Section 5 Making the sails

 

Contents

 

Making a start

 

Cloth

 

Seams and hems

 

Principles of sail making

 

Sails for a model barge

 

The foresail

.

The jibsail

 

The mainsail

 

Bolt rope for main sail and fittings for brailing

 

The topsail

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Making a start

 The first thing is to decide who is going to make these sails, is it to be the model maker or a dress-maker? I think that one must start by recognising that this is not a job for a dress-maker to do unaided because, whilst a dress maker may be very skilful at the techniques used in making dresses, new methods are needed because a sail is really a small piece of engineering where the cloth takes its shape from the way in which it is designed and attached to its standing rigging and then inflated by the wind. People who become skilled at this are sail makers and it is something of a black art. Think carefully before you decide that you are not able to use a sewing machine, lots of men can and I have finally decided to have a go and, having watched my wife, I seem to have learnt enough to make a fist of it. If you really cannot use a sewing machine and require the services of a dress maker you must decide on the shapes of the pieces of material that are to be joined together to make your sails. Then you are responsible for the final shapes and not the dress-maker. This means that you need to know what you are doing. This section is about just that, knowing what you are doing.

 

Cloth

I do not know that I can offer much guidance on the choice of cloth except to say that I have seen lots of sails now and it seems to me that natural fibres make better looking sails than cloth made from synthetic fibres or mono-film. I used very old cloth for my sprit-sail barge. An unused bolster case from my aunt in linen that was probably 60 years old gave me enough for the mainsail, the topsail, the foresail and the lower jib. I also had some linen that is about the same age and was used as aeroplane fabric during world-war 2. I used it for the upper jib and the mizzen. They are all satisfactory.

 

I am now faced with wanting fabric sails for an A boat and for a wherry. Modellers at Maldon have used polycotton but have found it difficult to dye to the colour density needed for sails. They use Dylon dye and the Havana Brown as I did. I have purchased pure cotton for my new sails for the A boat and this has dyed very satisfactorily to yellow and red using cold-water dyes. I am told that cotton stiffens when boiled for hot water dyes although I cannot say that I noticed any stiffening when I used hot water dye. The sail for the wherry is white cotton and it has turned out very well. I would have no hesitation in using cotton again. When I bought my cotton I was told that there are no grades of cotton, apparently “cotton is cotton” but subsequently I found that there are grades of cotton that depend on the number of threads per inch. Get the closest weave that you can. It is much easier to work.

 

Whatever you use it has to be dyed as required. You must decide whether both jibs are to be white or natural or only the upper one. This seems to have been dependent on the owner.

 

The sails will need bolt ropes and these bolt ropes must be the same colour as the sails because they get treated when the sail is treated. See fig 1 which is of a newly treated mizzen. I can offer no guidance on ready-made cord for bolt-ropes. I spin mine from white linen thread. Suitable thread comes from wool shops on cards and it is made by Stancraft. It must be dyed with the sail material. It is a moot point whether the bolt-rope should be spun before it is dyed. If the thread is dyed before spinning it must be unwound and it gets into a tangle. If it is dyed after spinning there is a possibility that the dye will not get to the middle of the rope. I tried both ways and think that I prefer to spin after dying. If you plan to use ready-made cord you have no choice. When you spin make sure that you spin enough to go right round the sail and allow for the shortening during spinning. Before you spin pull on the linen strands to get the fibres tight again. Otherwise the bolt-rope will be fluffy and stretch unduly.

 

Sails on barges were made from bolts of canvas that were woven to be 22² wide. It was joined selvedge to selvedge to make large sheets.  There was an opportunity to shape the sail during this joining process and I feel sure that sail makers had a feel for this. Narrowing the seam by say 1/4² or 1/2² towards the middle, that is, widening the distance between joints in the middle, would make a difference over say 20 widths. There is no question of making model sails in this way. So modellers must make do with single pieces of cloth for the main sail, the foresail, the top-sail and the mizzen sail and two pieces each for the triangular sails. It has become traditional in modelling sails to use lines of stitching to represent these joints. Usually the stitching is too tight and it serves only to cockle the sail all over. I am told that using the lowest tension on the sewing machine and sewing through heavy tissue paper as well as the sail-cloth eliminates the cockling when the paper is removed but I did not succeed this way. For the sail on the wherry I used two parallel lines of very short stitches. I think that it looks better than one and it appears to have stopped most of the cockling. I did find that wetting the cotton stitching and then ironing it damp removed the spring from the stitches and the rest of the cockle disappeared.

