The Baltimore Clipper and Topsail Schooner Book Research Thread

[SaltyScot]

I have started this thread because I got off on a tangent with two fine gentlemen regarding the Baltimore Clippers. I wish to carry on our discussion about relevant books about these fine vessels in this thread and if anyone else has any input at all, you are obviously more than welcome to join in. The more the merrier!

[Dr PR]

Mark,

 

Here is a list of the most useful books I have found for topsail schooners. Some time back I posted this list in the topsail schooner rigging article:

 

https://modelshipworld.com/topic/25679-topsail-schooner-sail-plans-and-rigging/?do=findComment&comment=750865

 

1. To me the most important reference is Howard Chapelle's The Baltimore Clipper (Edward M. Sweetman Co., New York, USA, 1968). It has a lot of information about the development of topsail schooners and lots of drawings and illustrations. More importantly, it lists the dimensions of actual vessels in the early 1800s. It has many sail plan drawings, but says little about the rigging.

 

2. The Global Schooner by Karl Heinz Marquardt, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland, USA, published by Conway Maritime Press, London, 2003. This book is devoted to the history and construction of schooners. It has an exhaustive history of the schooner rig - the best I have seen.  The book has very detailed chapters on masts and rigging with detailed drawings. Numerous tables in the appendices give rules and dimensions for mast, spars and rigging. It is the most complete text on schooner rigging that I have found. It is a large book (11.6 x 10 inches, 294 x 254 mm) with 239 pages containing many detailed drawings, full page ship plans and illustrations.

 

3. Lennarth Peterson's Rigging Fore-and-Aft Craft (Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland, USA, 2015) has a section on topsail schooners, and most of this also applies to straight fore-and-aft schooners. He has drawings showing just about every possible line you could have on a schooner.

 

4. Howard Chapelle's The American Fishing Schooners 1825-1935 (W. W. Norton & Company, New York and London, 1973, 690 pages) is a must if you are interested in these schooners. It gives the history of these ships. However, it has a 371 page "Notebook" with very detailed drawings and descriptions of just about every part of schooner structure and rigging, and much of it applies to all schooners.

 

5.  John Leather's The Gaff Rig Handbook (Wooden Boat Books, Brooklyn, Maine, USA, 2001) gives a lot of detail for rigging modern fore-and-aft yachts and racing boats, but much of this isn't very useful for 19th century and earlier vessels. However, he does give the history of the development of different types of rigs, mainly focusing on British vessels. But the book doesn't have a useful index and finding information about a particular rigging detail is like looking for a needle in a haystack.

 

6. Harold Underhill's Sailing Ship Rigs and Rigging (Brown, Son & Ferguson, Glasgow, Scotland, 1969) has general sail plans for many types of ships and boats but not much about the actual rigging. But it does have a useful glossary.

 

7. An excellent reference for the development of fast sailing ships is Howard Chapelle's The Search for Speed Under Sail (W. W. Norton & Company, New York, USA, and London, Great Britain, 1967). It has some sail plans for schooners and a few rigging diagrams.

 

8. I also have Underhill's Masting and Rigging the Clipper Ship and Oceanic Carrier (Brown, Son & Ferguson, Glasgow, Scotland, 1972). It is an excellent book with a tremendous amount of detail about sails and rigging. It is mostly for British clipper ships, but it has a section on schooners. Unfortunately the drawings seem to be scattered randomly through the book and are rarely anywhere near the text that refers to them. But it does have a list of drawings after the table of contents. Most of what he writes about are rigs of the last half of the 19th century and early 20th century. If you are interested in clipper ships this is a must have! It has perhaps the best and most inclusive index of any book I have seen, with links to descriptions of every part of the ship.

 

9. James Lees' The Masting and Rigging of English Ships of War 1625 - 1860 (Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland, USA, 1990) is almost entirely about larger square riggers. However it does give a lot of detail about parts of rigging that does apply to schooners. More importantly, it tells how to determine the dimensions of spars, rigging, blocks and such based upon the mast diameter, and has lots of tables. But some caution is necessary because fore-and-aft rigs are much lighter than square rigs, and mast diameters are usually smaller for schooners. And the text can be confusing because he often fails to explain exactly what dimensions he is referring to. Mast and spar dimensions are usually diameters but rope dimensions are circumferences. Divide by PI (3.14159) to get the rope diameter.

 

The biggest problem I have had is all the nautical jargon these authors use, usually without any glossary. And different authors use different arcane terms for the same things. Some authors think a work cannot be scholarly unless it is written so an ordinary person cannot understand it, and use "five dollar words" where a "nickel" word would do just as well.

 

I have found three books indispensable for translating the nautical jargon into meaningful explanations:

 

10. The Young Sea Officer's Sheet Anchor by Darcy Lever in 1808 (reprinted by Algrove Publishing Ltd., Ottowa, Ontario, Canada, 2000) tells the novice officer or seaman how to rig a ship - every detail of how to put all the pieces of the masts and rigging together. It is essentially an illustrated glossary of nautical terms and a how-to book. But there isn't a lot specifically about fore-and-aft rigs.

