Question about Sails on the Yacht "Westward"

[Ferrus Manus]

This is the racing yacht "Westward" built in 1910:

I am having a lot of trouble identifying a sail on the vessel, the slack sail that seems to be mounted on the main topmast stay and whose clew seems to rig to the mains'l boom. How is it rigged? what is its name? Any help is much appreciated. 

 

Also, a nagging afterthought: How does a spinnaker tack? 

Edited July 6, 2022 by Ferrus Manus

[allanyed]

Hi Ferrus

 

I did a little digging and come up with nothing on what that sail is.

As to adjusting the spinnaker, genoa, or gennaker, on a reach the following may help you.  https://www.sail-world.com/news/236121/Beginners-guide-to-using-a-Spinnaker

Allan

[mnl]

You don’t tack with a kite up, you gybe. If you were to try and tack you would end up with a mess. Probably the sail wrapped around the head stay, etc.

 

The slack sail is some sort of staysail. In those days they were big believers in the more canvas the better. 
 

Hopefully they have a second pole they can set to leeward when they want to gybe. Otherwise they would have to release the headstay the inner jib is rigged on so the pole can come across.

 

If there are two poles gibing is relatively easy. There will be two lines to each tack on the kite. In the picture above they would be flying the sail with the sheet on the starboard tack. There would also be a lazy guy attached to that tack, just hanging loose. Before the gybe the second pole is rigged to starboard with the lazy guy running through the end of the pole. 
 

When they gybe, the lazy guy is tensioned to bring the pole back to its correct position. At the same time they either let the guy through the port pole run or trip it from the end of the pole and fly the kite with what was the lazy sheet on the port side.

[michaelpsutton2]

I want know about the fold in the gaff foresail. I gather this is a Bekens photo

[Dr PR]

There are two top sails between the masts.

 

One is the gaff topsail. The peak is rigged to the fore topmast, the clew to the end of the fore gaff, and the tack pulled down at the jaws of the gaff by a line to the deck near the fore mast.

 

The other sail is a variation on the main topmast staysail. The simple triangular staysail is rigged to the main topmast stay that runs from the top of the main topmast to somewhere at the top of the fore mast. The tack is rigged to the fore top, the peak to the top of the main topmast, and the clew is hauled down by a line to the deck near the main mast.

 

I have seen quite a variety of these staysails similar to what is shown in your photo. These are four sided sails with the peak at the top of the main topmast, the throat where the main topmast stay attaches to the fore top, and the tack and clew lower down below the gaff. The clew is hauled down to a point on the main boom as in the photo you posted. Some of these four sided sails have the foot a short distance below the fore gaff, some extend half way down the foremast, and the one your photo shows seems to extend all the way down near the bottom of the fore mast. These sails were common on American fishing schooners and yachts.

 

MacGregor ("The Schooner") calls these main topmast staysails and has a picture (page 44) showing a schooner flying two main topmast staysails, one normal triangular sail and a longer four sided version similar to the one in your photo, but you can't see where the longer sail clew is belayed. Chapelle ("The American Fishing Schooners") also refers to these sails as main topmast staysails. I wouldn't be surprised if these sails had another name, but If so I can't find it.

 

I have posted a lot of information about schooner sail plans and rigging here:

 

https://modelshipworld.com/topic/25679-topsail-schooner-sail-plans-and-rigging/?do=findComment&comment=750865

 

See post #16 for a description of sail parts and how gaff topsails and main top staysails are rigged. I need to add this version of the main top staysail to my description of sails.

 

The schooner in the photo is also carrying a main jackyard topsail, an interesting "cheat" to increase the total sail area beyond normal class racing rules. It is a very pretty ship! The racing schooners often flew as much canvas as could be hoisted. As Jack Aubry said "If necessary we'll use our pocket handkerchiefs!"

Edited July 7, 2022 by Dr PR

[Ferrus Manus]

mnl, how would you get even a smaller spinnaker pole from starboard to port and vice versa?

 

I think the spinnaker pole may be sort of an optical illusion, and that the other side of the spinnaker, obscured by the half facing the camera, actually extends backward and that we are looking at the side of the sail. That would mean that the spinnaker pole does not extend out of view, but rather is smaller than it looks. 

