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Are Roman belaying arrangements similar to modern vessels ?

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  • Member since
    December 2006
  • From: Jerome, Idaho, U.S.A.
Are Roman belaying arrangements similar to modern vessels ?
Posted by crackers on Wednesday, November 16, 2016 11:32 PM

I have a collectiion of ships plans that on occasion I daydream in the hope that one day I would have the time to build all of them from scratch. One of these plans, of Italian origin, is a second century AD Roman medium sized coaster that came to grief north of Ostia, the port city on the mouth of the Tiber River to Rome. Excavated and studied, the remains were covered by mud, so that the bottom section hull was preserved, while the deck arrangement, long decayed, was open to conjecture and guess work. All of this data was drawn for a modeling plan of the vessel.  I noticed that the sail lines were belated to a pin rack simular to the belaying pin arrangemnent on ships more than a thousand years later. Were Roman ships of this era fitted with belaying racks and pins, or just a modern guess work of how the sail lines were secured ? Inquiring minds want to know.

Happy modeling   Crackers  Huh?

Anthony V. Santos

  • Member since
    September 2012
Posted by GMorrison on Wednesday, November 16, 2016 11:55 PM

No. The Romans did not have belaying pins. Those weren't invented until at least the 16th Century.

The Vikings tied off their lines to cleats, or cross beams.

Otherwise, early ships didn't set a lot of sails at one time, so the majority of the lines were to set the sails, not raise or lower them.

So they'd be tied off to rails.

 

 Modeling is an excuse to buy books.

 

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