Imai Golden Hind 1/70

Looking good Dave.

Steve

Dave,

Here's a painting by Willem Van de Velde the Elder - from a later period, but the principle is the same:

bmagblog.files.wordpress.com/.../lenoxorhamptoncourt-scaled1000.jpg

You can see how most of the topsail is bundled up into a vertical bundle, with the clews sticking out.  Sort of like two letter J's, one of them backwards, stuck together.

Here's another one: 

http://www.topofart.com/images/artists/Willem_van_de_Velde_the_Younger/paintings/velde027.jpg

Notice also how thin the furled sail is when it's bundled to the yard.

Here's a good shot of the replica Susan Constant and Godspeed, at Jamestown:

http://www.williamsburgprivatetours.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/jamestown.jpg

If you look carefully you can see that the topsails are furled just like the ones in the Van de Velde paintings.  And the furled courses are bundled tightly to the yards.  (These ship, incidentally, have a couple of rigging features that aren't authentic, and were added in the name of safety:  they have jackstays and footropes on their yards, neither of which had been invented at the time of the actual ships.)

One of the most common mistakes among sailing ship modelers is to make the bundles of furled sails too fat.  If you're walking up the pier behind one of the Jamestown ships, you'll have trouble seeing that the furled sail is there; the bundle is, if anything, smaller than the yard.

The Jamestown picture shows one big reason why that system of furling was used in those days.  Those topsail yards are skinny - so skinny that they might well break under the weight of a man.  I've watched the Susan Constant's crew furl the topsails.  Two guys standing in the tops can do the job, without going out on the yards.

Since you're getting deeper into the sailing ship world, I'll recommend a book:  Seamanship in the Age of Sail, by John Harland.  It's a terrific work, showing through contemporary and modern drawings all sorts of details of how rigging works.  I think it's out of print, and used copies aren't cheap.  (The cheapest one I found in a quick web search is $69.00:  http://www.bookfinder.com/search/?ac=sl&st=sl&ref=bf_s2_a1_t1_1&qi=O3S9Uj00u2ftQ4MdesUmVE9Xyzo_3197690279_1:2:7&bq=author%3Djohn%2520harland%26title%3Dseamanship%2520in%2520the%2520age%2520of%2520sail%2520an%2520account%2520of%2520the%2520shiphandling%2520of%2520the%2520sailing%2520man%2Dof%2Dwar%25201600%2D1860%252C%2520based%2520on%2520contemporary%2520sources  ).  But if you can lay hands on it (maybe through a library) it will be a huge help to model building - and keep you up late at night studying the pictures.  Fascinating stuff.

Hope that helps a little.

Thanks, John.

I did notice how narrow the topsail yards are, compared to the main yards...with my previous model sail furling (the Santa Maria...seems so long ago!) I actually just used a shorter "sail" to begin with, so when it was furled, it wouldn't have that sleeping bag look...it seemed to work okay.

But I don't know what you mean about the T shape of the 16th century furling style...I looked up some google pics, but I didn't see anything like what you described...do you have any specific ideas of where I can look for reference, in case I decide to try that avenue?

Thanks!

Dave

One thing you need to think about, Dave, is the way the sails are furled.  During this period each yard was normally just about half the length of the yard below it.  So the foot of the sail would be twice as wide as the head - and furling the sail up as a bundle on the upper yard wouldn't work.

The solution was to gather the clews (the lower corners of the sail) into a bundle lashed to the heel of the top mast.  The sail was bundled up into sort of a T shape, with the top of the T being the upper yard.  The clews, with the sheets and clewlines attached to them, stuck out from the bottom of the bundle.  Ina small ship the topsail yard sat on, or a couple of feet above, the railing of the top.

I'm working with my phone, which doesn't let me post pictures from the web directly to the Forum.  Next time I'm at the desktop computer Ill find some pictures that explain how a furled sixteenth-century sail looks.  The process isn't really difficult.  If you google some pictures of the "Jamestown ships," the Mayflower II, and the Elizabeth 2 (not to be confused with the QE2), you'll get the idea.

The golden rule in making furled sails:  don't make the bundles too fat!  The bundles for the topsails should be just about the diameter of the topsail yards.

Good luck.