Section 4  Making the standing rigging

 

 

Contents                 (Scroll to search)

 

Introduction

 

The mast case

 

The mast

 

The jack-line

 

The topmast

 

The sprit

 

The bowsprit

 

The mizzen

 

The mizzen sprit

 

Endnote

 

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Introduction

The standing rigging is all the masts and spars and shrouds and stays that go to form a framework to support the sails. I described all this standing rigging step by step in the first part of this chapter on modelling the sprit-sail barge. Now we have to realise it on a model.

 

The mast case

Our starting point must be the mainmast/topmast combination and the pulpit or mast case. I will start with the mast case. I figures 2.1 and 2.2 I show two mast cases. They are on real working barges. They tell us one of the things we must take into account. Lots of ropes, all needing to be made off somewhere, come down the mast. You can never get a photo of an uncluttered mast case. These two do not have the same design. However mast cases mostly start off with a base plate and an open-sided box that carries a geared dolly winch and sundry cleats and often some fixing points for shackles on the open side of the base.

It seems to me that the mast case has retained it shape and function over time but the method of manufacture has come through casting in cast iron, riveting in wrought iron or in mild steel from plate and angle and finally to welding in steel. Figure 2.3 shows a recent mast case that is all welded and lacks the character of the early ones, especially the cast ones.

 

If you have a drawing of the mast case for your model, OK, but if you have not then a drawing is needed.

 

Now I do not think that the mast case was ever strong enough to hold up a mainmast and top-mast without stays of some sort to support the mast even for rigging the barge. It is just too flimsy. However it is strong enough to guide the mast as it is lowered carefully using the falls. We need a mast case that will do the same job. When the mast has been raised it will be stayed by the shrouds and the forestay and my mast seems to be very secure. It is certainly properly located[1].

 

I think that all this means that a mast case could be constructed from 0.8 mm ply and be strong enough for the job. Of course if you can build it in sheet brass that is another option and the one that I used. It is shown in figure 2.4.

It was made from brass plate that was folded after cutting a groove at the fold points. It was riveted using angle from the KS range and the beading round the top edge was riveted using copper rivets. It was also soft soldered and riveted to the base plate and the fixing points for various things on the aft side. I made it to drawings by the late Mike Taylor. If you want to build in wood note the wooden insert in my mast case. It will be very useful for wooden construction.

 

I have redrawn Mike Taylor’s mast case. It is figure 2.5. The mainmast is normally 12² in diameter and its foot is squared off to fit into the pulpit. Masts were normally made by squaring the log first and then changing the square into an octagon, then producing 16 flats and so on to round. So it was not a case of adding the square end. Mike Taylor shows, and I use him as my source, that the mast case fitted snugly round the mast and that the mast was profiled at its foot by giving it an arc of a circle that fitted inside a wooden insert of similar profile. The axles for the dolly winch went through the case and into grooves in the front of the wooden insert to keep it in place. An angle iron was set on the base and at the foot of the mast as a stop. This design could well be uncommon but it is the one I have.

 

The existence of this wooden insert simplifies the making of a wooden mast case from 1/16² ply made up from two laminations of 0.08 mm ply because the ply can be stuck to it and to the base to stiffen up what would otherwise be quite a weak mast case. Note that the mast, during lowering, will pivot on the edge of the iron stop. The shrouds must go aft of this stop.

 

The mast case will have to carry cleats arranged in the same way on each side of the mast case as shown in figure 2.6. This is the arrangement shown by Taylor. The cleat protruding aft looks to be too small to model in wood and may have to be fitted like the other. You may think that these can be cut from ply and fitted in slots cut through the sides. The slots would have to be cut before the mast case is assembled.

 

I have shown the wheel and pinion of the winch but I omitted the bobbins that are, of course, necessary. I have given the approximate numbers of teeth on the real winch but, if you can make wooden gears the numbers of teeth will need to be 15 and 35 to suit the bandsaw. The outside diameter of the wheel will be 0.692² and I have drawn the spacing for the teeth and the required radii for the wheel in figure 2.7.

The bobbins seem to have been of any shape that the turner fancied but the important feature is the coning and the lips at the ends. See figure 2.8. I do not know for certain but I can only see these winches being useful for hauling the barge about a dock. A rope would be run ashore and made off to a bollard. Then one man would turn the winch and the other take two or three turns round the bobbin at the most suitable diameter and pull on the free end. Friction would make the rope grip the bobbin and the rope would be wound in with the rope handler pulling on the rope all the time. The three turns of rope would slip down the cone continually as the rope came off the bobbin but the lip would stop the rope coming off completely.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have drawn plan views of the mast case to show the arrangement in figures 2.9 and 2.10. I think that the mast case should stand on a wooden base fitted to the deck to accommodate the camber.

 

The mast

The mast is in two parts, the mainmast and the topmast and they are joined together. It would be appear to be a simple task to make this joint but other things must go on as well. The shrouds have to be attached to the head of the mainmast, the forestay needs a fixing point, the cross trees need space somewhere in this region, the brails need a fixing for their blocks and the head rope needs its fixing round the mast. As if this were not enough the topmast mast must be capable of being lowered and, if the barge is a bowsprit barge a fixing is needed for the jib stay.