 

11. The Art of Rigging by George Biddlecombe, 1925 (reprinted by Echo Point Books & Media, LLC., Brattleboro, Vermont, USA, 2016) is based upon David Steel's 1794 The Elements and Practice of Rigging and Seamanship. It has an excellent glossary and many illustrations. Again,  not much about schooners. You can find Steel's original book on line as a PDF file.

 

12. A good general reference is Wolfram zu Mondfeld's Historic Ship Models (Sterling Publishing Co., Inc., New York, USA, 1989) although it is oriented to square rigged ships and doesn't have much to say about schooners. But it has a tremendous amount of detail about all parts of wooden ships and a lot of the history of different configurations. It has lots of diagrams and text describing the parts of ships' hulls, rigging, sails and such. The book has tables for figuring the dimensions of mast and spars. It is one of the best general references for sailing ship modelers.

 

13. William Falconer's Universal Dictionary of the Marine, 1769, is very useful for understanding the arcane and obsolete terminology used in many texts, especially the older works. You can find this book in PDF format on line.

Edited 12 hours ago by Dr PR

[SaltyScot]

@Dr PR,

 

You wrote: But for all Baltimore Clipper and topsail schooner fans, I should advise getting Chapelle's The Baltimore Clipper. It may well be the definitive book on the subject.

 

I have that book and have been able to locate his plans for the Lynx. While researching this next build, I got deeply interested in the history of these clippers and went ahead and ordered those three books I showed you earlier on in Steve's Blog. I find having some more knowledge about the boat you are building can never hurt and it puts one in a different mindset for the build and personalizes the whole thing a little more, at least in my humble opinion.

 

@Coyote_6,

 

I have started amassing a small nautical library already. The majority of the books, at the moment at least, are related to the clipper/schooners because of my upcoming build. Other books that I have include:

 

The Arts of the Sailor (Knotting, Splicing and Ropework) by Hervey Smith

Ship Modeling Simplified by Frank Mastini (This book was a freebie with the Endeavour kit)

Rigging Period Ship Models by Petersson (Shoud I ever to such a ship but the info is great)

 

As I said earlier, I like to dive into the history of any mode I am going to build. I did it with the Endeavour and I will continue to do so.

[SaltyScot]

7 minutes ago, Dr PR said:

The Global Schooner by Karl Heinz Marquardt

 

Thank you, Phil. I feel that this tome, along with Chapelle's book should set me up well regarding information on specs for the schooners. I shall approach the CEO and see what she thinks

[SaltyScot]

13 minutes ago, Dr PR said:

Some time back I posted this list in the topsail schooner rigging article:

 

By the way, this post is priceless. I did come across it when I first joined here but had no idea at that time that I would eb planning to build a schooner. I shall bookmark it and use it for sure. Phil, you are truly the master of research sir  

[Coyote_6]

As an example, I have actually used the following books for my current Prince de Neufchatel build - they have been invaluable:

 

Mastini's Ship Modeling Simplified: Fitting deck structures to the curved deck. (Maybe not invaluable, but a darn good trick.)

 

Chapelle's Search for Speed Under Sail:

Bowsprit angle.

Rudder fittings.

Transom stern shape.

Rigging and sail plans.

 

Chapelle's History of American Sailing Ships:

Tiller configuration.

Bowsprit angle.

Confirmed deck layout.

 

The Ashley Book of Knots:

Rigging blocks.

Seizing lines. 

 

Harland's Seamanship in the Age of Sail:

Steering gear rigging.

How to hoist out a boat that's amidship.

 

Marquardt's The Global Schooner:

All things rudder related.

Anchor planning (next for me after the guns).

 

And the best part - plans only tell you how to do something.  Books tell you why.

 

Great topic!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited 17 hours ago by Coyote_6

[SaltyScot]

2 hours ago, Coyote_6 said:

And the best part - plans only tell you how to do something.  Books tell you why.

 

I love this, Steve. Great mantra for this blog  

[Dr PR]

Another publication I have found useful is George Campbell's The Neophyte Shipmodeller's Jackstay, Model Shipways Co., Inc., Bogota New Jersey, 1962. This 60 page booklet was intended to be an introduction to ship modelling for beginners. It doesn't describe any vessel in particular, but has a lot of bits of information about things found on sailing ships with many illustrations. I have found it useful as an illustrated "dictionary" for nautical terms.

[SaltyScot]

6 hours ago, Dr PR said:

I have found it useful as an illustrated "dictionary" for nautical terms.

That can be very helpful for beginners like me. The nautical vernacular is, at times, like a foreign language.

[GrandpaPhil]

The Search for Speed Under Sail has been invaluable for me.