack. The plans do show the foreside braces anchored through a block attached to the main mast shrouds and then attached  to cleats below.

The photo on the box also shows a second set of braces from the cross jack tips running aft and secured to the aft belaying pins. This is the bracing not shown on the plans themselves.

Without these aft braces, the cross jack is pulled away from the mast by the fore braces.  This ship does not have either parrels or trusses on any yards that would hold them to the masts.

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Hi Alan,  (Which one of us is spelling our name wrong :>))  Probably me, as people get it wrong most of the time.  

Anyway...…   There are no lines on the cross jack that go aft.   The following is paraphrased from Lees Masting and Rigging, pp 81-82. 

 

There are slings to take the weight of the yard since no jeers were carried.   Up to 1773,  there was , a single block was strapped to the center of the yard, the sheave running athwartships.  One end of the sling rope has an eye at one end and the other end rove through this  block from starboard to port, up and around the back of the mast above the crosstrees, rove through the eye on the other end of the sling and seized to itself.   There should be a simple truss  which was the norm until 1773 since no parrel was used.  This holds the cross jack to the mast.  The truss was changed after 1773 to include the truss pendent that ran down to the deck.  There were also the running lifts with the running part belayed to a cleat at the foot of the mast or the bitts.  The only other rigging were sometimes foot ropes with the footropes and stirrups carried directly from the yard as no jackstays were used on the cross jack.  

 

The only other rigging to the cross jack are the brace pendants and braces which ran forward as you see on your plans.   Lees may be wrong or have missed something but I would trust his work before most kit instructions as his work was so well researched before being published.  

 

R.C. Anderson's Rigging of Ships In the Days of the Spritsail Topmast 1600-1720  goes into a lot of detail on the "cro'jack" and gives very similar descriptions for English ships. He gives no description on any rigging that goes aft from the crossjack on English ships.  He does describe how some Dutch ships sometimes had the braces go aft.   Keep in mind the crossjack was stationary with no need to raise and lower so the sling and truss were sufficient to hold it in place yet allow it to rotate around the mast via the braces.  

 

Again, I hope this information is of some help to you.

 

Allan

PLEASE take 30 SECONDS and sign up for the epic Nelson/Trafalgar project if you would like to see it made into a TV series.   Click on http://trafalgar.tv   There is no cost other than the 30 seconds of your time.  THANK YOU

 

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Alan,

Thank you very much for the compliment, but truth is that my knowledge only goes as far knowing where to search in my small library and who to ask.   My memory ain't what it used to be :>) This being only your third model, I say cudos to you.    You might want to think about a scratch build on your next adventure.  Part of the fun for many of us is the initial research to find a subject that is pleasing to the eye and has enough history to give it life beyond the timber used to build her.    With many contemporary drawings and contracts with details, it is truly an interesting adventure.

Allan

PLEASE take 30 SECONDS and sign up for the epic Nelson/Trafalgar project if you would like to see it made into a TV series.   Click on http://trafalgar.tv   There is no cost other than the 30 seconds of your time.  THANK YOU

 

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