 

Seams and hems

Sails are made using joints or seams and stitched edging or hems. I suppose that most would use a flat or French seam. The basis of the seam is shown in figure 2. The problem that we have is how to do it easily. The starting point is to decide on the width of the seam. It is usually either 3/16² or 1/4² or 6 mm for sails. Allow two widths on the edge of the cloth on one piece and draw two lines on it. Allow one width on the other piece and draw one line. Figure 3 where the yellow cotton is to be joined to the red. You can see the two lines on the yellow and the single line on the red has a line of stitching along it. The two were pinned together before stitching.

 

The lines were drawn with a marker pen that is sold for this purpose and can be washed out after the sail is complete or just removed with a damp cloth.

In figure 4 the yellow has been folded over the red and ironed flat and then the red folded upwards at the line of stitching and ironed flat as well.  Then it was turned over and stitched along the edge of the yellow as shown in figure 5. The other side is shown in figure 6. 

 

A hem is made on the edge of one piece of cloth. Figure 7 shows what has to be done and figures 8 to 11 show the sequence on a piece of cloth. Start by drawing two guide-lines for the desired width of the hem. These are for a 1/4² hem.

Fold and iron flat as in figure 9 and then fold again and iron again as in figure 10. One line of stitching completes the hem as in 11.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cringles

You have to decide what to do about cringles. We can start with the full-size. Figure 12 shows the cringle on the clew of the main on sb Wivenhoe. It also shows a spliced joint in the bolt-rope. It is hard to see precisely how the cringle is attached but it is hard to think of any arrangement where the bolt-rope goes between the sail and the cringle. Figures 13, 14 and 15 are of a mizzen that had just been treated. Figure 13 shows, I think, that the bolt-rope goes round the cringle. The sail is reinforced at the corner and eyes are created by sewing round a circular hole using button-hole stitching. Then the cringle is further secured in some ingenious way by another rope. The same system is used for a cringle on the leech of the sail as shown in figure 14 but Bagshaw seems to show the cringle as being outside the bolt-rope on the run of the leech. I have included figure 15 to show the bolt-rope and eyelets on the luff.

 

I did not make the reinforced holes but let the bolt-rope go over the cringle and sewed over the cringle and into the sail. It is shown in figure 16 although I think someone who is better with a needle than I am could get closer to the full size.

 

 

 

Principles of sail making.

If a sail is to be made from fabric whether it is a full sized sail or a miniature sail for a model it is inevitable that one or more edges will be cut on the “cross”, that is, that the edge will be at a slant to the weave of the cloth. The sail shown in figure 17 is for the mizzen of sb James Piper would have had the run of the cloth along the leech. Then the other three edges would be on the cross. If tension were to be applied along any one of these three edges it would stretch easily and the edge would flop. In order to avoid this stretching a bolt-rope would be sewn along these edges and then the tension would be taken by the bolt-rope and not the sail. This simple change is not as simple as it seems.

 

In my view, the best way to think about sails is to imagine that, if the bolt ropes were to be sewn to their cringles and then fixed in place on the standing rigging as they will be when the sail is complete with its cloth, the ropes would all be straight and either holding the spars in position or being held in place by the spars as may be the case for the sail concerned. In figure 17 the bolt-rope is shown as a solid line just as it will be when the sail is attached to it.  The tensions in the rope is applied by the up-haul and down-haul on the luff, by the out-haul on the foot, which will set the camber at the foot, and by the weight of the sprit and the weight of the boom acting on the head rope and the leech. With the exception of the length of bolt-rope at the luff the bolt-rope will become straight under these forces.

 

Now suppose that, for a model, a sail is made to fit on to this rope. It is almost certain that the sail will be one piece of cloth with the run of the weave parallel to the leech, with straight edges, and a hem all round. That hem will give the edge three thicknesses and will inevitably stiffen the cloth. It will have been sewn on to the bolt-rope that is now under tension but the three edges on the cross will be free of tension. Then, for these three edges the cloth is like washing on a line, just hanging. The leech is different. It can withstand a tension just as easily as the bolt rope. Which of the two is to be taut? I think that it should be the sail if the sail is not to have too much belly at its trailing face.

 

If now a wind blows on the port side the sail of this mizzen sail it will be subjected to a force and will pull on the bolt-ropes inwards in every direction. As a result it will belly. As the luff cannot move the other three sides must adopt curved shapes like those that I have indicated with dotted lines. The extent of the belly and the depth of the curves depend on the strength of the wind, on how much the cloth resists the change in shape, on the stiffness of the edge seams and on the weight of the sprit and the boom with the chain hanging from it. My mizzen sail is made of linen, which is quite light, the boom is made of brass tubing filled with lead, and in winds that are reaching the limit of the hull, the sail remains very nearly flat which is, of course, what was intended. I am sure that had the boom been made of wood it would have lifted in heavy weather to make the sail useless for its intended function.

