How to sail a square rigger?

[Brewerpaul]

Although I've loved tall square rigged ships for most of my life, I really didn't have any idea how they were sailed. All I knew was that it HAD to be a lot more complicated than my old Sunfish 😁

Any of you who are in the same boat (pun intended) check out this videos which I got wind of (pun also intended). It's amazing and gave me a great appreciation about how complicated and sophisticated these magnificent ships were/are;

 

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=star+of+india+ship

 

YouTube has a lot more related videos.

[Brian Hanington]

Wonderful! Thanks Paul. I’ll watch and learn. 

[AON]

Tacking and Wearing

A well spent 8 minutes and 54 seconds

Thank you.

[Deperdussin1910]

And if you'd like to see how radio controlled tall ship models do it...

 

 

 

[Dr PR]

If you really want to get into the details get a copy of "The Young Sea Officer's Sheet Anchor," Darcy Lever (1808) and George Blunt (1858), Algrove Publishing Limited,Ottawa, Canada, 2000.

 

The first part tells how to rig a ship and the second part tells how to sail a ship. It has an enormous amount of detail and information on ship handling.

[Jim Lad]

There is an interesting little volume by Alan Villiers called "Voyaging With The Wind."  It was published by the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich in 1975.

 

Villiers writes about voyaging in a sailing ship - as opposed to what he has called 'a ship with sails'.  One needs to do things very differently when the only motive power is the wind.

 

It includes chapters on handling a ship under sail and on passage making.

 

There are currently four copies available on Abebooks, ranging in price from $6.34 to $332.66 

 

John

[Smile-n-Nod]

Model sailing ship videos can look slightly more realistic by viewing them at reduced speed (which you can do, in Youtube).

[Admiral Beez]

On 1/4/2022 at 6:42 PM, Smile-n-Nod said:

Model sailing ship videos can look slightly more realistic by viewing them at reduced speed (which you can do, in Youtube).

Indeed, I think my Dragonforce DF95 is doing about 60 knots at scale.

 

HMS Victory had a top speed of 11 knots (20 kph) or 20,000 meters per hour.   This means a 1:150 scale model should have a speed of 133 meters per hour (20,000 / 150), or 220 cm per minute.  But can you imagine sailing a model that took ten minutes to go out ten meters and and come back?

Edited January 6, 2022 by Admiral Beez

[gulfmedic1]

so I watched the different videos and wow I had no Idea what it took to make this vessel move

[Louie da fly]

Some more videos I found very informative:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6DZIvMZWzQ&t=584s

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlRbcTsm2rc

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3jU9Xz_GHE&t=237s

 

Steven

[lehmann]

For a modern book, look for the US Coast Guard manual for their square rig training ship Eagle.  Available on Amazon and Abe Books.

Eagle Seamanship: A Manual for Square-Rigger Sailing by Christopher Nolan USCG and  Eric C Jones