Topsail schooner sail plans and rigging

[wefalck]

I think, I have seen representations where the forecourse on the lee-side is brailed up, as it would blanket the foresails, but here it is clearly a triangular sail set (flying) to windward.

 

One thing I noticed is that we tend too framed by navy rules and regulations, where everything was supposed to be done 'by the book'. In the merchant navy the master basically could do whatever he saw fit and if it worked, the better. If something went wrong, however, he may have had to explain himself in front of a court. So in practice, one probably saw all sorts of strange arrangements.

 

 

[Ian_S]

I have only just come across this great thread (having only recently signed up as a new member). It's against etiquette maybe to 'dig' an old thread, but other well-established members have recently revived it so ...
A).
Gore -- it has come up a few times in the thread, without anyone tying it back to the period literature. I'm not sure that its full meaning has been grasped by anyone here, although I also won't attempt a definition because I'm still learning about it. But the three main citations I have found are:

1) Samuel Sadler, The Art and Science of Sailmaking. London: Crosby Lockwood & Sons (two editions: 1892 and 1906). Both editions available on HathiTrust (rough scans by Google Books), and a nicer digitisation of the 1906 edition on Internet Archive.  

2) Robert Kipping, Sails and Sailmaking. London: Crosby Lockwood & Sons. Many editions; the 14th edition of 1898 is available at Internet Archive.

3) Steel's Elements of Mastmaking, Sailmaking and Rigging (re-issue of the 1794 edition by Edward Sweetman publishers, New York, 1932) -- available on Internet Archive as a time-limited 'borrow'; but no doubt many here know this work well already.

 

B).
Technical details of schooner rigging: I also, as with many of the contributors to this thread (especially the OP), have a strong interest in getting the most complete picture of this that I can. In my case, I'm more interested in the small coastal trading topsail schooners in Australia & NZ  about the end of the 19th century up to their demise (as topsailers) in the 1930s.

I am familiar with all the books that others have suggested so far on this thread. I would mention two further books that I think are also important:

1) Basil Greenhill and Sam Manning, "The Schooner Bertha L. Downs" (Anatomy of the Ship series). London: Conway Maritime Press, 1995. Although focussed on just one vessel, it has a complete description of all yards, ropes, wires, blocks and dispositions. The one niggling thing is, from where did they get all that information? Primary sources for that particular ship, such as the "specification sheets" mentioned in passing on page 32 of the text? Or from a learned later authority, such as any of those listed in the foreword on page 6? This is not at all made clear, which it should have been.

2) Saving the best for last: Douglas Bennet, "Schooner Sunset: the last British sailing coasters", London: Chatham Publishing 2001. I don't think this book gets the recognition it deserves. I put it in the same category of "true greats" as Underhill's "Masting and Rigging" (1946) and Chapelle's "American Fishing Schooners" (1973).  The author sailed on these ships in the 1930s, already with an eye to documenting them for posterity. There is a great deal on rigging, going well beyond Underhill's classic text. The downside of Bennet's book is that there are a number of production errors that materially confuse the content. I went through it very closely some years ago, and got in touch with the book's editor, David Clement. He helpfully sent me some of the original artwork that had been mudged in the book. After all that, I wrote a one-page erratum to be tipped into the back of the book, and sent it back to Clement, who didn't reply (true, sending someone an erratum of their work isn't on the list for winning friends and influencing people). Should anyone think it of interest, I will post that erratum. But that's a little off topic here, and any expansion on that should be in a new thread I think.

That's my first post here. For the record I am a researcher and not a ship modeller, but I can see the point of modelling as a kind of test to see if you've really thought through the technical details to the point that the whole article is fully resolved.

Ian Scales PhD

Canberra, Australia

 

[SardonicMeow]

Phil, I found a picture of the mystery sail on the Lynx.  Have a look at https://schoonerwoodwind.com/star-spangled-sailabration/ and scroll about halfway down.  You'll see that Lynx has a two-part fore course.  I have no idea if this arrangement would have existed historically.

 

Photo credit: Ken Kaye

[Dr PR]

Ian,

 

Welcome to the forum! With your background you should be a valuable addition to the membership.