 

So the bolt-rope is not decorative, it is a part of the mechanical structure of the sail. The modeller must decide what to do about it. The maker of full-sized sails for barges will have experience, either his own or that passed on by others, on how to sew a bolt-rope to a sail so that the sail will have whatever is deemed to be the desired shape. I am fairly certain that the sewing of the bolt-rope to the sail could be done fairly readily so that, when the sail is under load from the wind, the tensions along the three edges on the cross could be very small and the sailcloth just behave as if the only forces on it are at right angles to the edge. As I have said it is the leech where the run of the sail-cloth is parallel to the bolt-rope that is the one that causes trouble. Here the sail-cloth and the bolt-rope can share the tension on the leech. It is up to the sail maker to decide how this tension is to be shared. I think that the sail maker for the full-size would opt to have the sail taking sufficient tension to limit the belly of the sail at the leech. It would be a matter of experience. This just raises the question of what should the modeller do about this if anything.

 

All of the foregoing leads me to the conclusion that making sails for models cannot be done accurately enough to justify anything other than having straight edges to the sails but attention must be paid to edges where the run of the cloth is along the bolt-rope.

 

I think that a decision must be made on the way in which the bolt-rope is to be attached to the sail. On the full-size they are sewn on to one side of the edge of the sail as in figure 15 of this document. The thread does not go over the rope but between strands of the rope. This prevents the sail “working” along the rope. To most people this looks just like a lot of sewing. I sew mine on this way nevertheless and then I can work the cringles in properly as on the full size. I have seen bolt-ropes just sewn over the rope. I have not seen it done tidily though it must be possible. Some people machine-stitch the rope to the sail. One modeller sticks the bolt-rope to the sail with white glue and then stitches through the rope. It is evident that the needle does not consistently go through the middle of the rope but flexes away to go through the easiest path it can find as it is stitching. This gives a somewhat haphazard appearance to the stitching but one should recognise that, if the cotton is colour matched to the sail-cloth, the stitching does not show enough to attract attention. It is not easy to see how to work in the cringles using this method. I tried this method of attaching the bolt rope but I made the mistake of using a bolt rope made from linen thread and it was too hard for the needle to penetrate. It is clear that the bolt-rope must be made from soft thread for the needle to go through it easily. I did get on better with a rope made from a much softer thread but the rope was too small. Another modeller recognises the need for a bolt-rope but chooses to put the rope inside the hem on the edge of the sail. Of course the rope cannot be seen but the method has the attraction of simplicity and is not so time-consuming as hand-stitching over the strands.

 

I looked at other models at a barge race meeting and most had no bolt-ropes and it showed in the floppy shapes of the sails. Those who fitted bolt-ropes generally sewed over the bolt-rope. It is hard to see why anyone making a scale model of a sailing barge used different colours for the sail, the rope, and the sewing thread when they would all have been dressed like the mizzen in figures 13,14.and 15.

 

It is evident that modellers have to take decisions about how to model their scale subject and an important consideration is the time taken from starting building to sailing the model. For a barge the omission of the bolt-rope saves several days of sewing through the strands. Figures 18 and 19 would be ok if they were all the same colour but 20 looks best to me for a quick solution. John Jeffery uses a piping foot as a guide and a zig-zag stitch as shown in figure 20. This means that it is possible but I found that our sewing machine would not work over the bolt-rope and give tight stitches. It was an expensive machine 25 years ago but times have changed and more recent machines may give better results.

 

If you decide to do anything other than sewing over the strands the job becomes a sort of dress-making and not sail-making but the result is usually quite acceptable on a model barge. However if you are game to sew over the strands read on.

 

Figure 21 is a photo of my recent sail for my wherry. The run of the cloth is parallel to the leech. I sewed the bolt-rope on over the strands. The bolt-rope was under tension and the sail not tensioned. On the head and the luff the sail can stretch under wind forces but you have only to look at the leech to see that this was a mistake. The sail can never become taut and it sticks out on either side of the rope. When he wind blew the leech had much too much curvature just in front of the leech. I separated the leech and the bolt-rope again and had another go with the bolt-rope and the sail under tension whilst I was sewing.  It is much better now but I suspect that it is better to have more tension on the leech than the rope. I still have a little too much belly just in front of the leech but no one has complained yet and the sail works very well. So it is important to get the tensions right whilst the bolt-rope is being sewn on.

Figure 22 shows how I set up to sow a bolt rope to a sail on to a sail.  I clamp two small vices to the sides of my drawing board and grip two lengths of aluminium bar in the vices. I am right-handed so I tie through the cringle in the corner of the sail to anchor both the loose sail and the bolt-rope. Then I tie a fishing weight of about 1 ½ ounces (40 grams) to the bolt rope and drape it over the second bar to put the bolt-rope under tension. If the edge of the sail is on the cross it can be sown on without tension and simply be supported in position by clothes pegs. If the edge is with the run of the cloth it must be tensioned in the same way as the bolt rope with a weight that is at least equal to that on the bolt rope. Figure 23 shows the method of stitching where the needle is under one strand. The pitching of the strands keeps the stitching reasonably tidy. Note that the lay of the rope suits a right-handed person.

