David Steel's The Art of Rigging: Juxtapositions, analyses and the yet unknown

[dafi]

For the blocks of my Victory I had to work my way through David Steel's The Art of Rigging. Originally, I had oriented myself on McKay's AOTS, but then realized that there was still a lot omitted and there were also some errors.

Steel is much more detailed, but there are some ambiguities as well as differences to other sources. Here are a few that I am working on and wondering about 🙂

 

 

[dafi]

I was most surprised by the stirrups: 3 feet below the yard.

When I held my scale seaman next to it, my suspicions were confirmed: damn deep ...

... I would have instinctively hung it 4 mm higher so that my little Able Seaman had a chance of getting over it.

 

If you add up the 90 cm, the thickness of the yard is up to 60 cm, as in the case of the main yard. That's 150 cm, just under my chin. Then there is also the depth of the yard  to consider, so that in addition to the 90 cm length under the yard, there is also approx. 0.5 x the diameter of the yard. Another escalating factor is that the horse can sag quite a bit in the middle between two stirrups.

 

To be able to judge this better, I trained two Able Seamen, one for the thickest part of the big yard with a diameter of 60 cm and one for the yardarm with a diameter of 30 cm.

 

First the variant with 3 feet under the yard. The sailor on the thick yard has very bad cards. The tar jacket on the thin end fits better.

If I refer the 3 feet to the center of the yard, it's better.

If you relate the 90 cm to the upper edge of the yard, it fits best. Here the sailor has the opportunity to use the horses at the thick point, the colleague on the outside still hangs at a similar height.

To confirm this interpretation of Steel's specification I had a closer look from the side.

The red part of the stirrups is about 3 Feet and it looks perfect both for the simply standing on it as for the working in a upswung position.

 

If one takes the other descriptions the remarks to the simplyfied "3 feet underneath the yard" it would possibly read like this:

Stirrup long 3 Feet, nailed to the top of the yard, with enough overlength to do 3 turns around the yard. Hangs behind and underneath the yard.

 

Could this interpretation be correct?

XXXDAn

 

 

 

 

 

[Gregory]

Did I miss where you indicated the height of your seaman?

 

Google tells me the average height in 18th century was 65”..

[dafi]

He is quite tall for the times with 1,80 cm being 71".

 

XXXDAn

[allanyed]

Very interesting point and your test group is a great idea.   To add to any confusion that there may be James Lees mentions that the footropes or horses were 2 feet under the yard on page 69 of The Masting and Rigging of English Ships of War, but then on page 70 goes on to say that the stirrups should allow the footropes to hang 3 feet below the yard.  Looking at the photos below, this makes some sort of sense.  Where as the stirrups were probably pretty much the same on a given ship, not all seamen were the same height so maybe topmen assignments were partially based on their height just as strength was a consideration in assignments.  The below are photos thus obviously more modern times, but may fit the discussion.  Hopefully the sailors between the stirrups were the taller ones.  😀

Allan

Edited April 9 by allanyed

[Jim Lad]

For late 19th/early 20th century, Harold Underhill suggests roughly 3 feet 6 inches for the total finished length of the stirrups.

 

John

[mtaylor]

5 hours ago, allanyed said:

Very interesting point and your test group is a great idea.   To add to any confusion that there may be James Lees mentions that the footropes or horses were 3 feet under the yard on page 69 of The Masting and Rigging of English Ships of War, but then on page 70 goes on to say that the stirrups should allow the footropes to hang 3 feet below the yard.  Looking at the photos below, this makes some sort of sense.  Where as the stirrups were probably pretty much the same on a given ship, not all seamen were the same height so maybe topmen assignments were partially based on their height just as strength was a consideration in assignments.  The below are photos thus obviously more modern times, but may fit the discussion.  Hopefully the sailors between the stirrups were the taller ones.  😀

Allan

It does appear looking at the lower photo that the taller men were"in the middle".  

