shrouds and lanyards

Wow,

Great description.

I obviously, as my mention other modelers don't do, will not attempt to do this. THis photo I found on the net was just used to see if I was at least looking at and thinking in the right direction. And I am.

You will need to read your post several times just to "get it", but I get the idea. Interesting about the barrels of the rigging screws being obsured. I didn't think of that. Or more precisely, I didn't see them in the picture when I posted it and that you had mentioned previously that there were 2 lower turnbuckles.

I just can't wait for my books to arrive. My fear in that once they arrive, I won't be on the forum for a while. but in reality, I will be here as much as ever.

No need to worry yourself Prof. Tilley. I am sure I will post some more rediculous questions for you to answer if you so desire. I would hate to see you getting bored. Especially with Vapo having a baby, I doubt he will have much time to model. Hence, 1 fewer questioner.

Perhaps we can find smething really hard to explain. Such as the physics of the sails. this is only an example and no need to reply.

Thank you,

Robert

I was at the helm of the brig Lady Washington (aka HMS Interceptor) last weekend and put the shrouds and lanyards questions to a pro.  The current Captain is a 15 year veteran on square riggers and schooners; an accomplished shipwright and also does foundry work for boat fittings.  I first met him about 7 years ago when I helped him rebuild the foredeck on a 70 year old schooner. He also was one of the shipwrights that built the sets for Pirates of the Caribbean  and Master and Commander.  

His answer was that the deadeyes are placed as close to constant heights as practical when the shrouds are first set, but when set shroud tension dictates where they end up over time.  Last weekend the Lady's shrouds were askew on both sides of the vessel, and she uses a synthetic material (no wire core).  Hemp would be worse, since it is more sensitive to moisture than Dacron derivatives. 

He also said he had never seen or heard of the foremost shroud being relaxed to provide more bracing for the courses, nor would it be a trivial exercise to do so.  (of course he's never been chased by real pirates, either)    

As an aside I was looking at photos of 18th century models in Lees (the rigging bible)  the deadeyes were not always uniformly spaced.

My personal opinion, now, is that (exactly) uniform spacing is a wonderful way of showcasing skill and avoiding criticism from model contest judges, but is not necessary for historical or technical correctness. 

Of course we are talking small deviations, here, maybe a few percent of the shroud length. Rope shrouds are pre-stretched  before they are installed on the ship.  Any East Coasters can see a modern shroud pre-tensioning setup at the NPS ship 'Friendship' in Salem, MA.  Ask the ranger to see the inside of the rigging shed (the Friendship uses Kevlar covered with black house paint for her shrouds!).

In Gloucester, a 19th century rigging loft still exists in the back of the building now used as an art co-op. I don't remember the gallery name, but if I remember correctly, it's next door to the Strisik Gallery.

 

Very interesting!  I'm inclined to agree that our normal perception of such things is a bit too orderly and sanitary.  If we were able to go back and actually see, for instance, a nineteenth-century merchant ship in the midst of a voyage through the waters off Cape Horn, I suspect we'd see all sorts of things that aren't in the books.

On the other hand...by the middle of the nineteenth century we're into the realm of photographs.  The vast majority of the ones I've seen (clipper ships, whalers, warships, etc.) show the upper deadeyes in a straight line.  Just how they were kept that way I'm not quite sure.  (It seems like if the shrouds were being re-adjusted relative to the deadeyes on a regular basis, the lengths of the portions of the shrouds that were seized back on themselves would vary.  But they don't seem to do that.)  Does the Lady Washington have sheer poles?  It seems like a sheer pole would force the deadeyes into alignment with each other - even if the lanyards on some of them were a little slack. 

Correction of an earlier post by me:  earlier I said the reconstructed seventeenth-century ships at Jamestown didn't have sheer poles.  I checked my pictures; they do have sheer poles.  That may explain why their deadeyes are always so neatly aligned.

Logic suggests that the practice of slacking off the foremost shroud (to let the lower yard swing a little more) would only be effective in a fairly big ship (i.e., one with enough beam to make the shrounds made a big angle with the mast).  My first inkling of that practice came in a conversation (more years ago than I want to think about) with the chief rigger at Mystic Seaport, who explained it to me on board the Charles W. Morgan.  I'd asked him why only one out of every five ratlines went all the way to the foremost shroud.  He said that line wasn't a shroud; it was a "stiffener."  I'm not sure when that practice started or ended, but I'm inclined to think it was common from the beginning of the eighteenth century to the middle of the nineteenth.  (The Morgan dates from the 1840s.)  The big clue that a ship operated that way lies in the way the ratlines are rigged.  Sometimes the foremost shroud (or stiffener, to use my Mystic acquaintance's term) was set up with blocks rather than deadeyes, so it would be easy to slack it off.

