Contemporary ship rigging - guide?

Don

The proper terms as far as the Navy is concerned: Rope anything manufactured from wire. Line anything manufactured from fiber such as manila, sisal, hemp, or nylon. That said, on a modern cargo or warship the standing or fixed rigging will be rope. In a cargo ship most of the cargo handling gear that is wound on the drums of winches will be rope. Certain portions of the rig that are pulled taut on the gypsy head of the winch and then tied off to a cleat will be line. Mooring lines are line as are most of the boat handling gear. The rig that was used for highline transfer of personnel was all ways line.Signal halyards would be line.

Amphib

waynec

hi don what are you going to use for rigging line? might consider ho scale ezline. it comes in various shades and stretches without applying tension which is important at this scale. i may try some zebra wire for stack stays since they will be rigid.

Just finished the Olympia, and used a variety of line materials, as that ship was large enough (1:232) that I wanted to give an appearance of different diameter lines, and differentiate between standing and running rigging.  For heavier standing rigging I used conventional black thread.  For smaller standing I used some neat monofilament nylon that is dyed somewhat dark.

For heavier running rigging I used the finest tan thread I had.  For lighter stuff (signal halyards) I used straight transparent monofilament. I use monofilament line for depicting finer line because the lack of contrast makes it look finer than it really is.

Every time I use monofilament I swear I will never use it again because of its stiffness.  Tying a knot in it is like tying a knot in fine piano wire (a real ***).   However, if I do a decent job it looks so nice that I just have to use it on the next ship I do.  Running it through blocks is a challenge too, because it doesn't have a zero bend radius like real thread.  That makes it look a bit unrealistic for running rigging, but if the visibility is low enough hopefully no one will notice.

From what I have seen in pictures of the Olympia, it appears rigging is a mixture of organic rope and wire rope/cable.  I assume from pictures I have seen of WW2 and contemporary ships this is also the case.  Much of the rigging is metal, but there appears to be some fiber stuff too.

Securing flag halyards: simplest is a clove hitch on the rail;  belaying pins inserted into top rail, or into a fixed pinrail; or cleats attached to the mast, or rail. 

Don

In general the signal bridge would have been the topmost deck of the main superstructure just above the navigating bridge. There would be a small mast above it which that signal flags would be flown from. Generally from four halyards each side of the ship. The halyards would be tied off on what look like belaying pins on a pipe frame.

Go to youtube USNS Joshua Humphreys Signal Bridge Drills and you will see what I am talking about. Also note the communication by flashing light with a nearby Navy ship.

amphib

Don

Go on the internet and type in Cargo Ship Rigging. You will find a wealth of information having to do with the details of ground tackle, mooring lines, boat handling davits, as well as what you would expect, the cargo handling booms. I suspect if you look under various Naval titles you will find line handling and rigging for naval ships. Probably somewhere are diagrams for rigging the signal halyards. They basically ran from pulleys on a signal yardarm to places to tie them off on the signal bridge. You should also find on the signal bridge the flagbags or open topped boxes for the stowage of the signal flags so they were ready to hand.

If the ship has two masts, would the signal bridge usually be beflow the foremast, or would it be below mainmast?  What kind of fitting would typically be available for tying off the lines?  Eyes on a deckhouse, fixture along railings, ??

Don Stauffer

I find myself doing more contemporary ships these days.  By contemporary I mean from late 19th through 20th century.  I have several books on rigging of sailing ships.  But I am not aware of any similar for modern steam/diesel ships.  Any suggestions?

I was pinging Encore for lack of rigging details in the manual for the Olympia, and realized that most other kits of modern or contemporary ships are not any better.  I realize that the smaller scale of these ships makes it difficult if not impossible to do what we would do on 1:96 scale or larger models, but it would at least be nice to have lines going to the right places.

I realize that many lines these days are simple stays and radio antenna.  But I still see signal flags flying in pictures, so there must be running rigging for those.  Sure would like to have them terminating in the right places, anyway, even if the terminations are not well detailed.

Perhaps its time to widen your search beyond free internet sites.

The Anatomy of the Ship series of books has rigging diagrams, as does the Floating Drydocks plan eBook series.  

The ship photo CDs by Ray Bean are often very good and show photos/details which are not in general internet release.

Check the plans for sale through the Lloyalhanna  Dockyard.  Some good stuff there.

Even the old Edward Wisswesser plans - which some have claimed to be inaccurate as to hull shapes - show basic antenna and halyard rigs.   I just happened to be looking at an old Classic Warships kit of the US destroyer Benham, which includes Wisswesser plans - totally acceptable for the purposes of rigging

All the builder plans I've bought from the Maritime Archive are good, but that only covers a handful of WW2 era cargo ships.

Don

Go on the internet and type in Cargo Ship Rigging. You will find a wealth of information having to do with the details of ground tackle, mooring lines, boat handling davits, as well as what you would expect, the cargo handling booms. I suspect if you look under various Naval titles you will find line handling and rigging for naval ships. Probably somewhere are diagrams for rigging the signal halyards. They basically ran from pulleys on a signal yardarm to places to tie them off on the signal bridge. You should also find on the signal bridge the flagbags or open topped boxes for the stowage of the signal flags so they were ready to hand.