[dafi]

8 hours ago, Jim Lad said:

For late 19th/early 20th century, Harold Underhill suggests roughly 3 feet 6 inches for the total finished length of the stirrups.

 

John

At that times the jackstays were in use, this  confirming the length seen on my small scale sailors.

[dafi]

Another difference I noticed are the yard tackle blocks and the braces pendants.

 

 

 

Steel mentions that the pendants of the braces of the main yard*** were 1/10 of the length of the yard. In the navy they were sometimes operated without pendants, i.e. the block was lashed directly to the yardarm.

In this matter, one probably has the freedom, as long as no direct references can be found in the logbooks. Are there any hints for that? @Morgan

 

It is interesting to note that Steel has replaced many long tackle blocks with normal double blocks. In particular, the stay tackle blocks and the yard tackle blocks are equipped with 17" double blocks instead of 24" long tackle blocks. More stable blocks or simplification of the material list? Or signs of the beginning machine milling of blocks? All other sources speak of violin blocks for the entire time frame.

Steel also gives the length of the pendants of the yard tackle blocks as 1/10 of the yardarm length. In many other sources I have the impression that the pendants extend to the fishing in the middle of the yard, i.e. they were about twice as long.

 

The two different versions are shown opposite each other in the picture.

 

And how could it be otherwise, questions upon questions ...

 

XXXDAn

 

*** The brace pendants of the foresail are 1/8 of the yard length according to the Steel

Edited April 11 by dafi

[dafi]

And another little tid bit that is not normally seen on models. According to Steel, the rope slings were replaced by chain slings in wartime. And if "the road to Trafalgar" doesn't count as wartime, what does ?!?

 

 

Here you can also see that the chain sits on a wedge at the back, whereas the rope slings is passed over the bolster of the mast head.

Until 1760, the braces were supported by preventer braces, whereby the hanger was doubled.

 

 

However, as this proximity was certainly not as effective when under fire, the preventer brace was later brought to the front of the yard.

Consequently, since the chains are attached here, the forward-facing preventer braces should also be attached. For this purpose, the standing part of the brace was attached to the rearmost shroud of the foremast, ran to a block on the front of the yard, back to a block on the rearmost shroud and from there to the forecastle.

 

 

Exciting.

 

XXXDAn

Edited May 13 by dafi

[allanyed]

13 hours ago, dafi said:

And another little tid bit that is not normally seen on models.

Great piece of information Dafi!!!

 

It took me a little while but I did find this in his Elements and Practice of Rigging and Seamanship, Volume I, page 283, 1794 edition

 SLINGS have a long and short leg, and a large thimble seized in the bight. The long leg passes round the after-part of the mast, and reeves through the eye in the short leg; it is then brought back, and securely seized to its own part in several places. By these the yard is retained at the mast-head with a laniard, that splices in the thimbles in the slings, at the fore part of the mast and then reeves through the thimble in the strap upon the yard, and so alternately till the laniard is expended. The end then fraps round the turns, and makes fast with two half hitches. In time of action, the yards are slung with chains.

 

Looking at Lees, he conjectures that rope slings came into use about 1773 and the use of chains in time of action appeared about the same time.   He goes on to say chain was used at all times as of about 1811.  

 

Allan

[dafi]

Yepp, it is Lees where I found it first, then being confimed by the find at Steel. By this resaerch it became quite obvious that Lees uses quite a lot of Steels informations, sometimes word by word. (This is not a moan 🙂 ). These details can be found in Part III "Progressive Method of Rigging Ships" in the article of "Rigging the the Lower-Yards" in the passage about Fore- and- Main-Braces, Preventer-Braces and Slings.

 

Also most of these details are repeated in the "Tables of the Dimensions of ..." in the sections for lower fore mast and lower main mast.