 

A full-sized joint in a bolt-rope is shown in fig 12. It can be used on a model.

 

Sails are hanked to stays and figure 24 shows the special shackles that are in use on sb Greta. I do not know why the shackles are given this circular shape and Bagshaw draws them as conventional shackles. Greta works as a charter barge during the summer and it is possible that these shackles are modern and have some other intended use. Whatever may be the case we have to devise a representation of shackles. They are too small to make with screws like a real shackle and I make mine from wire.

 

I have a little bender for them. It is shown in figure 25a. The drills are 1/16² and 1 mm. Anyone can make one. To make a hank start by forming an eye in a length of 0.022² brass wire from a craft shop as in 25b.

Fit the eye over the 1 mm drill and pull the wire round as in 25c. Then bend the end down as in 25d and cut the end off to give the hank as in 25e. Twist the eye through 90° and the free end to give the shape in 25f. It is ready to fit as in 25g. They are easy to make and I have yet to have one come off a sail. They can also be used to attach the main to the jack-line.

 

There are other ways to make these shackles.

 

Figure 26a shows one basis method. Two eyes are formed on the ends of a piece of wire and then the wire is bent to form a U. In 26a the resulting “shackle” is sewn to the sail. The same builder also inserts a dress pin and clips it off before securing it by soldering. In 26b a nut and bolt go through the sail. In 26c a pin with a hole through it has a split pin to retain it and in 26d a self-tapping screw is used. None of these use an eyelet but in 26e eyelets are fitted and the shackle is a ring of copper wire.

 

I think that I have covered making and attaching sails. Now we need some sails.

 

Sails for a model barge

The sails on a barge seem to be a mixed bag and I think that is best to deal with them separately.

 

I will start with the mizzen sail.

 

Figure 27 is a repeat of figure 17. Presumably the spars and cordage exist and are ready to take a sail. You have to decide how much effort you are willing to put into making this sail. If you only have time to make a sail that will fit into the space and to tie the sail to the fixing points then all that is needed is a piece of cloth of the right shape that has been hemmed round with no bolt-rope. The run of the cloth must be along the leech. You might run to having lines of stitching or even double lines to represent the joints. If you do, use a short stitch and the lines should run parallel to the leech.

 

It is a simple matter to make a template from card by cut-and-try methods and there is no need to go beyond straight edges. The edges of the sail can be stiffened by using white glue sparingly to stick the turnings of the hem before sewing and to use two lines of stitching. Then linen thread can be used to tie the sail on to the fixed rigging.

 

If you are aiming for a more nearly scale model then there are refinements. These are mainly in the corners to make space for the various rigging fittings needed to mount the sail properly. The main weight of the sail is supported by a loop in the bolt-rope as shown in figure 28a. The end of the sprit is turned down to accept this loop. The sail must be hanked to the jack-line and this settles the position of the luff but in order to make space for ropes through the cringle at the head of the luff and the various ropes to support the boom and the brail ropes the sail must be angled away from the jack-line as shown in figure 28b. At the foot of the sail near the luff space must be made for the inhaul. The sail must be cut away as shown in figure 28c and the cringle fitted as shown.  Then the inhaul goes through an eye on the goose-neck fitting on the boom to be made off to a cleat on the mast. At the clew there is a cringle but note the need for space to fit the outhaul and a small block. All these spaces affect the shape of the sail so a simple card template will not do although it gives a starting shape. Fit the sail often as you go along to keep checking.

 

The sail will require a bolt-rope all round it and the loop at the head of the sail and the cringles can be fitted as the bolt rope is sewn on. You must decide whether to just sew over the bolt-rope or to sew through it. Whatever you decide use cotton of the same colour as the sail and bolt-rope. The uneven stitching will not show. 

 

This mizzen is really a model in its own right and, if you decide to control it to assist in tacking, then it has significantly added interest.

 

The next sail must be the foresail.

This sail is not controlled by sheets on the full-sized barge, it is restrained by a chain attached to its clew and working over a horse. The sail is hanked to the forestay and it has a curved leech and a curved foot. It must be fitted so that the leech clears the mast and the foot clears both the hatch cover on the forward hold, the windlass and the forestay falls.

 

If you are aiming to limit your input to this model the sail can have straight edges with the slant of the foot chosen to suit the need for clearance. A card template will be sufficient to give a shape for the sail and, after adding the stitching to represent the joints, which will be parallel to the leech, it is just a matter of hemming round. It can then be tied and hanked on to the standing rigging and the chain attached to its clew.

