Workable Rigging?

The bowsprit is gammoned, the head assembly completed, and the spritsail yard was positioned in accordance with the engravings I've seen in Brian Lavery's book and others. I'm not sure how far out the yard should go, whether it should rest against the forecastle bulkhead, or what running rigging would have remained on it, but one thing became very clear - because the bowsprit is stepped starboard of the stem, the only space logically available for the yard is opposite, on the port side. I wonder is this was common back then as well. - Thanks

Having an option in the spritsail yard rigging is interesting, and we'll see how it comes out. I have to learn how to make parrells first! I can make the parts easily enough, and we'll see how the rest turns out.

I found a few images of the stowed spritsail yard in Arthur Nelson's book on the Tudor Navy, including the Visscher engraving of Golden Lion on page 100. Artistic caveats aside, Golden Lion seems to show the yard let slack by about a foot or so from the bowsprit, with the sling or parrell wide apart indicating its diagonal position, and one end of the yard within the structure of the head. Thread wont duplicate the weight of the yard, but a wire sling will. Thanks for the advice and insight, much appreciated.

The people responsible for rigging the Mayflower II knew what they were doing.  That parrel on the spritsail yard looks perfectly reasonable; I'm inclined to think either a parrel or a sling would be appropriate.

I think the spritsail yard is actually the only one that might not have been fitted with a parrel.  There are only five others (fore, fore topsail, main, main topsail, and mizzen); rib-and-truck parrels, such as Mr. Lavery shows in his drawings on p. 109, surely would be applicable to all of them.  The one for the mizzen yard would have to be a little more complicated, because it has to be slacked off and hauled taut every time the ship goes about.  The drawing in the lower right corner of the Anderson book's cover is a mizzen parrel.  Here's Dr. Anderson's description (p. 232) of how the whole assembly was set up:  "The parrel had two rows of trucks and a stout parrel rope (as thick as the mizzen shrouds).  In the bight of this parrel rope there was seized a deadeye with two holes in it, or (in the Dutch models) a double block.  The two parts of the parrel rope were then seized to the strop of the jeer-block, between it and the yard.  The ends passed as usual through the ribs and trucks of the parrel and went round the mast and then through the holes of the deadeye.  They were spliced together and a thimble was seized in the second bight thus formed.  Into this thimble the truss-tackle was hooked.  The effect was to hold, not the yard itself, but the strop of the jeer-block close to the mast.  When there was a tie instead of jeers, the parrel-rope and its deadeye were no doubt attached to the tie close down to the yard."

The only pieces of gear in that Mayflower II shot that most emphatically aren't authentic are the footropes.  There's general agreement that the footrope wasn't introduced until at least 1675.  I'm sure the riggers knew that, and added footropes as a safety feature for the benefit of the modern crew.  Modern reconstructions of old ships frequently make compromises with history in the name of safety and practicality.  (Another obvious example:  the watertight compartmentation on board the Pride of Baltimore II.  The first Pride of Baltimore eloquently demonstrated the inherent dangers of authentic, early-nineteenth-century compartmentation - or lack thereof.

Contemporary seventeenth-century pictures frequently show the spritsail furled up on its yard stowed in the ship's head.  Just how it was secured there is hard to say.  In pictures it generally seems to be lying more-or-less parallel to the bowsprit, sticking out of the bow at a slightly upward angle.  I suspect if you try stowing the spritsail yard in the head, the logical arrangement will be pretty clear.

Thanks, that solves the problem beautifully. The drawing on the cover is exactly what I needed to know. After posting the question, I also thought to look at the Mayflower II photos on the Dry Dock site. There is a good clear shot of the sling, which they have fitted with parrels. Its link is:

http://gallery.drydockmodels.com/album270/DSCF0351c

There are a few other shots of the sling as well. I'll go with your idea of a sling sans parrell on the spritsail yard, although I'm guessing parrells used on topsail yards for ships this size. The flexibility of stowing the spritsail yard in the bow is interesting, would it rest on the head, more or less in line with the structure? It might make a good subject for the model. Thanks again.

Interesting question.  I can't find the answer in the Lavery book either.

Dr. Anderson discusses the rigging of the spritsail yard in some detail.  It's worth remembering that his primary interest is in larger warships, but I think the spritsail yard sling he describes probably would be appropriate for a Mayflower model.  (He says that at the beginning of the seventeenth century the spritsail yard was set up with a parrel, similar to those on the other yards, but I'm inclined to think slings would be more appropriate for medium-sized merchant vessels.) 

