Means of Seeing what the eye brings

Found out about the existance of this book, “Eighteenth-Century Rigs and Rigging” while doing a little reseach, in my attempts to update some wikipedia entries regarding some of the more esoteric old sail and rigging designations.
i’m keen to see a copy sometime, and see how it expands on the classic Lever’s tome. From the write-up, it sounds like it covers many other rig types (not just classic square rigs), and (gasp!) is written in plain modern english, unlike Lever’s, which can come off sounding a bit antiquated to the novice.

Now, waiting for sails, and with all the pre-arrival-of-sails work done, i’m turning my attentions to a few neat little details on the dinghy.
Last night, between bites of dinner and listening to NPR, i finished double-serving the masthoops. The hoops are made from welding rod, bent to match fit around the mast, with little loops on the ends to attach to the sail. i bent the hoops out of old welding rod, which had the right balance of strength and flexibility i was looking for. i primed and painted the bent hoops, then served them in a first layer of heavily waxed sailthread, then overserved them in a softer nylon twine. Hopefully they’ll last well enough, and not damage the mast.
The boys had mocked my boom-end enough times that i felt i had to finish it up a little better; it had always just been the open end of the aluminium tubing, with a view inside of all the screws and rivets holding the various boom-end fittings in place. Yesterday, i made up a tight-fitting plug out of white oak. i left the plug long, intending to carve it away into some interesting shape, but came up with something different.
When i had a chance to do a little daywork on Adventuress in Port Townsend, i was really impressed by her new main boom gallows, a burly length of oiled and leathered hardwood. The neatest part was a nautilus shell inset into the forward side of the gallows. The shell was cut in half, and set in clear resin, so you could see all the whorls, chambers, and opalescence.
While i didn’t have anything as wild as a nautilus shell, and only a 2″ diameter area to work with, i wanted to try and see what similar effect i could come up with. i used a series of Forstner bits in the drill press to carve a little stepped “stadium” into the cap. i found a shell that seemed to fit the size and shape i was going for, and set it in place. Scott and i set the cap up on a little stand, and carefully poured a few tablespoons worth of high-build tabletop epoxy resin in and around the shell. While i applied resin drop by drop, Scott waved a little flame over the cap with a propane torch to bring all the bubbles out.
This morning, the resin cured, i used a fine-tooth blade to cut most of the protruding shell off, then took off the rest with a fine stone on the grinder. i used a progression of sandpapers to get the shell sanded down flush, then just a bit deeper. What started as a protruding pointed bit of shell was gotten down to a flush spiral of white shell. i continued to grind and sand until the simple squared-off plug became a nice flattened dome. The resin, of course, was made opaque by the sanding, but came out perfectly clear with the second coat i put on today. With a few coats of varnish (the only varnish on the boat!), i think it’s gonna look really snappy on the end of the boom.
The decks are painted Bristol Beige, with a raised trim of teak and mahogany all around them. This makes for a little area to catch water, especially in the corners. i had at first thought of filing little channels into the trim to serve as scuppers, but didn’t like the way i thought it would look, and would weaken the trim pieces considerably. Instead, i drilled holes from the corners of the deck down at an angle to exit through the rubrail. i cut some 3″ lengths of copper tubing, and flared one end of each. The tubing was tapped down through each bored hole, and the flare at the top sealed into the deck with epoxy. i’ll have to wait for the next rainfall to see how well it works, but i think the 3/16″ ID tubing sould be enough to drain what little water accumulates in the corners, and prevent rot.
i’ve carefully stoppered the mainsheet at just the right length to let the boom out as far as possible without actually touching the lower shrouds. Still, the sail is bound to ride against the shrouds somewhere. The totally traditional way to prevent chafe is to apply some baggywrinkle. Now, i’ve made plenty of baggywrinkle on large boats, and although tedious, i’d never call it difficult. For the dinghy, i made up a test length of ‘wrinkle, cow-hitching 1″ nylon yarns onto a bight of waxed sailthread. The scale was right on, and the little bit i made looked good and purposeful on the stay, but at what cost! It musta took me 15 minutes to hitch 2″ of ‘wrinkle, squinting and cursing my fat fingers. i’ve found that 6″ of hitching works out to 1″ of ‘wrinkle on the stay, and i figure i’ll want four 6″ sections aloft, so that makes 144″ of hitching (about 36 hours worth). Uhg. i’ll see what other slightly-less-traditional methods might look good… In the meantime, i have some comfort in knowing that my Vectran shrouds will be far more kind on the sails than standard stainless cable ones.
Oiling continues daily: Amazon GTO on the trim/caprails, rubrail, gaffjaws, and fairleads; Boiled Linseed Oil on the bitts, parrel beads, lanyards, and stainless wire headrig stays. The lanyards and eyes are starting to take on that tasty smooth dark look, with all the crevices filled in, and many parts of the rigging now have a permanent slight stickiness which (in my mind, at least) is comfortable and reassuring in hand. If pine tar was available here, i’d certianly add some of that to the mix as well.
After about a week of being set-up, i tuned the rig again. By now, most of the stretch should be out of the rigging itself; the seine twine lanyards will continue to stretch over their lifetime, but at least most of the spring is out of them now. This go-round, i really cranked in the rig, until a tiny touch of tension came onto the underdeck tie-rod. That was to signal that the rig was tight enough to start bending the hull. i cranked a couple turns into the tie-rod turnbuckle to get the deck back down/keel back up. i climbed up onto an adjacent boat (incidentaly, a Pacific Seacraft 36) to get at the upper works; i lashed the now-stretched upper shrouds to the spreader tips, and hung my West End Yacht Club burgee below the starboard spreader.
This afternoon, as the epoxy hardens, i’ll cut the excess outboard length from those copper scupper tubes, and get that crowning bit up there: the teak trck and bronze pennant staff.

