Unidentified LTS Yard Support Rod and Attached Hardware-(1890s US Brigantine)

[CDR_Ret]

This is a plea for input from the general membership to identify the depicted iron hardware shown below and/or for direction to a source that illustrates (or at least describes) this object:

What's it? The upper end of the rod is attached or hinged to the centerline band of the foremast lower topsail (LTS) yard. The bottom end of the rod is somehow attached to a cross-brace in the decking of the foretop platform.

(Courtesy Carnegie Science Library, September, 1906)

 

The ship it was used in was the US West Coast merchant brigantine Galilee, built at the Matthew Turner shipyard in Benicia, California, in 1891. The reference photos I am using are mostly from the period when the ship was chartered by the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, Carnegie Institution, Washington, DC, between 1905 and 1908 for geomagnetic data collection in the Pacific Ocean basin. Captain Matthew Turner, by all accounts, was the most prolific shipbuilder on the West Coast during the latter 19th century, and he frequently incorporated in his wooden sailing ships innovations that were common to iron-masted sailing ships during this period.

 

I have a variety of other images, all together indicating that this isn't some kind of running or standing rigging ropework. It's always absolutely straight and typically runs in a direction at an angle to all the other lines in its vicinity. At this point in the ship's life, virtually all iron standing and running rigging had been replaced with hemp in order to minimize the rigging's magnetic effect on the ship's instruments. Only structural iron that was absolutely necessary for the operation of the ship was retained.

 

Other images:

Various depictions of the LTS yard support rod. (Sources: left and right, Carnegie Science Library, c. 1905-1907; center, SAFR, prior to 1905)

 

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

 

Terry

 

 

Edited yesterday at 02:31 AM by CDR_Ret

[wefalck]

This appears to be a pivoting support rod for the yard that is attached to the parral. These seem to have come into use in the 1880s or so for lower and lower top-sail yards that not normally were raised or lowered and replaced halliards.

 

Check out

UNDERHILL, H.A. (1946): Masting & Rigging the Clipper Ship & Ocean Carrier.- 304 p., Glasgow (Brown, Son & Ferguson).

I think there is a drawing in there.

 

The rod was hinged to a central band on yard connected with the parral and its bottom end was hinged to a band lower down on the mast. The hinges allowed to brace the yard.

 

 

Edited 20 hours ago by wefalck

[CDR_Ret]

Hi Wefalck.

 

Thanks for the pointer. In Underhill, Figure 44, there is indeed an image showing the lower topsail yard supporting rod/stay/strut. This is in the context of an iron and steel-sparred ship. The figure shows the upper end of the rod hinged to a hefty lug at the bottom of the center band, as stated earlier. The hinge plane was in line with the yard and vertical. The lower end of the rod terminated at the steel cross support at the base of the topmast.

Scan from Figure 44, page 39, Masting and Rigging the Clipper Ship & Ocean Carrier, Harold A. Underhill, Reprint 1969; Brown, Son, and Ferguson, LTD

 

Interestingly, all the diagrams of the LTS yard (including Fig. 44), show the LTS yard mainly supported by a swiveling crane arrangement, rather than the universal-jointed truss as in the lower yard (and as was the case for Galilee). So a crane plus a support rod for the LTS yard seems to be overkill except, perhaps, in larger ships.

 

I finally found a side illustration of the LTS yard strut in Underhill, Plate 16, on page 80 (there is so much information buried in this book that it is easy to overlook things!). The plate illustration suggests that the lower end of the support strut is simply an eye-in-eye swivel, bolted through the forwardmost top platform crossbeam. So, lacking any other information, that's what I will go with.

Plate No. 16, Ibid, showing the arrangement of the LTS yard support stay or strut.

 

In Galilee's case, the entire weight of the LTS yard, hardware, rigging, and sail rests on this one rod! When the yard tilts, I'm still not sure how that motion is accommodated by this support system.🤔

 

Thanks for the prodding!

 

Terry 

 

@wefalck

@BANYAN