Galilee's Mainsail

[CDR_Ret]

This Fall has been busy with many birthday and Christmas projects, and the resumption of homeschool with my grandchildren. So not much time has been available for work on Galilee's plans.

 

However, a recent topic regarding gaff-rigged sails in this forum reminded me that I haven't been able to identify Galilee's mainsail type. Basically, it is a leg-of-mutton sail headed by a short spar. The not-so-all-knowing Internet claims that brigantines and hermaphrodite brigs all carry/carried a gaff-headed mainsail.

 

Here is Galilee in all her glory, courtesy of the Carnegie Science Library:

 

 

So, what is this kind of mainsail called?

 

Thanks in advance for your assistance.

 

Terry

 

 

[Bob Cleek]

Sometimes unusual arrangements get called whatever the master wants to call them. On the Thomas W. Lawson, the only seven-masted schooner ever built, they never could make up their minds what the names of the seven sails were. Somewhere on the internet there's a chart of all the names they were called at different times under different masters. (Nautical trivia quiz answer: fore, main, mizzen, spanker, jigger, driver, and pusher.)

 

I'd call that sail a jib-headed mainsail.  The head isn't cut far enough down the leech to make it a leg-o-mutton, I'd think. It's an interesting sail. Note that the leech is cut away from the mast at the head and there's a short yard at the head that's on a bridle to the block on the crane, which prevents the fouling of the halyard block against the mast. 

 

Above the jib-headed main, was flown a main topsail with its clew led to the end of the main boom, a once-common sail now rarely encountered.  Danged If I know if it had a particular name besides a main topsail. Turner employed main topsails clewed to the boom in many of his brigantines. A picture or two is worth a thousand words:

 

 

A contemporary painting of Matson's Turner-built Lurline flying a boom-clewed main topsail.

 

 

Photo of Lurline with main topsail brailed aloft as shown in the photo in the original post.

 

 

 

 

Photos of Matthew W. Turner, a recently-built sail-training vessel designed to meet current USCG passenger regulations, but designed based on Turner-built brigantines and flying her main topsail.

 

Interestingly, it appears vessels with this arrangement flew their ensigns from the mainmast truck.

Edited November 28, 2020 by Bob Cleek

[Thanasis]

Hi. It could be also called as "square-top, or fat-head, mainsail"

https://www.sailmagazine.com/diy/know-how-all-about-mainsails

Thx

[CDR_Ret]

On 11/28/2020 at 1:10 AM, Thanasis said:

Hi. It could be also called as "square-top, or fat-head, mainsail"

https://www.sailmagazine.com/diy/know-how-all-about-mainsails

Thx

Thanks for the link, Thanasis. If the two types of mainsails were contemporaneous, this might be a good solution. However, the differences of the sailing eras, their shapes, and construction suggest that another term might be appropriate.

 

Even Bob's suggestion is problematic, though appreciated. The definition of "jib-headed," according to several contemporary dictionaries, is essentially "a point at the top of the sail, like a jib." The short spar at the head of Galilee's mainsail (as well as Matthew Turner's) doesn't leave a point with a single attachment fitting, like an eye or thimble. The short spar evidently spreads out the significant local stresses. The mainsail generated huge stresses, demonstrated in the fact that her main boom broke during her first charter cruise.

So, lacking any authoritative reference from Matthew Turner's time, I'm inclined to describe it as a "spar-headed mainsail."

 

Thanks for your input, guys!

 

Terry

 

Edited July 12, 2023 by CDR_Ret
Removed copyrighted image.

[Bob Cleek]

3 hours ago, CDR_Ret said:

Thanks for the link, Thanasis. If the two types of mainsails were contemporaneous, this might be a good solution. However, the differences of the sailing eras, their shapes, and construction suggest that another term might be appropriate.

 

Even Bob's suggestion is problematic, though appreciated. The definition of "jib-headed," according to several contemporary dictionaries, is essentially "a point at the top of the sail, like a jib." The short spar at the head of Galilee's mainsail (as well as Matthew Turner's) doesn't leave a point with a single attachment fitting, like an eye or thimble. The short spar evidently spreads out the significant local stresses. The mainsail generated huge stresses, demonstrated in the fact that her main boom broke during her first charter cruise (photo courtesy Carnegie Science Library). Heavy timbers were used to splice the boom.

 

So, lacking any authoritative reference from Matthew Turner's time, I'm inclined to describe it as a "spar-headed mainsail."

 

Thanks for your input, guys!