More ideas and discussions floating around this post in my other blog, which i had not at first thought to post here on this one. My own mind wants to follow the discussion off on a tangent, one of tallships and communities, and it seems like it ought to ultimately come here, to the Sailor Song.
i’ve served as professional or volunteer crew aboard a number of traditional and classic boats; ketches, yawls, schooners, sloops, all wood, most gaffers. i’ve only ever served aboard one “tallship” per se, a brig, The Lady Washington. i had the good fortune to serve with a generally excellent crew, who more than made up in any slight lack of raw skill or actual sailing proficiency with an almost rabid enthusiasm and dedication. i had been pointed towards the Lady by former crew and captains, and had been looking forward to a top-notch boat and program.
In fact, the boat and program are pretty top-notch, and continue to be so. My problem was in my expectations; i expected to working the boat and sailing her, as i had in previous positions on other boats. Instead, i found wyself in the midst of this wild, rolicking, roving museum/ambassador/training boat, and no matter how much i would have preferred otherwise, the focus was on people, comunication, human relations, and community. As one former crewmate spells it out, ” anyway, for me it’s pretty much 40% scenery/natural environment, 40% community, and 20% the boat. but the boat keeps us alive so of course she often comes first!” For me, i had been expecting 80% boat, 20% people, and never really adjusted.
As far as sailing goes, i will always be a traditionalist. i am a craftsman, a woodworker and shipwright by trade, as much as a sailor. i teach sailing to kids, and strongly believe in the sailtraining model. i have, however, come to see that the typical tallship is more about community, relationships, and education than sailing, at least the sort of sailing i was expecting, and that drew me to tallships in the first place.
My friend Tom (currently Second Mate on the R. Tucker Thompson) was an early “in” of mine to the world of sailing, showed me all these great slides, and regaled me with these great stories of fine boats, sailing across the pond, some tales hilarious, others harrowing. He told me too of the parties, the girlfriends, the copious drink, the wild frivolities; these i had far less interest in. When my turn came, i had a go at all that too, but it left me cold; i would rather have just been sailing, or up tending to the rig.
The sailing i prefer these days is mostly a solitary affair. Sometimes there’s a couple other like-minded folks along for the ride, but our common bond is not the comraderie or community itself, but a shared respect and passion, an awe and joy we find only on the water. The boat is not a setting for our relationships, rather, our relationships are first and foremost with the boat itself, the wind, and the water. So it comes that my usual sailing companions are folks who have logged inumerable single- or short-handed miles, and who are quicker to look to the boat than to any other human interaction. Clearly, i am more comfortable in a small boat or boatshop than i ever was (or even wanted to be!) in a crowded fo’c’sle berth.
i learned alot on the Lady, but many were lessons that took hold a year or more later, and few had much to do with sailing as i have now come to see it. i don’t regret my time aboard that tallship, although i found it somewhat disappinting; my disappointment came from the difference between the experience i has hoping for and the experience i received.
The tallship sailors i know are gregarious, personable, outgoing sorts who thrive in such close-knit communual communities. Most of them, i know, would thrive equally well in any such community, afloat or otherwise. i’ve come to see that for myself, i have little interest in such a community; i prefer a quieter, more solitary existance, much as i enjoyed before i started sailing. In sailing, it’s not the community that draws me; it’s just… the sailing: the boat, the wind, the water.

Been getting back into the dinghy lately. The rubrails are on, nice clear-grained Douglas Fir pieces, about the only thing we had laying around that was long and flexible enough, excepting some reserved-for-better-things lengths of teak and cherry. The rubrails were a real battle, with the compound curves, and owing to the fact that i wanted it to be a substantial piece, not merely decorative trim.
Now i’m fitting rail caps to the edges of the fore- and afterdeck, these out of teak offcuts. At very least, i have to get the rail forward finished very soon; the hardware for the whiskerstays fastens through the rail, and i need to get the rigging properly mocked with some tension to it for the sailmaker to make accurate measurements next week.
The only real rigging debate left in my mind now is concerning whether to leave provisions for a topsail or not. The options seem to be as follows: Cut down the topmast and peak up the gaff, for a tradional bald-headed cutter rig; leave the extended pole topmast and set a jackline topsail; or cut the topmast down, leaving the lower gaff angle, and set a yard topsail of some sort. Aestheticly, i like the latter, especially with a Cornish topsail, if for no other reason that to have a “trimminoggy” rigged. The first idea is probably the simplest, but i’d have to decide before the main is cut, and frankly, i’m not convinced to give up on that topsail yet.
The middle idea is probably what i’ll go with, but as John Leather says, a topsail on a small cutter ought to be set up in such a fashion as to be a working sail, otherwise it becomes an affectation. Well frankly, this whole boat is a bit of an affectation, with a big-boat rig on a small-boat hull. i guess what it really comes down to is that i really want to get out sailing under the three lowers before i make up my mind on that topsail.