Lower yard constuction

[allanyed]

Until recently I have never seen a yard constructed of multiple pieces.  The contemporary plan, figure #1,  below has scarphed end pieces rather than a yard made of a single piece.  It is from a British 74 gun ship of 1779.  Does anyone know of other instances where this might have been common practice?  At most common scales this would be visible but I have yet to see it on a contemporary or modern day model.   I realize it is probably not of much importance for our scales, but I am curious about this.  It is almost as if the legend on the left is mislabled  as it calls it a main yard of 22 5/8" diameter

TIA

Allan

 

Edited January 3, 2023 by allanyed

[Mark P]

Good Morning Allan;

 

There are other examples from this period of made yards for 74 gun ships and larger. Some are made by splicing on a piece at one end only; others by joining in the middle in the same manner as deck beams were scarphed, with tabled joints; and others as per your example above, with both ends spliced. The dimensions for a main yard at this period does seem to have been 22 5/8" diameter, with a length of 95'. 

 

As has been discussed for masts previously, this is quite probably related to the loss of the American colonies, leading to a shortage in the supply of longer trees previously used for yards. However, made masts go back long prior to this period of time, so they were certainly nothing new. I have no information about yards, though, and when they were first made in more than one piece for large square sails. 

 

All the best,

 

Mark P

[allanyed]

Thanks Mark,

Now we have another challenge in our model making if we so choose, made spars to go with more commonly seen made masts.  I doubt more than a small few will do this, but it would be interesting to see how they would make them at our scales and how well they turn out.

Allan  

[druxey]

I seem to recall coming across other 'made' yard plans such as Mark describes, Allan.

[Bob Fraser]

Is it something like this?

Other examples are on the RMG collections with a search of Main Yard 

Hope this helps.

[allanyed]

There are drawings of masts and spars from RMG in high resolution on the Wiki Commons site.

Allan

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[bruce d]

The Danish Museum has a contemporary copy of the drawing Bob shows in post #5, ref = D204.  The hi-res version is available using the 'save' option in the header above the picture on their site.

I am certain I remember another couple of examples there, still browsing.

HTH

Bruce

[bruce d]

D232 above, an unidentified yard. There is no information in the index but it is amongst other drawings of masts and tops from 18th c warships.

 

 

[druxey]

In the drawing shown by Bruce (#7), the yard is scarphed and also fished (this is the batten applied along the length of the scarph).