 

If you are aiming for a scale model then some thought has to be given to the curvature in the leech. Normally the run of the cloth is along the leech and presumably sail makers would join the successive lengths of cloth to give and the belly of the sail and this gave the curvature of the leech. Figure 29 shows the foresail on the sb May. I do not know whether this picture has been retouched to show the seams in the sail but we can see the structure of the sail from these lines. It has been designed to have a belly and when flat would have been creased with a curved foot. We cannot make a sail from lots strips of cloth as in the full-size and I doubt whether the sail can be shaped to give a belly and a curved luff by distorting the fabric.

 

I let the run of the cloth go from clew to head and gave the leech a curvature of just less than 1/4² and let the stitching for the seams follow this curve. Then, if the blot rope is under tension and the sail under no tension it gives a belly when inflated. The luff is straight except for the cut away for the falls that can be seen in figure 29. Now we have to think about the foot. I think that this should be weighted using the lightest curtain weighting and enough space allowed in the hem to insert ether wire or dress boning to stop the sail flapping.

 

Two cringles are needed at the clew for the chain as shown in figure 30a, one is needed at the tack as in 30b. Note in 30b the angling of the sail to clear the falls. Figure 30c shows the wire fitting for the head of the foresail. I do not know how a sail maker would make off this head but some part of the sail must be overlapped.

 

I used the brass hanks described above to fix the luff to the forestay.

 

Once it is made and fitted the foresail is entirely automatic in operation.

 

 

 

The jibsail

I have described the way that this sail is controlled in section 1 of this text on the Thames sailing barge. You can see the sail in figure 31. It is the white one.  Essentially it is a triangular sail hanked to the top stay and with sheets that in figure 31 run from the port rail to control the camber and from the starboard rail over the forestay to the clew to set the angle of the sail.

 

This sail is more troublesome that one might think. I have shown the general shape of these sails in figure 32. These sails seem always to have been made from two parts with a seam across the middle. It also seems that the angle of this seam is in line with the sheets or possibly the other way round. At some time this angle was the subject of a patent so it is hard to know. The run of the cloth is also uncertain. Drawings of Pearl and Will Everard show the run of the cloth as in figure 32 and this seems to be typical. However artists seem always to have depicted sails with the seams showing and to have varied in what they thought was the run of the cloth. I think that it should be as I have shown it.

 

The shape that we are looking for is straight at the luff, cambered to about 10% at the seam with leeches that are more or less straight. We do not want the leeches to be curved to leeward. So now we can consider how to make the sail.

 

If you have decided to make your sails in a minimum time a piece of triangular cloth cut with allowance for turnings with the run parallel with the luff can be hemmed round and tied on. If you do not intend to control it remotely then two sheets of equal length can be made off to cleats inside the rails and the sail will switch tack automatically. It will be the worst looking sail on the model because the two leeches are on the cross and there is no stiffening across the sail. It will flap far more than is desirable. It could be controlled by a lever arm winch made from an aeroplane servo by fixing a rope to one cleat on the rail, passing the rope over the forestay, through the cringle in the clew, that could just as well be loop of rope, and through a fairlead at the rail to the lever arm. It works well.

 

If you are after a scale model then you need to look more closely at these triangular sails. If we are to want to have a proper camber at the seam we must recognise that we have one rope to control the sail and not two as on the full size. If the sail is just sewn together as indicated in figure 32 its camber will be much to great. The only way that I can find to solve this is to use dress boning threaded into the seam. It works well and gives a very acceptable shape. Figure 33 is of my model and you can see the shape of the jib from the shadow. The boning is preventing the sail from taking on excessive camber and you can see that the camber above and below the seam is greater than that at the seam to tell us what happens without the boning. You must decide whether to fit boning.

 

Clearly we have to join two pieces of cloth that are essentially triangular in shape. I found that the troublesome edge is the luff. Both pieces are cut on the cross and, even if the two pieces give a straight luff when laid out for pinning together for sewing, it is all to easy to end up with the luff not straight. The seam tends to go forward when tension is applied between head and tack.

 

So cut the two pieces to the shapes given on your sail plan and make suitable allowance for turnings for the hems and the seam. If the leaches are curved draw curved guide lines for the stitching to represent the joints in the full size. Pin the two pieces together and try to let the luff be slightly bent forwards. Sew the seam. Then make the hems.

 

I think that the key to getting the shape right is in the sewing of the bolt-rope. Start with the luff and have the bolt-rope under tension and the luff not slack but not tight either. Keep an eye on it as it goes on. Then the tension in the luff of the sail will go on the bolt-rope and not the luff that is cut on the cross. Fit the cringles and when the bolt-rope is sewn to the leeches have the bolt rope under tension and the cloth supported but not under load as the rope is sewn on.