Here's Anderson's description of the spritsail yard slings:  "The slings should be about the thickness of the fore shrouds or rather less.  An eye should be spliced in one end and the sling should then be passed round the yard and seized to itself fairly near the eye.  After that it is passed over the bowsprit and round the yard again.  It is then seized to itself again, close down to the yard, and its end is taken over the bowsprit and through the eye.  It is quite likely that there were sometimes eyes in both ends connected by a lashing and it is possible, though not very probable, tht the two seizings just above the yard were sometimes omitted." 

As usual, describing such things verbally makes them seem a lot more complicated than they are.  Here's a link to a picture of the cover of Dr. Anderson's book:  http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?z=y&EAN=9780486279602&itm=1

The piece of ropework in the upper right is a spritsail yard sling.

Lavery does describe the tye and halyard mechanism used to haul the spritsail yard in and out along the bowsprit.  Apparently when the sail was furled the whole yard was often unslung and stowed in the ship's bow.

Hope that helps a little.  Good luck.

I have a similar question. Before long I'll be installing the bowsprit on the Mayflower, and the instructions state to just lash the spritsail yard to the bowsprit (after glueing). The yard has nicely done sling cleats, but the instructions and mounting pin indicate the cleats are below the bowsprit. I've looked at Brian Lavery's book on Susan Constant (thanks for that recommendation) but oddly there is no illustration or drawing showing how the yard is held - although the lifts, etc., are very clear. Lavery is the guide I'm using on all the rigging, but I'm stumped!

If I glue the yard, I should do it before painting, but if I can lash the yard, I can paint first and add the yard afterwards. It will be finished with furled sails, so positioning the yard into a windward position is not necessary, but it would be neat to do it the right way.

The two preceding posts say pretty much the same thing, but they may be a bit confusing.  Maybe a little clarification of terminology will help.

I found a couple of pictures of the St. Louis, one contemporary (in Dr. Anderson's book) and one modern reconstruction (by Bjorn Landstrom, in his 1950s masterpiece The Ship).  They agree with each other in practically every respect (probably because Landstrom based his painting on the old engraving in the Anderson book). 

In both pictures she has a typical rig for a French/Dutch warship of 1626:  three masts, plus a bowsprit with a spritsail topmast.  The fore- and mainmasts have three yards apiece:  lower yard, topsail yard, and topgallant yard, each with a square-rigged sail set to it.  The mizzenmast has the usual lateen-rigged mizzen sail (please note the spelling - no N in the first syllable of "lateen") and a square mizzen topsail. 

The mizzen sail (more commonly referred to simply as the "mizzen") is set to the mizzen yard, and is carried inside the lower shrouds.  In the pictures its parrel (sometimes spelled "parral," but not "perrel") appears to be located six or eight feet below the mizzen top (the round platform at the head of the lower mast).  There are two horizontal ("square") yards on the mizzenmast.  The head of the mizzen topsail is secured to the upper of the two yards, the mizzen topsail yard.  The lower of the two yards is called the crossjack yard (or crojack yard).  During this period the one and only function of the crossjack yard was to spread the foot of the mizzen topsail.  The lateen mizzen didn't get in the way of a sail set on the crossjack yard, because there was no such sail in the seventeenth century. 

The mizzen yard stays inside the shrouds regardless of which tack the ship is on.  When the ship comes about, the yard is topped up, the parrel is slacked off, the sail is brailed up temporarily, and several energetic souls grab hold of the lower end of the yard and carry it bodily around behind the mast to the new lee side.  It's a clumsy process, but it does work.

I don't follow Chuckfan's phrase "outside of the hences."  Maybe it's a typographical error.  I looked up "hence" in several dictionaries, nautical and regular; none of them contains such a word used as a noun.  A hance is a "step" carved into a piece of wood as a means of making in narrower.  The term appears most frequently in reference to the shape of a rudder; the typical eighteenth-century rudder had two hances (or "hancings") in its after edge.  I've also seen it used to refer to the ornamented "steps" in the top of a ship's bulwark.  But I don't see what either of those usages has to do with spars or rigging.

A couple of months ago I had an interesting conversation with the gentleman who commands the reconstructed seventeenth-century ships at Jamestown Settlement.  He tells me that his crew can accomplish that evolution with the mizzen of the Susan Constant in a minute or two.  He also says that handling the lateen mizzen is such a nuisance that, if the program for the day's sailing involves quite a bit of tacking, he doesn't bother to set it in the first place.  It should be noted that the Susan is, even by seventeenth-century standards, a small ship, with no mizzen topsail.  Heaving the enormous mizzen yard of a ship like the St. Louis around must have been quite an exercise, even for the much larger crew she must have carried.