It's hard to believe that slacking off that shroud would actually make much of a difference in how close to the wind the ship could steer.  Quite a few rigging practices don't make a great deal of sense to our eyes.  Again, though - maybe if we were actually sailing those ships on a regular basis we'd understand better.

schoonerbumm wrote:

I was at the helm of the brig Lady Washington (aka HMS Interceptor) last weekend and put the shrouds and lanyards questions to a pro.  The current Captain is a 15 year veteran on square riggers and schooners; an accomplished shipwright and also does foundry work for boat fittings.  I first met him about 7 years ago when I helped him rebuild the foredeck on a 70 year old schooner. He also was one of the shipwrights that built the sets for Pirates of the Caribbean  and Master and Commander.

How does the Lady Washington look now? Is she back to her pre-Pirates look?

Regards,

Of course it just occurred to me after reading Dr. Tilley's post that a merchant ship would be crewed to the  minimum level possible, while a challenge for a man-of -war was to keep so many extra hands busy and out of mischeif....  but there still remains the technical question of how do you keep the lanyards at a constant length over time without some adjustability feature in the tops?

She's back to being a Lady. 

   I would suspect that the foremost shroud (stiffener) would be set up using some tackle, with fairlead to a capstan, or windlass, which would tension the shroud until the deadeye lanyard could be overhauled and secured.

   Where it was used, I would imagine the practice was as common as handling a running backstay.

Pete

 

Good-sized sailing warships of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were fitted with lines called "pendants" as part of their standing rigging.  The pendant was a heavy line (about the same size as the shrouds on the corresponding mast) that hung down from the masthead, about a third or a quarter of the way down to the deck.  There generally was one on each side of each mast - or sometimes two, if I remember correctly.  The end of the pendant had an eye spliced or seized in it.  In some contemporary paintings and photos the pendants can be seen hanging vertically from the lower mastheads.  More often the eyes were frapped to the inside of the shrouds when the pendants weren't in use.

When it was time to tighten the shrouds a heavy tackle with two hooked blocks would be rigged.  One block would be hooked to the eye of the pendant; the lanyard of the shroud in question would be unrove and the end of it hitched to the other hook.  The fall of the tackle would either be hauled on directly by a gang of men or taken through a lead block in the deck to the capstan. 

This afternoon I spent some time browsing through several books, looking for some clear explanation of what we've been talking about in this thread.  I didn't find it.  I looked in Lees's Masting and Rigging, Harland's Seamanship In the Age of Sail, Dana's Seaman's Friend, and several other modern and contemporary books.  All of them gave straightforward, simple explanations of how shrouds were set up; all differed slightly from each other; and none acknowledged anything that was said in the others.  None of them said a word about slacking off the forward shroud, or stiffener - but I'm quite sure that was in fact a fairly common practice.  I also failed to find any drawings of ships that used blocks instead of deadeyes on their foremost shrouds.  (I think I remember that rig from some of the sailplans in Chapelle's History of the American Sailing Navy, but I left my copy of it at the office.  I'll try to remember to check it tomorrow.) 

Harland (whose work I respect deeply) suggests that the foremost shroud was parcelled and served throughout its length to protect it from the banging it would get from the lower yard and sail, and he discusses how the catharpins could be used to haul that shroud inward and backward, giving the yard more room to swing.  But he doesn't mention slacking off the shroud.  That's bugging me.  My Half-zeimer's-afflicted brain frequently forgets things, but doesn't often invent them.  I'll keep looking.

I did find one little detail that I hadn't noticed before in a photo of the famous "Isaac Hull model" of the U.S.S. Constitution.  This is the best source of information we have regarding that ship's appearance during the War of 1812.  In many ways it's a crude model, but the rigging is extremely detailed - clearly the work of some sailor who knew precisely how the real ship was rigged.  In the photos I looked at it appears (though admittedly they were pretty small) that the sheer poles on the fore and main shrouds terminate just aft of the foremost shroud.  That would make sense if the lanyards of those deadeyes were intended to be slacked off on a regular basis.  But they're definitely deadeyes - not blocks.

I also took a look at a hundred or so photos of actual sailing ships from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.  Every single one that I could find showed the deadeyes of the lower shrouds aligned in straight lines.  That includes several shots of ships showing a good deal of wear and tear.  Admittedly in some pictures this sort of thing is hard to tell; the deadeyes disappear into the black paintwork behind them.  But it's hard to escape the conclusion that lots of ships were sailing around with neatly-aligned deadeyes.