 

Thanks for the links. I just ordered the Bertha L. Downs book!

 

As for the meaning of "gore" I looked in my go-to text Falconer's Universal Dictionary of the Marine (1769) and it says:

 

"GORING, langue, that part of the skirts of a sail, where it gradually widens from the upper part or head, towards the bottom : the goring-cloths are therefore those, which are cut obliquely, and added to the breadth."

 

The gore is created by adding triangular or trapezoidal cloths to the sides of the sail, with the point of the triangle, or the shorter horizontal side of the trapezoid, at the top.

 

Since you are interested in Australian schooners you must have Marquardt's The Global Schooner. It is a very good book but I found a fair number of typos or ambiguous phrases.

 

You are right about modelling testing your understanding of how ships were built. I have had to change my mind about how things worked several times during my topsail schooner build. If you can't sail on the real thing modelling is a good way to get a better understanding. Of course it can never be as good as you would get living on and operating the real vessels!

Edited May 28 by Dr PR

[Dr PR]

Peter,

 

Thank you very much for clearing this up! The two part course makes sense for several reasons.

 

First, these are lighter sails and can be handled by a smaller crew than a full width course. One of the advantages of schooners is that they can be operated with smaller crews than a similar sized full square rigged vessel.

 

Second, if the ship is flying a fore staysail it would likely chafe against a full width course. The split course allows one or both sheets to be raised independently, including having both the half course and fore staysail up at the same time, as in the photo in post #88.

 

I wonder how many more variations in schooner sail plans will come up?

[Ian_S]

5 hours ago, Dr PR said:

Since you are interested in Australian schooners you must have Marquardt's The Global Schooner. It is a very good book but I found a fair number of typos or ambiguous phrases.

 

Yes indeed, I have Marquardt's book -- never particularly cheap second-hand, but then, all used book prices have gone up. I'm just glad I built most of my library at the "old prices". I don't refer to Global Schooner that much because I'm interested in the late period commercial schooners, whereas Marquardt is biased toward the earliest period (prior to, e.g., wire rigging and the stylistic influence of the clipper hull). There's no doubt though that he approached the topic in a woo-free scholarly manner and with a typically Germanic thoroughness. 

If you ever got around to compiling an erratum of the typos and so on you have found in Global Schooner (particularly where misleading rather than trivial), I'd print it off and tip it into the back of my copy. 

 

You can't go wrong with Bertha L Downs -- I think it's a lovely book. Just with the caveat I mentioned above -- the authors didn't declare their sources so we simply have to put faith in their authority. 

Nice to 'meet' you by the way.

[Dr PR]

Ian,

 

I have no "faith" with regard to any statement about schooner rigging (or in most cases modelling in general). I have seen too many pontifications saying "this is the way it was done" about schooner rigging, only to find another "authoritative" claim saying exactly the opposite. This is the main reason I started this thread. As I have said many times, if it is possible to rig a schooner in a particular way it is likely that someone has tried it somewhere and sometime.

 

Half courses? 10 different ways to rig just the main gaff topsail?? Whodathunk?

 

And I am certain that some of the things I have said might be questionable! If you see something you think is wrong please let me know! Some of these guys call me the "godfather of schooner rigging" but I am actually just a mere mortal trying to learn!

[JerryTodd]

Lynx is not a Baltimore Clipper, or even a "replica" of anything, she's just a schooner cosplaying as a privateer by an owner enamored with the first Pride of Baltimore, which is why she wear Pride's paint scheme.

Edited May 29 by JerryTodd

[wefalck]

Well, I think this thread is interesting (apart from the fact that a topsail-schooner is on my project list), because it shows the wide variety of possible arrangements.

 

I may have said this before: we tend to be too framed by naval practices and rules, and by yachting 'rules', which in turn had been strongly influenced by naval costums. In the merchant navy anything that worked was permitted. If it didn't work, it silently disappeared or, when it involved an accident, it may have been branded as bad practice in court, leading to the master loosing his patent.

 

Also, when we see a particular arrangement in historical photographs, we don't know, whether this was an arrangement of the moment or a permanent feature.

