Ancient Greek Sail Rigging

[bear]

Ahoy Mates

 

I am building the new Argo kit from Falconet and have questions on how the rigging of these anceint greek warships had their sails rigged. Most important are the sail control and furling lines.  How do the brail lines work, and are there any books that show these details. Thanks

 

Keith

[Jsk]

I'd be surprised if there's anything definitive in regards to the ancient rigging. I suspect your best bet is to study pictures of the Olympias and adapt to a smaller craft. I know I've read Severin's book on the Argo but I don't seem to own it any more. Maybe there are photos of the reproduction about? A quick search uncovered this: https://indigenousboats.blogspot.com/2012/04/how-accurate-was-tim-severins-argo.html .

[dizzy]

Hi. I happened to spot your post while browsing. Might be worth contacting Dimitrios, he has made  Greek ships, some of which I saw in a museum exhibition. If he doesn't know, he'll probably be able to point you where to look.

https://greekshipmodels.com/en/home/

Also search "Greek ships" in this forum, there are lots of hits.

Edited 20 hours ago by dizzy

[dcicero]

Might be tough to get a definitive answer to this one, but the rig from Olympias would be a good source.  And thanks for the reference to Severin's work.  I read The Ulysses Voyage many years ago, when it first came out.  (And I seem to remember reading The Brendan Voyage, too, although I don't recall any details of it.)  I didn't know about The Jason Voyage, but I'll look for that one now.

 

Most of what we know about these ancient vessels is conjecture.  It's certainly been well-informed conjecture, but still conjecture.  There are no plans.  Getting what one can from a drawing on a vase is problematic, as is drawing conclusions from a couple of lines or poetry or from a play, and, although, say, the remains of a ship shed might exist, that doesn't tell you how to rig the ship that was stored there.  Some of the problem is not even knowing what we don't know.  I recall an anecdote about Olympias.  When they started testing her, they found they were constantly breaking the ropes that attached the oars to the thole pins.  Certainly, these things would break, but they were breaking all the time.  Someone associated with the vessel was talking to a local Greek fisherman who showed them a knot that everyone, apparently, knew ... except the British guys who built Olympias.  They tried the knot.  Problem solved.  Now, is that the same knot that was used 2,400 years ago?  Who knows?  Nobody knows. But that knot is certainly better than the one the British guys were using, so it's got to be closer to the original than theirs.  The things you learn when you try things... 

 

 

 

Dan