The question remains:  how did they get, and stay, that way?  I'm coming around to the conclusion that the rope in question just didn't stretch as much as we've been assuming.  Actually that does make sense.  As Schoonerbum pointed out earlier, the riggers did their best to "pre-stretch" it.  And any rope - especially traditional natural-fiber rope - only has a certain amount of stretch in it.  My guess is that newly-rigged shrouds and stays stretched quite a bit initially, but tarred rope that had been in the ship for months or years was pretty rigid.  If it wasn't, the consequences would go beyond what we've been discussing.  Think what would happen to the ratlines if the shrouds were constantly - and inconsistently - being stretched and re-rigged.  Somebody would have to work his way up the mast loosening all the clove hitches on the ratlines and tightening them again.  Maybe that happened, but I'm inclined to doubt it.

Fascinating stuff.

WOW!  Simple queries are exhausted within a few responses.  When Dr. Tilley gets involved, we learn more than we have any right to know!  What an excellent resource for maririme history we have at our disposal.  The Santa Maria, being a late 15th century Carrack(?) may have had deadeyes and lanyards to adjust tension on shrouds.  If she did (every description of the SM is a guess) thay may NOT have been secured by chains on outboard channels and chain plates.  This was a time of transition, one of the greatest periods in the evolution of the wooden ship.  Different sources vary but it's likely that, being a trade vessel built on the northern coast of Spain in the late 15th century, the system of chains and outboard deadeyes would not have been included.  Instead, the deadeyes might have been secured through the deck to beams and frame pieces just inboard at the bulwarks.  The shrouds were most definitely not "rattled down" with ratlines; instead, a rope ladder might have run up the mainmast on its after side.  If only Columbus had had aboard a good photographer.....   

Ron,

The questionable appearance and workings of the SM are right now a godsend to me. THis gives me leeway to do some things which may not be correct, but who can argue. ( Actually, most of these things will be mistakes on my part, but we'll keep that between us)

Interesting thought on the ratlines or lack thereof.

I have order the Anatomy of Columbus's Ships. Will take a while as it is being sent to me slow boat from the States to Taiwan. I hope this book will clarify a few things.

My plan is to use deadeyes (at least at this moment), blocks ( not hearts, I didn't know about them when I made my order) and ratlines.

I do have reservations concerning the look of this ship. It was a trade vessel. I do not believe it would have been beautiful in any artistic fashion. Funny thing about the Heller kit. There are of course ladders but no hand rails. I think I will need to scratch build those. Out of styrene. I may add other items, Barrels, crates, etc. With this I will be making a Prof. Tilley No NO. I will use BALSA. I donot think this ship will last for many years so I am not to concerned right now about the material I use. It is just easier for me to work with this as I don't have any power tools to speak of.

I've got the hull and main deck together. Before I continue, I will wait until I get the book. In the meantime, I am contemplating either throwing my headache (Pamir) out the window, or yet again paint the hull. Too many mistakes. Will see how I feel tomorrow.

Robert

 

If I remember the rigging geometry for Morgan correctly, she's set up "Nantucket style" (a term I know I learned in an old, old book, but could not recall for love nor money).  This has the foremost shroud on each mast terminating at a deadeye location forward of the mast in plan and in elevation.  This gave more forward support for the masts, and allowed a bit larger space between the deadeyes for the boat davits (the really important feature on a whaler)

Now, you have a broad-beamed vessel with a bit less "arc" to swing lower (or "course") yards about.  Since there's a slightly broader "pyramid" on the windward side, a person could slack a for'ard lee shroud to get a bit more windward sailing performance (and the whalers were designed for their carrying capacity, not to be optimal sailing forms--every sailing advantage one could take to improve performance was a gain).

On sails, and why topsails are not on top--that's easy (sort of).  The first ships used one great sail hoisted to the mast top.  When an additional mast was stepped above the lower mast, it was, obviously (then) the "top" mast, which carried the top sail.  By Columbus' time, main masts sported a third mast, raised above the topmast.  (This was partially to ballance the mast "spitting" forward over the bow, which became called the bow "sprit.")  That mast was said to stand "gallant" giving us the term topgallant.

Early on in the 16th century, the (various) King's ships would step a longer topgallant mast.  To the top of the toppgallant could be set another yard, the royal.  It was "royal" in that merchant ships did not need them so much as the large combatant ships did, so they are found on the Royal ships.

