iron can be unclamped and the topmast lowered down so as to permit the sail to be stowed like a gaff-sail along the boom. With the sail thus furled the boat will ride much easier in a breeze or a seaway. In Fig. 6 the working of the rig is shown: 1 is the lower mast, 2 the topmast, 3 the halyards, 4 the upper ring, or traveler, with a clamp 12 Detail of Sliding Gunter Rig, Fig. 6. and pin to permit the lowering of the topmast, 5 the lower ring or traveler, which is fitted with a hinge at 6; 7 is the gooseneck of the boom to which the foot of the sail is laced. Reefing is simple. Lower away on the halyards, make fast the cringle on the luff of the sail, at whatever reef band is desired, to the gooseneck on the boom. Haul out the corresponding reef earing, make it fast, tie your reef points and hoist up the sail again by the halyards. A topping lift is necessary. The spritsail is not often seen in these waters, but it is a good sail for a small boat. I warn the beginner, however, against its use in a craft of any pretensions to size, for he will find the heavy sprit much more difficult to handle than a gaff. A spritsail is similar in shape to the mainsail of a cutter, with the peak higher and the foot shorter, as in Fig. 3. The sprit is a spar which crosses the sail diagonally from luff to peak. It is thick in the middle, and each end is tapered. The upper end fits into a cringle or eye in the peak of the sail and the lower end into a snotter on the mast. The sprit stretches the sail quite flat and thus a boat is able to point well to windward. The snotter is a piece of stout rope having an eye in each end, one being passed round the mast and rove through the eye in the other end, the heel of the sprit fitting in the remaining eye. If the snotter carries away, the heel of the sprit may be forced by its own weight through the bottom of the boat; accordingly, as it has to stand considerable strain, it should be made of stout stuff. To set the sail, hoist it up by the halyards, slip the upper end of the sprit into the cringle in the peak, push it up as high as you can and insert the heel into the snotter; then trim the sheet. In large boats the snotter is made fast to an iron traveler which is hoisted by a whip purchase as shown in Figs. 1 and 3. The sprit rig cannot be said to be pretty, and when the sail is large it is difficult to reef it. I should not counsel its use except in a boat intended for both rowing and sailing, where the sail would be so small as to be easily muzzled in case of a squall. The spritsail is hoisted by halyards, rove through a block or sheave-hole at the masthead and hooked to a cringle at the throat of the sail. The tack of the sail is lashed to an eyebolt in the mast. Inreefing the sprit must W XI. RIGGING AND SAILS. IRE has entirely superseded rope for standing rigging, and deadeyes and lanyards are fast giving way before the advance of the turnbuckle. An old sailor cannot help regretting the decline and fall of his profession and the growing popularity of the art of the blacksmith. So far as the rigging of ships is concerned, when wire rigging was first introduced it was thought that its rigidity would prove a fatal objection to its successful use. Science has, however, set its foot down firmly on such objections. The decree has gone forth that rigging cannot possibly be set up too taut, and the less it stretches the better. The old argument that a yacht's standing rigging should "give" when the craft is caught in a squall, which old sea dogs were so fond of advancing, has been knocked on the head by scientific men who declare that a vessel's heeling capacity affords much more relief than the yielding quality of rigging. Thus all or nearly all of the modern immense steel sailing vessels in the East Indian and Australian trade have their steel masts stayed as rigidly as possible by means of turnbuckles, and practice seems to have demonstrated the truth of the theory. These ships encounter terrific seas and gales off the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Horn, and their masts are thus subjected to violent and sudden strains, but I have been assured by the commanders of several of these great freight carriers that they have never known their "sticks" to be imperilled by the rigidity of the rigging, and the tauter it can be set up the more secure the masts are supposed to be. There are, however, a number of old salts who condemn this theory as rank heresy, and go in for deadeyes and lanyards of the old-fashioned kind, and the greater the stretch between the upper and the lower deadeyes the better are they pleased. There is no doubt that turnbuckles look neater than deadeyes, and they are probably well suited for small craft. The Herreshoffs have long used them for setting up the rigging of the sloops and yawls of moderate size which they used to turn out in such numbers, and which first laid the foundation of their fame. The boat owner can please himself as to which method he may choose, and he can rely that with either his. mast will be perfectly secure. Both methods are shown in the accompanying cuts. Shroud Lanyard SHROUD, DEADEYE, LANYARD. |