 

XXXDAn

Edited May 14 by dafi

[Thukydides]

3 minutes ago, dafi said:

Yepp, it is Lees where I found it first, themn being confimed by the find at Steel. By this resaerch it became quite obvious that Lees uses quite a lot of Steels informations, sometimes word by word. (This is not a moan 🙂 ). These details can be found in Part III "Progressive Method of Rigging Ships" in the article of "Rigging the the Lower-Yards" in the passage about Fore- and- Main-Braces, Preventer-Braces and Slings.

 

Also most of these details are repeated in the "Tables of the Dimensions of ..."

 

XXXDAn

I often wish that authors like Lees etc were a bit more explicit about where they get their sources from when they make these sort of statements. It would make it much easier to parse how reliable the statements are if he regularly said "based on Steel" or "based on models viewed", etc... More footnotes equals more good :).

[dafi]

... and already Steel is a mere collection*** of earlier works that were simply updated.

 

XXXDAn

 

And those earlier works the same ...

 

... and later works too ...

Edited May 14 by dafi

[Gregory]

Is there any documentation of what references riggers referred to while working.

 

I suspect they pretty much knew what needed to be done, and did it.

 

I don’t visualize anyone carrying a measuring tape around with them.

[dafi]

A small end of rope did the job 🙂

 

That is why the ropes are measured in cicumference and not in diameter as we usually do. Many modelers already fell in that trap.

 

XXXDAn

[dafi]

A few questions about the shrouds on my Victory and her contemporaries.

 

1 - Steel and all the others state that the foremast and mainmast shrouds are fully dressed. Since this information is generally missing in Steels description for the topmast shrouds and mizen shrouds, I assume that these are to be left undressed.

This leads to the question to why they were not needed to be dressed to protect sail and shroud like the lower ones? Also the French in La Creole some time later also dress the foreward topmast shrouds, as seen on archjofos wonderful build. Also Schrage describes the foremost topmost shroud as being dressed. Marquardt does not mention the dressing in the text but shows it in the drawings.

 

2 - What is the difference between Pendants of Tackles and Burton Tackles? Steel makes a distinction by saying" ..., but burton tackles are used on the mizen mast, instead of pendents of tackles." But Longridge and others use the term synonymously.

Is the difference in Steel possibly that the pendents of tackles are like shrouds in a pairs with an eye for the masthead and the Burtons as a single strand on both sides with a cut splice?

 

3 - Steel does not specify Burton Pendents/Tackles for the mizen topmast. Correct?

 

4 - I was a bit confused at first about the "swifters", which according to Steel are put over the masthead between shrouds and stays. Then I found out that this refers to the rear shrouds, which are not like the shrouds a pair with an eye, but are one rope with a horseshoe splice. Correct?

 

As always, questions upon questions, Daniel

Edited September 25 by dafi

[Thukydides]

On the button pendants if you look at the diagram of the standing rigging for a 20 gun ship, steel refers to the pendants for the main, and fore topmasts as burton pendants as well as the mizzen.

 

https://maritime.org/doc/steel/part7.php#pg235

 

There is nothing clear in the diagram to differentiate them.

[popeye2sea]

Mostly by tradition, the mizzen mast tackles are referred to as burton tackles.  Generally, a burton tackle is a lighter tackle. Maybe that is why the mast tackle on the mizzen is referred to that way.

 

Regards,

[Dr PR]

An interesting follow on to square rigger tackles - in the modern US Navy the heavy lifting tackle is called the Burton tackle, and the associated winch is the Burton winch. So the name persists today.

[dafi]

That would be my interpretation for the pendents so far:

 

Pendents of Tackles

Double Pendent with eye and seizing

lower fore and main mast

 

Burton Tackle = Burton Pendents

Double sided tackle with **** splice.

mizen lower mast, fore + main top mast

 

Mizen topmast no hanger/tackle?

 

Also still the question about serving the first shroud of the topmasts. Also aft mourn lower shroud as in later times?

XXXDAn

Edited September 26 by dafi