Edited July 7, 2022 by Ferrus Manus

[Ferrus Manus]

I really WOULD like to include this mystery sail on some of my builds, if i could find out how the darn thing is rigged! (and how it tacks)

[mnl]

The pole would never go backwards. It is generally trimmed 90 degrees to the breeze or slightly ahead of that. The pole goes from the mast to the tack of the sail. If tack of the sail is much beyond the pole it becomes harder to control.

 

You can find another picture of Westward on a tighter reach, and that middle staysail is drawing. It is almost definitely a four sided sail. The top is set on the stay that runs from the head of the main mast to about the hounds on the foremast. The purpose of the sail is to generate flow over the luff of the main. Therefore I would expect that the head of the sail doesn’t go all the way to the foremast and the tack comes down between the two masts and potentially offset towards the weather rail. That way it wouldn’t choke off the foresail.  It would then create a slot between the staysail and the main and a second slot between the foresail and the staysail. It’s all in the aerodynamics.

 

 

[Ferrus Manus]

no no no, i was thinking that the pole was shorter than it looked because it isn't obscured by the spinnaker itself, and also, why is the clew of this mystery sail rigged to the boom of the mains'l and not belayed to the deck like a normal fisherman?

[Ferrus Manus]

If we assume that none of the pole is obscured by the spinnaker itself, it would be just short enough to fit under the point at which the fore topmast stay attaches to the foremast for the purposes of tacking. 

[Roger Pellett]

I have heard that the sail between the two mast is called the Fisherman’s Staysail.

 

Gybing the spinnaker.  On small boats the spinnaker can be gybed by end for ending the pole.  On a 40ft boat that I crewed on we gybed the spinnaker by dipping the pole which was short enough to clear the forestay.  The pole dipping approach means that when the sail crosses the bow of the boat it is flying from the sheet and guy but not attached to the pole.  This would be risky for a huge sail like this.  Furthermore, the pole on a big boat is a heavy spar that is too long to clear the foredeck rigging.  I agree with mnl that the sail would have been gybed with double sheets and guys and two poles- port and starboard. The inboard end of each pole was probably attached to some sort of track on the mast.  When a gybe was anticipated the inboard end would have been run up on its track and the outboard end with the lazy guy fed through the new pole’s end fitting would have been lifted with the topping lift.  As the stern of the boat swung through the wind, the active guy would have been released and what had been the lazy guy hauled in.  Same thing with the sheets.  

 

My guess is with all of that canvas set, the skipper of this boat has no intention of gybing.

 

Roger

[mnl]

12 hours ago, Ferrus Manus said:

no no no, i was thinking that the pole was shorter than it looked because it isn't obscured by the spinnaker itself, and also, why is the clew of this mystery sail rigged to the boom of the mains'l and not belayed to the deck like a normal fisherman?

Probably because the staysail is used to direct flow over the luff of the main. Easier to maintain that slot relation when it sheets to the boom. It’s like a big Genoa, but for reaching. In the picture above they are far enough off the breeze it’s not really working.

[mnl]

10 hours ago, Roger Pellett said:

 

 

My guess is with all of that canvas set, the skipper of this boat has no intention of gybing.

 

 

Certainly not tactically. My impression of these boats is they mostly drag raced. Not going to have a gybing dual to try and break cover.

[Ferrus Manus]

@mnlHonestly, i think that much canvas is simply inefficient. It would be so hard to handle it all at once, it would become less practical that handling less sail more efficiently and thus more skillfully. 

[Dr PR]

Roger,

 

"Fisherman's staysail" makes sense. Chapelle ("The American Fishing Schooners") shows various lengths of these four-sided sails on many of the east coast fishing vessels, dating back to the late 1700s. Looking through books dealing with schooners from other nations I can't find a single example of this type staysail.

 

Ferrus,

 

Chapelle shows the clews of these sails rigged to the main boom on some vessels, but it appears to be rigged to the main mast or shrouds on some shorter sails. If the clew line of one of the really large sails (like in the Westward photo) was rigged to the deck behind the main mast it would interfere with the outboard movement of the main boom. Attached to the boom I would think it wouldn't require as much handling. But that's just a guess. I have never sailed on one of these vessels.