 

The mainsail

The mainsail is special in that its head is supported at one end by a sprit and it is loose footed, that is, it has no boom. On the full sized barge the sprit is heavy and so is the sail whereas the model sail will be light, unless it is weighted, and the sprit is light. On the full- sized barge this weight pulls down on the sprit and makes the top of the sprit almost a fixed point moving round the mast and very suitable for the attachment of the top-sail. The sprit has two supports, the yard tackle and the head rope of the sail that is looped over the top of the sprit on the port side and secured to a strop or a muzzle on the mast through a short chain. This is shown on page 17 of the section on the standing rigging. Fit the yard tackle and the head rope. I made my head rope from brown linen thread forming a loop to fit over the top of the sprit at one end and another loop at the other end that was large enough to take the chain to the muzzle. Both ends were bound and then soaked in cyanoacrylate to harden them. The head rope will support the sprit and the yard tackle should be tightened so that it just supports the sprit when the head rope is removed during sail making. The sprit is not really heavy enough to put tension in the head rope and I hung a fishing sinker from it with cotton whilst making the main-sail.

 

Start by adjusting the tension on the various stays of standing rigging so that the space for the mainsail has its final shape.

 

Now we must find the shape of the sail. I like to cut out a reference shape in paper to use as a template and a check before I cut the material. I used thin drafting paper that is light and flexible and joined sheets together using Pritt-stick to get a large enough area. I found it to be convenient to suspend the paper from the head rope by forming a tab on the top edge. I offered the paper up to the standing rig and drew a line of the correct length to represent the top edge (head) of the sail. See figure 34. I then drew a line about 1² away as shown in figure 35 and cut round the dotted line. This created a tab that could first be folded down and then hooked over the head rope and held in place with the small stationery pegs available in shops or with paper clips. It permitted me to take the paper on and off to suit the sail cutting.

I think that the next line to get right is the luff. This will be attached to the jack-line with hanks and so the edge of the sail must be in a suitable position for the hanks that you intend to use. In figure 36, where the brail ropes have been pulled aside to give a clear view, you can see that the head rope protrudes from the tunnel at the head of the sail and the chain goes through the loop. You can also see that the luff is some distance from the mast because of the jack-line and hanks and that the sail must be cut at an angle between the cringle at the head and the uppermost hank on the jack stay to make room for the muzzle chain and the blocks for the brails. Draw lines on your piece of paper where the edge of the sail will be and cut the line representing the luff. Check it on the rig. If you get it wrong stick on another piece of paper with Pritt stick and have another go. You will end up with the shape in figure 37.

Now we have two more lines to draw, one for the foot and one for the leech. These should be on your sail plan. The most important line is that for the leech which can be straight and come down behind the main hatch and above the main horse. The foot of the sail is curved by about 1/2². It comes up to the top of the pulpit as shown in figure 38 at the tack end. The other end is not so straightforward. The foot must clear the main hatch and the various fittings like a special ladder fitted with standoffs to climb on to the barge when it is grounded. I think that most main-sails will be controlled by the clew and the vangs. On the full size a multi- rope system pulls the leech down but I think that most modellers will settle for one rope through the cringle at the clew and some system like the one on my barge in figure 39. If the clew is too low the leech will have excessive bend because the sheeting cord is pulling at the wrong angle. On my barge the clew is a bit more than 2 1/2 ² above the deck. So we have a height for the tack and a height for the clew and we can draw a line for the foot with its slight curvature.

 

Once this is cut out we have a template for the sail and it is shown in figure 40. Even so I still checked the sail against the rig over and again as I cut the sail just to be sure that I had space for the fittings.

 

If you are going to simulate the seams in the sail with rows of stitching cut a piece of material that has ample cloth to cut to waste and stitch along the run of the cloth at one inch intervals.

 

If you are making a quick barge a sail can be made to this template with hems all round and having the stitching parallel with the leech. Then the finished sail can be tied to the rigging in some way and a sheeting rope attached to the clew. The brails can be omitted and the multi-rope system at the clew.

 

If you are making a scale model there is much more to be done.

 

First, using one of the lines of stitching as the leech, add sufficient allowance for the turnings for a hem. Mark off the turnings and cut the material and then make the hem. Now use the template to lay out the line for the head of the sail at the correct angle.

 

The top of the sail is a tunnel but on the full size it is a separate piece of material formed into a U and sewn on. That is what is shown in the drawing in figure 40 from the Handbook of Sailing Barges. I was a bit reluctant to make the tunnel this way because I would end up with seven thicknesses of cloth to sew as in the top diagram in figure 42. In the event it can be 5 thicknesses as shown in the lower diagram in figure 42. The tunnel has to be big enough to thread one of the head rope loops through it and I found that I needed to insert a stainless steel wire in the tunnel to stiffen the head. So a series of 5 lines is needed to mark the edge to be cut and four folding lines. It was relatively simple. The tunnel can now be turned in and stuck with pva glue finished off with hem-stitching at the head of the sprit to make a hole for the head rope.