By the time of the clippers, the ships wanted fewer hands, but more sail area.  One way to achieve this is to split the topsail, and topgallant sails into an upper and lower combination.  The lowers would use a yard fixed to the mast head cap, and a 'working' yard over that.  So, by only slacking the upper yard's halyards, you could halve the sail area.  The clippers also saw use of "sky" (also "moon" or "sun" following some linguistic differences) sails over the topgallants.

So, Santa Maria (baring the spritsails) has a simple sail plan at the main--a Course; a Tops'l; and a T'gallant.  Pannir, on the other hand has almost the same main mast, just distributed differently.  Course; upper & lower top'sls; upper & lower t'gallants; a royal; and a Skysail (memory is not serving me well, Pannir might be Mondsegel and Sonnesegel and not royal & sky).

Hope that does not muddy the water further.

Cap'n Mac, are you comfortable with t'gallants on a 15th century Carrack?  The copy of the copy of the alleged journal of Columbus gives us great gaps in configuration; but I was always of the opinion that the sail plan was pretty much agreed upon: a foresail, mainsail with two bonnets (bonnet and drabbler) and lateen mizzen with a topsail added in the Canaries on his way out and a spritsail bent below the simple bowsprit.  The ship's boat sail was sometimes rigged on the half-deck for a bit more drive (sort of a jury-rig bonaventure) but never a mention of anything above the topsail. Have you newer information?  The "royals" were first mentioned on the "Sovereign of the Seas" renamed the "Royal Sovereign", hence, in my observations, the derivation of the term.

Best,

Ron 

Hmm, now, that's a can of worms, isn't it?  SM in particular making it difficult to "nail down" specifics.  Your mention of bonnets does cause me no end of recollection on the specific ship (O, the whilring waste of space in my head <g>).

You correctly use carrack as well, and that may be what's triggered my impulse, which I then over-extrapolated into the thread.  I couldn't say jsut this second whether t'gallants are first seen in the Med or in the Baltic.  I jsut remember the rather windy prose teaching on the topic--"O how gallaunt stande de masts" being quoted from a far off instructor long ago.

And, without Rigging in the Days of the Spritsail Topmast in front of me, I'm running off recollection--no intent to pontificate as a source of absolute reference meant.  (Having both RDST and the old Revell Golden Hind kit on the same desk can have some interesting head swiveling and "huh?" moments <g>).

I, too, recall that SoS was credited with naming royal sails--and in several references.  Might be so.  I'm just also remembering the "royal ships" reference from circa McKay or so.

Given the long history of sail, it can be dreadfully hard to find or make one absolute definition or attribution, sometimes (even if I've done so too many times <g>; mea culpa).

Quite a bit seems to have been added to this thread in a hurry!  I can't contribute much, but I do have a few minor comments.

Quite a few modern scholars seem to agree that the word "carrack" may well have fit the Santa Maria.  But so little is known about her, and the precise definition of the term is so sketchy, that I wouldn't want to argue the point.  Columbus himself, writing in Spanish, referred simply to the "nao" Santa Maria and the "two caravels" Nina and Pinta.  The literal translation of "nao" is simply "ship."  So far as I know, there would be no reason for a Spanish-speaker not to use it in referring to a carrack.  The one thing that's fairly clear is that she wasn't a caravel.

Regarding the royal - I've read several explanations of the term and chronologies of its appearance, but I have my doubts about all of them.  The contemporary pictures of the Sovereign of the Seas/Royal Sovereign do indeed seem to be the first authentic ones to show royals.  James Lees's Masting and Rigging of English Ships of War (which, in general, I tend to regard as the bible on the subject) asserts that no other ship carried royals prior to 1790.  I'm convinced that's a mistake.  When I was digging up info about the Continental frigate Hancock I found quite a few contemporary paintings showing ships of the American Revolution with royals.  The contemporary inventories of the Continental frigates Raleigh and Alliance include royals (or "topgallant royals") on all three masts. 

The term "topgallant royal," in its strictest sense, apparently refers to a sail that, with its yard, was "set flying" on the extremity of the topgallant mast.  The yard apparently was secured to the mast temporarily; when the sail was to be furled the yard was lowered by means of its halyard and the whole assembly was stowed inside the topmast shrouds.  I think the royal (with the exception of the ones on the RS) made its initial appearance in that form sometime around the 1760s or thereabouts.  By the time of the American Revolution the terms "royal" and "topgallant royal" apparently were being used almost interchangably.  The genuine, honest-to-goodness, permanently-rigged royal yard certainly was in use by 1810 or thereabouts - though some ships seem to have set their topgallant royals flying through the Napoleonic Wars.

