Gaff topsail question

[captainbob]

I’m getting ready to rig a fishing schooner and have a question about the gaff topsail.  When coming about was the topsail tack lifted over the gaff halyard lines or was it left to windward?  In pictures the tack is usually to the lee of the gaff halyard lines but in some pictures the fore topsail tack will be on one side and the main topsail tack will be on the other.  When rigging should there be a second tack line going up over the gaff halyard lines so the tack can be moved from one side to the other?

 

Bob

 

Edited June 2, 2014 by Cap'n'Bob

[Senior ole salt]

Yes, Bob it was lifted over. But if the vessel was making many short tacks I imagine it was left to one side.(Up to the skipper) In a race it was lifted over for sure.

 

S.os

[michaelpsutton2]

You can find plenty of pic's to support any way you want to set it. My view is that when on fishing trips the boat would be tacked and then the topsails and the staysail too, for that matter would be attended to after thing on deck had been coiled down and sorted out. When really racing men would be stationed at the mastheads to take care of all of this as quickly as possible

[michaelpsutton2]

You are trying to capture a moment in a constantly changing process and not an event.

[captainbob]

Thanks for the answers.  That is what I suspected but some pictures caused confusion.

 

Thanks again

 

Bob

[Rick020763]

Bob:

 

I thought it was simply left as set - that's what I did, but I was making relatively short tacks and usually single-handing.

 

The topsail looks much better and certainly works more efficiently when it's set to leeward of the halyard since its shape isn't being distorted by the halyard, so it makes sense to try to shift it to leeward on certain tacks. I just don't know how it would be rigged or carried out.

 

Rick

[JerseyCity Frankie]

On Lettie there are two tacks, and when going about one is cast off and the other is taken up and made fast. Incidentaly, Lettie G Howard is now back in New York and fully rigged for the first time in many years. She is being operated by the South Street Seaport Museum but she is also heavily involved in the Harbor School on Governors Island- Her master is a founder of the Harbor School and has folded Lettie into the curriculum there, a role for which she is very well suited.

[captainbob]

Thanks I would love to drive over and see her but living in Arizona that's kind of hard to do.

 

Bob