Rigs for Steam Vessels in 19th Century

[BANYAN]

Hi all, those following my Victoria build will be familiar with my quest to make sense of some of the rigging (and item combinations) listed in the Rigging Warrant.  By chance I came across a couple of articles which may be of interest to other members but offers a few clues for the rig used by the Victoria also.

 

One of the primary concerns I had was the provision of vertical wirerope jackstays on a couple of her masts, which did not tie in with any of the contemporary literature from the likes of Burney, Nares, Luce, Kipping and Fincham.  These articles, while a little after Victoria's building, show the emergence of rigs designed to be handled from the deck; for example, furl from the deck or lower top rather than sending men aloft. 

 

Rigs in this era were under continual development, therefore, I am reasonably comfortable that the designs offered by the two articles I have found are a sound basis for my assumptions.  I have a way to go yet searching for more and earlier examples, but there is sufficient information to show that it is probable that Victoria used these jackstays to guide the upper masts down to the lower yard.  The sails of the upper yards were bent/laced by their foot to the yard below rather than above, allowing the sails to be lowered to be furled.  The upper yards were also rigged, using tricing tackles and the jackstays, to allow the top, topgallant and royal yards to lower to the lower yard.  This makes some sense of the rigging listed but not entirely, so it is probable that an early version of this was employed - if only I could find.....

 

For those interested, here are two proposed rigging designs (the latter definitely not used in Victoria😞).  if anyone has access to copies of the Mitchell Maritime Register (now part of Lloyds records I think) I would appreciate knowing if there are earlier proposed designs included.  The attached designs will have developed from earlier concepts and practices, so the use of jackstays to guide the lowering of yards without sending men aloft must have been emerging earlier than 1870.

 

cheers

 

Pat

Edit:  P.S.  I have extracted the relevant (deleting blank pages) from the Google Books sourced book, and the later Newspaper article is from the Australian National Library Newspaper digitisation project through their TROVE portal.  Many thanks for both for maintaining these as free services.)

 

New Rig for Steamers_RB Forbes_1883.pdf A New Rig for Steamerships_TROVE_1871.pdf

Edited November 7, 2022 by BANYAN