 

Terry

 

 

Call it what you will, but the two types of mainsails were very much contemporaneous for hundreds of years before Turner designed Galilee. A jib-headed sail has an essentially triangular shape and a "pointy" head with a single halyard. A gaff-headed sail has four corners with two halyards, a throat halyard which hoists the throat of the gaff boom and a peak halyard which hoists the end of the gaff boom. Galilee definitely has "a single attachment fitting." It's the bridle or saddle running on the short bridle at the head of the sail with the fall of the mail halyard attached. The "stick" which holds the two ends of the bridle apart when under tension, isn't a "yard," which crosses a mast, nor a "boom," which has sheets that control a sail. If named for its function, it is clearly a "spreader" or a "batten." I would called it a "head batten," in the same way it's modern equivalent is called a "head board." Galilee has but one main halyard. Her sail is triangular shaped. It's indisputably a "jib-headed" mainsail.

 

The purpose of the spreader and bridle is the same as the purpose of the main halyard crane: to provide a fair lead of tension from the halyard crane to the mainsail without the halyard fall (bottom) block being pulled toward the mast and chaffing, thereby interfering with the operation of the main halyard tackle. The bridle spread by the "stick" on Galilee's main is the contemporary equivalent of of a "headboard" on a modern jib-headed mainsail.

 

The "stick" between the bridle ends is under a compression load created by the weight of the mainsail (and perhaps the main boom, depending upon whether it were fastened to the mast with a gooseneck or boom jaws.) That load is not particularly related in any way to the loads generated by the wind on the sail. Those wind loads are transferred to the sheets and create a compression load on the main boom far greater than the load created by the weight of the sail and boom, which contribute nothing to the load on the main boom. A properly designed main boom would not likely break under the load of any wind on the mainsail. (As the wind blows against a sail, the vessel heels, thereby proportionately reducing the pressure on the rig by reducing the amount of area directly exposed to the wind as the angle of heel increases.) However, an uncontrolled jibe would create a shock load when the boom fetched up against the mainsheet on the opposite tack which could cause a fracture as pictured above. To prevent such damage, many contemporary vessels of Galilee's size employed a patent "shock absorbing" mainsheet horse which I believe Galilee had, but which, apparently, was not up to the task in the instance pictured.

 

 

Gaff-rigged main showing use of halyard crane with tackle attached to the gaff boom throat, causing throat halyard to run free of the mast.

 

 

 

Gaff boom bridle saddle on bridle with halyard fall block attached:

 

 

Modern mainsail headboard:

 

Edited November 30, 2020 by Bob Cleek

[CDR_Ret]

Ah, this explanation makes more sense. I was viewing the term "triangular sail" in a much narrower way than necessary. And I probably gave the spreader/batten or whatever we can call it more significance than needed.

 

Appreciate the clear and complete clarification, Bob.

 

Terry

[Bob Cleek]

Yeah, the internet has its limitations when it comes to nautical nomenclature and "google translator" is even worse! I pity the guys who buy kits with instructions in Italian or Spanish. Danged if I know what that "stick" is really called. 

 

You're doing the research necessary to build a really fine and accurate model. I'm hoping to see the construction phase of the project! I wish I'd made a photographic record of Galilee when I had the chance.  I lived a couple of blocks up the Napa Street hill from her last resting place in the mud adjacent to the Napa Street Pier and came to be known as "Galilee Harbor" back in the 1970's. I could have climbed aboard and taken all the photos I wanted of her back then. At the time, I really wasn't all that interested in her history. At one time there were all sorts of old wooden sailing vessels sinking into the mud along the Sausalito shoreline. The only reason I knew her name and not the others was because the houseboat community where some of my friends lived was called "Galilee Harbor."

[CDR_Ret]

15 hours ago, Bob Cleek said:

... At the time, I really wasn't all that interested in her history...

Bob, I have found that to be true about a lot of things. I was 50 years old before I realized what an interesting character my grandfather was. He died two years before I was born, but I failed to sit down with my mother and try to understand who he was before she, too, passed. I'm trying to instill in my grandchildren an interest in their own parents' backgrounds and their family histories, and begin journaling at a young age. Their parents are all for that.

[Bob Cleek]

4 hours ago, CDR_Ret said:

Bob, I have found that to be true about a lot of things. I was 50 years old before I realized what an interesting character my grandfather was. He died two years before I was born, but I failed to sit down with my mother and try to understand who he was before she, too, passed. I'm trying to instill in my grandchildren an interest in their own parents' backgrounds and their family histories, and begin journaling at a young age. Their parents are all for that.

 

So very, very true! The older we get, the more we realize how easily history, ours or the culture's, is lost.