Sometime after the middle of the nineteenth century, some ships started setting a square-rigged sail on the crossjack yard.  That sail was, naturally, referred to as the crossjack.  By that time the lateen mizzen had been replaced by the much more practical gaff-rigged (or gaff-and-boom-rigged) spanker (or driver), so the potential collision of the mizzen and crossjack was no longer a problem.

Hope that helps a little.  Good luck - and if you want to do a good job of rigging a model like that, consider buying the Anderson book.  It's one of the biggest bargains currently available to the ship modeler.

CaptainBill03 wrote:

Good afternoon I'm finishing the Lindberg St. Louis and just started the mizzen sails and yards.  The kit features a lateen sail and two square sails on the lower mast.  However as they are shown they are unworkable.  The lateen yard and sail must be outside the downwind shrouds and hence, when changing course, the foot of the yard must be moved in front of the mast.  However the two cross yards will interfere because, even with the lateen yard as low as possible, they can't be raised high enough to clear the top.  The lateen yard can't be moved behind the mast because is too long to clear the shrouds.  My question is just how a mast should be rigged to have both lateen and square sails.

 

I am not familiar with Lindberg's St. Louis.   Can you clarify "a lateen sail and two square sails on the lower mast" and "how a mast is rigged to have both lateen and square sails"?

I assume St. Louis is a 3 masted square rigged ship, in which case the 2 square sails mentioned in the first quote are the courses on the fore and main masts, while the lanteen sail is on the mizzen mast.   The same lower mast is not rigged with both lanteen and square sails.  Rather the mizzen lower mast has a lanteen while the mizzen topmast is rigged with a square sail.   Is this interpretation correct?  

If it is correct, then the lanteen yard would be rigged on the inside of the shroud leading up to the mizzen top, snug up against the mizzen mast itself, and blow both the mizzen top and the crossjack.   It most certainly won't be outside of the hences.  When the ship changes tack, the lanteen sail would be brailed up, and the yard hauled up as close to vertical as possible.   The perrels securing the lanteen yard to the mizzen mast would be loosened, and the lanteen yard would be transfered from one side of the mizzen to the other.   Once there the perrels would be tightened and the lanteen yard would be lowered into its normal position, and the lanteen sail deployed again.   So the lanteen yards never gets in the way of the crossjack throughout the whole operation.  If the lanteen yard is properly inside the shrouds,  only thing that would seriously impede this operation would be if there are deck furnitures behind the mizzen mast that prevents the fore-end of the lanteen yard, now at the bottom during this operation, from being moved acorss the ship's centerline from one side to the other.     

 

It's entirely possible that the instructions were written by somebody who didn't understand how the ship's rig was supposed to work.  The normal procedure when a lateen-rigged ship comes about is for the lateen yard to be "topped up" (i.e., swung by the peak halyard so it's vertical) and for the lower end of it to be hauled around to the other side of the mast.  If that's physically impossible on the model due to other gear getting in the way, something's wrong.  The lateen yard does not, however, have to be outside the shrouds.  The normal configuration in big ships during the seventeenth century (there were exceptions) was for that yard to be secured to the mast several feet below the top.  The parrel was arranged in such a way as to let it be slacked off slightly when the ship came about, so the crew could bodily haul the yard around the mast by grabbing hold of the lower end of it.  The whole evolution normally took place inside the shrouds.  (Again, there were plenty of exceptions - especially in small vessels, and those indigenous to the Mediterranean.  Arab dhows, for example, sometimes unrove and rerove their shrouds every time they went about.  But in a good-sized ship warship of the western tradition that wouldn't have been considered acceptable procedure, and it would be impractical to secure the lateen yard to the mast above where the shrouds were attached - and that's where it would have to be in order for the sail to be set outside the shrouds.  Consider the strain that would have been put on the mast at that point.)

Quite a few books are available that explain how it's all supposed to work.  Perhaps the best, in terms of showing how the various evolutions were carried out, is John Harland's Seamanship in the Age of Sail.  It's a beautiful book and an outstanding piece of scholarship, but pretty expensive.  An excellent practical handbook for rigging models is R.C. Anderson's The Rigging of Ships in the Days of the Spritsail Topmast.  That one, fortunately, is currently available in a low-priced paperback edition from Dover Books.  I'd recommend it to anybody undertaking the rigging of a seventeenth-century ship model.