Regarding the Santa Maria's sails - as I understand it, the most clear, firm piece of information we have about that ship is an entry in Columbus's logbook in which he says (this is an approximate quote) "I allowed them to set all the sails."  (Note the verbiage.)  He then lists them (I think I have this right):  spritsail, foresail, mainsail with bonnet, main topsail, mizzen, and the boat's sail on the poop.  (There may have been two bonnets on the mainsail, and one on the fore; I don't remember.  I'm sure the Anatomy book will clear that up.)  But there certainly was no topgallant on the list.  To my knowledge the first reliable illustrations showing topgallants come from sometime in the middle of the sixteenth century.

It's worth remembering that during this period ships' sail plans were remarkably sharply tapered.  Each yard was almost exactly half the length of the one below it.  A sail set on a yard half the length of the Santa Maria's main topsail yard would be so small as to be virtually useless.

The bonnet was a relatively narrow strip of canvas attached temporarily to the bottom of the course as a means of expanding it in light winds.  It was attached to the course by a simple series of rope loops, which were passed through grommets in the foot of the course.  Samuel Eliot Morison (speaking of bibles) says the grommets were labeled, from one side of the course to the other, "A-M-G-P-A-M-G-P" etc.  When the ship's boy laced or unlaced the grommet he was supposed to recite "Ave Maria Gratia Pleni, Ave Maria Gratia Pleni," etc. 

I agree that 1492 is a bit early for outboard channels and chainplates - though that sort of thing is difficult, if not impossible, to pin down.  I have in front of me a nice color reproduction of a contemporary painting showing the departure of Henry VIII from Dover in 1520.  It contains lots of fascinating details - including remarkably clear chainplates (and heart-shaped deadeyes, aligned in straight rows).  Apparently the outboard channel and chainplate appeared during the first ten or fifteen years of the sixteenth century.

The skysail was indeed a common feature of mid-nineteenth-century clippers ships, but made occasional appearances earlier.  It's been established quite firmly that the U.S.S. Constitution carried skysails on all three masts during at least part of the War of 1812.  The skysail seems never to have been regarded as a major component of the ship's propulsion system; it's been suggested more than once that it didn't contribute much beyond appearance.  By last quarter of the nineteenth century it had virtually disappeared.  (The Cutty Sark had a main skysail earlier in her career, but none on the fore or mizzen.)  Some of the big American clippers of the mid-nineteenth century stacked square sails even higher.  The one I'm (sort of) working on, the Young America, had a moonsail (or moonraker) above the skysail on her mainmast early in her career.  (She only made a couple of voyages with it.  By 1856 the moonsail had disappeared from her sailplan - and she'd been rerigged with double topsails.)  I'm pretty sure the Pamir did not have skysails.  By her day the sail plan of the big working sailing vessel had settled down to six sails on each mast:  course (or crojack), lower topsail, upper topsail, lower topgallant, upper topgallant, royal.

Spelunko - I don't believe in No-No's, but there's fairly universal agreement among ship modelers that balsa is just about the worst wood there is for ship modeling. 

I don't have any reason to believe that balsa wood is any less durable than other woods.  But the notion that it's is easier to work than harder woods is pure fiction - fiction written by people who've never tried to work with any other kind of wood.  The truth is that, because it's so soft, balsa is a difficult wood to work with any precision.  It caves in under the pressure of any but the sharpest blade, splits easily, picks up dents from the smallest accidental bump, and soaks up finishing materials like a sponge.  Balsa has two virtues.  1.  It's light in weight.  (That matters a great deal to builders of flying model airplanes, but is irrelevant to ship modelers.)  2.  It's easy to get.  (That's because so much of the hobby business used to be centered on flying model airplanes.)  I have no idea what the situation is in Taiwan, but decent hobby shops in the U.S. nowadays stock the much superior basswood, which is available in almost as many sizes - and costs just about the same.  I've heard people expound at great length on the things that can be done with balsa.  But I can't recall ever having met a single modeler who, having been shown the difference between it and basswood (or pine, or birch, or beech, or any other decent wood) went back to balsa.

You can make a perfectly respectable miniature barrel from a piece of wood dowel.  (Again, I don't know how things are in Taiwan.  In the U.S., the dowels sold in hardware and craft stores are generally birch, which is a nice wood for modeling.)  It's especially easy if you have an electric drill - but a hand drill will work if you get somebody else to turn the crank.  Clamp the drill down to your work surface somehow, chuck a length of the dowel into the drill, turn on the switch, and go to work with a file (or even a folded-up piece of sandpaper).  It will take a little practice, but my guess is that if you start teaching yourself to make barrels at 6:00 in the evening, by 8:00 you'll be turning out beautiful ones at the rate of one every three minutes.

Too long as usual.  Good luck.