 

Now the template can be used to mark the end of the tunnel where the loop for the chains to the muzzle comes out. Check it on the barge to make sure that it is correct.

 

Use the template to mark the cutaway at the top of the luff and add an allowance for hemming. Mark the luff and then check the partially-made sail on the rig. Once you are satisfied sew the hem for the luff.

 

This brings us to the foot.

 

I do not think that the sail or the sprit on a model is heavy enough to look like the full-sized barge. Nor is it heavy enough to put tension on the top-sail. The only way that I can see to get some weight in the sail is to use curtain weighting.

 

Curtain weighting is available in lengths of small lead weights on a nylon thread and in a woven sleeve. Two strings of weights are shown in figure 43. They weigh 10 grams per foot and 16 grams per foot. I used the heavier one on my main and I think that it gave a much better result that an un-weighted sail. I used the lighter one in my foresail. No one notices this weighting because it is sewn into the foot. See figure 44 that shows the foot of my sail. It is hard to see for certain that there is anything in this edge.

 

If you decide to use weighting the hem at the foot must become a tunnel of sufficient size to accept the weighting. If you decide against weighting make provision for it anyway. Then you can change your mind at a later stage. So what about the case for weighting and stiffening the foot?

 

When I built my first barge I had come from model yacht racing where sails had booms. I looked at the loose-footed sail of the sprit-rigged Thames barge and realised that I did not understand how it worked. So I built a ketch-rigged, boom-sail barge.

 

As time went by I came to understand the Thames sailing barge better but I still wanted to fit the sails with concealed booms to fit in with my racing experience. Then much later I built a model of a Norfolk wherry that also had a loose-footed sail and discovered that it sailed much closer to the wind than a barge and marginally faster. The distinguishing feature of the single sail on a wherry is the substantial twist in the sail. The sail is controlled by changing this twist and this is achieved by setting the clew within the short distance from the mid-beam to the rail and adjusting the angle of the gaffe. This involves two functional pulley systems.

 

Then it occurred to me that the Thames sailing barge could do the same thing but instead of using a gaffe to change the twist of the sail the sprit could be used. This looked to me to be a more likely way of controlling the sail on a barge and it gets round the obvious problems of sails coming against backstays when running. I changed my barge and tried it and it looks to be better if only in the set of the sails. However I saw nothing to persuade me that weighting and stiffening the foot had been a mistake. Indeed I think that I would advocate it now.

 

Inside the sail in figure 44 the weights from a length of the curtain weighting have been removed from the nylon thread, drilled, and threaded on to a length of 26 SWG piano wire. In effect the sail has a concealed flexible boom and weight distributed along the foot of the sail. Without this stiffening and using only one sheeting cord there is nothing to stop the clew moving too close to the tack as the sail is sheeted out and producing excessive camber in the foot of the sail. I am pleased with the way that my model behaves. To prevent rusting I did coat my wire and its lead beads with Dow-Corning bath sealant before it went into the sail.

 

This means that the sail can be completed but do not fit the weights and stiffener because we need a bolt-rope and sundry fittings.

 

Bolt rope for main sail and fittings for brailing

The mainsail has to be lifted to be stowed aloft. This is done by an arrangement of ropes that run over small blocks attached suitably to the head of the sail and to the luff and are brought together to be hauled up by a brail winch. The ropes are called brails and barges have either 4 or 5 brails. You must check for your model. The arrangement is given in Bagshaw, page 84, but it is suspect because the sail is much out of proportion.

 

In figure 45 I have redrawn, to scale, the sail plan for sb James Piper from Taylor’s drawing. He showed only 4 brails. The sail is fitted with three cringles at the lower end of the leech to take blocks for the multi-rope system that goes with the two-sheave pulley block that is hooked to the traveller as shown in fig 46. There is one cringle for the tack.

 

The bolt-rope goes from one end of the head rope tunnel round the leech, foot and luff to the other end of the head rope tunnel. As the bolt-rope is sewn on, half loops are formed in it at four points on the leech, two of these points are for the rope strop for the wire main brail. I can think of no reason to do more than just sew the bolt-rope to the sail with even tension in both rope and sail because the luff, foot and leech are all with the run of the cloth.

 

Strops are sewn to the head rope tunnel, each to accept a short rope that holds two blocks on either side of the sail for the peak brails. Two more blocks are attached to a short rope passing through the loop at the mast end of the head rope. Finally two blocks go on a short rope passing behind the jack-line and resting on a hank.