 

On the other hand, too much variation and to many fancy arrangements would have been probably counterproductive in an industry, where the workforce often changed frequently. Sailors on larger ships typically stayed only for one roundtrip. On coastal vessels they may have stayed for years. The point is that a sailor coming on board newly will have to 'learn the ropes' of this particular ship and may grab the wrong one in situations of stress. So it would be good practice to have not too many differences from ship to ship.  

[paul ron]

21 hours ago, SardonicMeow said:

Phil, I found a picture of the mystery sail on the Lynx.  Have a look at https://schoonerwoodwind.com/star-spangled-sailabration/ and scroll about halfway down.  You'll see that Lynx has a two-part fore course.  I have no idea if this arrangement would have existed historically.

 

Photo credit: Ken Kaye

now this makes alot of sense. i built a topsail schooner 40 years ago but always wondered if it had the extra sails. seems a waste having the empty yard n no sails. we all know that every inch of space is always utilized, especially if it means more speed.

 

thanks for all the research ian and meow. this is the best part of our hobby. 

[Dr PR]

Jerry,

 

Do I detect some "pride of ownership" in your use of the term "Baltimore Clipper?" You are from Maryland, and you mention the Pride of Baltimore replica.

 

This raises the question "What is a Baltimore Clipper?"

 

Howard Chapelle describes the evolution of the topsail schooner in The Baltimore Clipper. It seems a number of influences came together in the late 1700s to create this type of vessel. Vessels built in Bermuda and Jamaica in the late 1700s had high deadrise and large rake at the bow and stern and raked masts. These were common in the American colonies. New Englanders developed the two mast schooner rig for several purposes. These influences seem to have come together in the Chesapeake Bay area by 1780 to create what Chapelle calls "Virginia-built" vessels. Soon this type vessel was being built in Baltimore and other places around Chesapeake Bay.

 

They were fast and able to avoid the English, French, Spanish and pirate vessels that plagued American shipping, so they became popular. The type was commonly used by privateers and slave traders. It wasn't long before these topsail schooners were being built all along the American coast. The design was very popular for pilot vessels in New York and other parts of New England.

 

The American Revolution pretty much eliminated most other types of small vessels in the Americas, and the "Virginia-built" or "Baltimore schooner" type became a fairly standard design for American ship builders. It seems this design originated in the Chesapeake area, and Baltimore Maryland seems to have been the center of the largest concentration of shipyards building these boats. So they became known as "Baltimore Clippers." But I haven't found when this term was first used, and when this type of ship became commonly known as the "Baltimore Clipper."

 

But maybe this is irrelevant. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, is it a duck? Does it matter where or when a vessel was built of the type now known as a Baltimore clipper?

[Tony Hunt]

On 5/28/2025 at 7:39 PM, Ian_S said:

...In my case, I'm more interested in the small coastal trading topsail schooners in Australia & NZ  about the end of the 19th century up to their demise (as topsailers) in the 1930s.

That's my first post here. For the record I am a researcher and not a ship modeller, but I can see the point of modelling as a kind of test to see if you've really thought through the technical details to the point that the whole article is fully resolved.

Ian Scales PhD

Canberra, Australia

 

Hi Ian

Nice to see another Australian researcher here!  My main interest is pearling luggers, but I've spent a fair bit of time on the Australian merchant schooner fleet too. And various other things - easily sidetracked, I am. 😀

 

On the subject of courses on schooners, and the rig of schooners vs brigantines, I've always been of the understanding that schooners don't carry courses, in the true sense of the word. I understand a course to be a permanently-bent part of the suite of sails on a square-rigged mast. They are typically wider than they are deep, which means that they have relatively short leaches. This allows them to remain set even when the ship is sailing into the wind, with the weather tack hauled forward by the bowline to keep the weather leach taut. The foremast of a brigantine is primarily a square-rigged mast, with the lower mast rarely more than ~30% of the total height of the mast.

 

By comparison, the foremast of a schooner is primarily a fore-and-aft rigged mast, with some square sails added, and the lower mast is relatively tall, usually at least 50% of the total height of the foremast.  For this reason, the lower squaresails sometimes set by topsail schooners are almost always much deeper than they are wide. This means it would not be possible to have the sail set acceptably if the ship was beating into the wind, as the long leach would inevitably twist and flutter. Spinnakers have the same problem on modern yachts.  Consequently, these square lower foresails (for want of a better name!) were only ever used with the wind coming from abaft the beam - i.e. as running sails.  On schooners, the primary sail on the foremast is the fore-and-aft sail, either a gaff foresail or a staysail if it's a staysail schooner.

 

On references, my favourite schooner book is Basil Greenhill's two-volume work, The Merchant Schooners. 

[Dr PR]

Tony,

 

I agree with what you have said regarding the topsail schooner's "course." But the largest and lowest square sails are usually called courses - on square riggers. This name is often applied to the lower square sail on topsail schooners.  It is just a matter of semantics whether you call it a fore course or something else. By any other name it would be the same. There is a lot of ambiguity in the use of many nautical terms.

 

The schooner's "course yard" was called a "spreader yard" when the sail was not attached (and none of the course sail hardware was installed on it). In this case it was a topsail spreader yard. Some called it a "crossjack" like the yard on the mizzen mast of square riggers that didn't have a lower square sail and the yard just spread the foot of the mizzen topsail.

 

There are several variations on the schooner "course" sail. Apparently it was sometimes rigged and furled to the yard, so it was deployed like the fore course on a square rigger. But I have the impression that it was more common to keep it in the sail locker until needed, and then it was hauled up to the yard with several "halliards" or bunt lines. Sometimes the sail had a short spar attached to the top center and this was raised with a halliard while the ends of the head were pulled up with other lines. Sometimes the sail had a separate spreader yard attached to the foot - it has a name I can't recall right now. This yard sometimes was fastened to the cap rail on the bulwarks. I recall seeing a triangular "storm sail" that was attached across the topsail spreader yard, with the third corner belayed on deck. And there is the "half course."

 

I guess if you searched long enough you could find unique names for all of the variants. But I doubt if any of these names had widespread use.

[Tony Hunt]

Dr PR, I agree with all you've said too!  There were so many variations on the theme, it's impossible to name them all, and yes, many nautical terms are used interchangeably. Especially in different regions that have different traditions. I think my main point is these schooner courses were running sails, set when the wind was coming from astern.

[Dr PR]

Tony,

 

Yes, these temporary sails lacked much of the rigging the fixed courses had on square riggers, so they couldn't be controlled as well and were used mainly for running with the wind.

 

However, I read an interesting comment in one of Chapelle's books (The Baltimore Clipper?) about the topsail schooner's square topsail. While the fore-and-aft schooner rig was good for running into the wind, and with the wind from astern the gaff sails also run out to the sides, this rig did have a significant drawback. There was no effective way to stop the vessels quickly. But when going into the wind a topsail could be dropped to catch the wind and "put on the brakes."

 

I suppose the course - if rigged and furled - could also be used this way.

 

That is something I had never considered. Obviously sails were used to power the ship forward, and the fore sails and the driver/spanker/main gaff sail could be used for steering.  But stopping the vessel with wind and sails was something new. Well, I have sailed small sail boats and I am familiar with screwing up a tack and having the boat come to a dead stop! But it hadn't occurred to me to do this intentionally.

 

Here is a fictional account of how this would be useful. You may recall in "Master and Commander" how the Surprise was disguised as a whaler and the French vessel was overtaking from astern. Then suddenly the sails were set to lose the wind so the Surprise would slow quickly and allow the French vessel to pass in front of the guns.

 

 Having no actual experience operating sailing ships myself, I find the use of the sails for propelling and steering larger vessels somewhat mysterious. Darcy Lever's The Young Sea Officer's Sheet Anchor has 40 pages of Seamanship instructions for operating the vessel, including 14 pages just on how to maneuver the ship for anchoring under varying conditions of wind and currents!

 

On the ships I served on when we wanted to drop anchor we used engines and rudders to maneuver to the spot. We had to pay attention to currents and winds, but unless they were very strong it wasn't much of a concern. But sailing vessels were totally dependent upon the wind, and strong currents could overpower weak winds. Just getting a ship into the proper position using only the sails was a much more complicated task!