 

The four brail ropes are ultimately spliced together to one rope that goes down beside the mast to the brail winch. Operating the winch will wind all the ropes in simultaneously. Brail ropes pass through the half loops formed in the bolt-rope and the two ends pass through the pairs of blocks on either side of the sail as shown by the lines with arrowheads in figure 45. It is these free ends that are spliced together and pass over suitable blocks. It all makes for a crowded space between the mast and the head rope.

 

I spun ropes for the brails and used grey thread to give the main brail a suitable colour.

 

The sail requires reefing cords.

 

When it is finished, fit it to the barge to give weight on the sprit ready for the top-sail.

 

The top-sail

I think that this is the sail that too often spoils the look of a model of a barge. It is essentially a simple sail to make but in order to look right the top edge must be under tension and not flapping and the gap between the head of the main-sail and the foot of the top-sail must be small. I did not find this easy to achieve.

 

Figure 47 is again a drawing to scale from Taylor’s sail plan for sb James Piper.  I do not know the names for the various corners of a top-sail so I have given them letters. AB is straight and is the part that is attached with mast rings to the top-mast. BC is a shaped part of the sail that has to fit round the mast doubling (The overlap of the main and top masts.) Taylor draws it straight, Bagshaw shows a curve and I ended up with the shape in figure 48. Pictures of barges show some considerable variation. I have drawn a dotted curve to indicate the uncertainty. CD is presumably the foot of the sail. The down haul is attached at C, the tack, through a cringle.

 

The foot of the top-sail partly overlaps the head of the mainsail that I have shown as a line of small dots. The top-sail overlaps at C, on the starboard side, and is above the main at D. There is not much of a gap, only just enough to get a block into the space and pull on D (that is presumably called the clew). Too often this gap is excessive on models and it shows even at a distance. The top edge of the sail is DE and E goes on the outer end of the head stick that is lashed on between E and A. It is this head stick that I think causes trouble.

In figure 49 you can see the head stick of my model and that it has a collar in the middle with an eye and that an up-haul runs from this collar over a block fixed to the top-mast and down to the deck. The lower end of the head stick overlaps the top-mast on the starboard side and is effectively located by a mast ring sewn on at this point. If you pull on the up-haul the upper end of the mast stick puts tension on the top edge of the top-sail. There is a line attached just above the clew to set the camber. It is really a leech-line. This all means that there must be some space to permit adjustment of the up-haul. If you copy the full size you will not have enough space and for a working scale model this angle must be changed. In figure 47 I have drawn two positions for the edge of the sail and if you are making a quick model use the dotted line and the other for a scale model. Perversely it is the dotted line that is to scale.

 

So, if you are making a quick model, cut a template from paper for ABCDE’ using the dotted curve. From this make a flat sail with the run of the cloth to suit up and down, hem it and tie it on to the rig. It will never set properly but you cannot have everything. You really need a bolt-rope along the outer edges but you might try several lines of stitching instead.

 

If you are making a scale model a different template is needed It will be A’BCDE’ but, of course it must be made to your rig and not my copy of Taylor’s drawing. The use of A’ is to let the sail curve round the top-mast to the mast ring. The top-sail is in two parts and I have shown the joint. The run of the cloth is parallel to the two free edges. Figure 50 shows the joint and the run of the cloth and the mast rings.

 

It becomes a repeat of one of the jib sails. Sew the bolt rope on with equal tension in the rope and the sail cloth all round. Cringles are required at C, D and E and one extra for the leech line as shown in figure 51. It is an awkward sail to get right but worth the effort in my view.

You might think that the top-sail is now complete but there is more. It has an ingenious system fitted to let it ease in response to gusts. It is shown on page 88 of Bagshaw. The out-haul attached to the clew goes through a block as shown in figure 51 and you can see that the block is shackled to the special wire strop on the head of the sprit. (It is this set of fittings that cause the gap between the top-sail and the head of the main.) In the full size the outhaul is a chain for some part and then it changes to a rope. This is not practical on a working model so I omitted the chain. The outhaul goes down towards the foot of the mast to terminate in a block shackled to it. This can just be seen behind the middle shroud in figure 52. A rope is tied (siezed) to the stanliff with a special knot again as seen in figure 52 just above half way up the picture. The rope goes though the block on the end of the down haul and back down to another block that is shackled to the stanliff and located by a special fitting and secured with a wooden wedge. The rope is then made off to a wooden cleat on the sprit. The double purchase permits the tension in the top-sail to be adjusted to suit the wind. In a gust the force in the sail pulls the stanliff to aft against the weight of the sprit and main sail. The stanliff acts like a spring. This eases the top-sail and lifts the sprit. It can be modelled relatively easily.

 

I think that I have completed the sailing rig now.