 

All this led to a universal arrangement that differs in detail but not much in layout.

 

Many barges now use steel masts but the arrangement is unchanged and usually the top-mast is still wood. Figure 2.11 shows such a mast and the clutter is quite evident. We can see some of the important detail. First the two masts have a space between them and the fitting for the cross trees goes in this space and rests on the bottom bracket. This bottom bracket makes a loop for the topmast, extends behind the main mast and a screwed tie bar fitting behind the mast and through the bracket provides a fixing for the main brails. This bracket rests on wooden ledges formed in the mast and called the hounds. Wooden bolsters fit on the hounds and beside the bracket to form a curved bed to avoid sharp bends in the several shrouds that fit round the mast.

 

It is easier to see the arrangement in figure 2.12 which is of my model.

 

The upper bracket has just one function which is to support the topmast. Somehow this bracket must not swing round the topmast and several methods were used. I used the method that was preferred on sb Kathleen  where the top of the mainmast was squared and the bracket fitted on that square.

 

Note that the foot of the topmast has a flat face added to one side that fits freely in the lower bracket that is suitably shaped to stop the topmast from turning.

 

We can see that the fore stay has a loop that goes over both masts and a special fitting is set into the aft side of the mast for the forestay to rest on. This bracket also carries the block for the yard tackle for the sprit.

 

I have looked at several designs for this mast doubling and it is clear that the detail designs vary so much that, unless the detail design for your barge is known, we have some licence to make a workable arrangement.

 

It can be made from ramin dowel or more likely round wood. Ramin has been overexploited and may not be available. Otherwise you are looking for close-grained wood with a straight grain and preferably 1/2² diameter or larger if that is your choice. The mast needs to have a square at its foot and hounds have to be formed near the top. The modeller has to make a decision about whether to make the mast from one piece and turn it to a profile from which the hounds and square can be turned or to start with a piece of round wood and add pieces to shape for the square and the hounds. I chose to start with round wood and stick pieces to it to shape as required. This means boring holes accurately. On a lathe this is not difficult but, in the absence of a lathe, I use flat wood boring bits and grind them to give the correct size hole. So make pieces to fit on your mast and glue them on with penetrating cyanoacrylate

 

Rough saw the foot to get rid of most of the surplus and then square it up using the milling cutter in a pillar drill as a thicknesser. Or, of course, one might use a milling machine and a dividing head.

I show the arrangement of the mast at the hounds in figure 2.13. The design is tied in with the other components. First we need a bracket and the basic bracket can be from say 1/32² brass strip formed round a piece of 1/2² rod. Brass angle is available from the KS range and it can be soldered to the bracket.  The bracket has to fit into slots in the hounds. The main cross piece for the moveable cross trees can be soldered across the bracket to go in front of the mast and a screwed rod goes between the outstanding ends of the main bracket behind the mast. Ultimately an insert must go into the loop of the bracket to reduce the hole to the size of the foot of the topmast.

 

The actual shaping of the mast varies quite considerably. The handbook of sailing barges shows a mast with very long tapers both above and below the hounds but this seems to be exceptional. My diagram shows what seems to me to be more typical starting with a cone at the bottom and a radius at the top. I think that I formed two flats lined up with the square on the foot and then stuck the hounds on afterwards complete with the groove to accept the bracket with the angles already soldered on. This is all shown in figure 2.13.

 

I have drawn the assembly in figure 2.14. There is a space for a circular mast with a flat on one side in the fitted insert. The fitting for the cross trees acts as a back to this insert and ties the bracket together. The bracket with its angles slots into the hounds and has a screwed tie rod behind the mast. The bolsters are also in position.

 

In figure 2.15 I have added one pair of shrouds. There are four pairs altogether and one stanliff to go round the mast. Each pair of shrouds is made from one length of wire rope that is first bound with thin rope and then whipped together to form a loop that goes over the mast. I will deal with these shrouds when the mast is raised.

 

I have also sketched in the bracket for the cross trees and the inner end of the cross-tree arm. These cross trees are all made to swing upwards out of the way when the barge is alongside a quay. Obviously the topmast stays slacken when the arms go up but there is no load on the topmast so it does not matter. The arms are pivoted in a bracket or bed and the bed has guides formed in the ends so that when the arms are lowered they are guided into place. Look at figure 2.11 and you will see that the arms are quite slender which means that if they are made to scale they will be quite vulnerable. We have to use practical sizes but they need not be so big as to attract attention.

 

Figure 2.16 and 2.17 show a cross-tree on my barge. The bracket or bed is made from 1/8² square section tube of 1/64² wall thickness from KS. The arm is from 3/32² round tubing from the same manufacturer. 

 

The three diagrams in figure 2.19 show how the bracket was made. The saw cuts were made with the finest saw that I had.

 

Once the blanks for the guides have been made they can be shaped as can the extensions for the pivot pin.

 

Mine have survived sailing and boat handling.

 

The arms for my model barge were not made with a forked end and I took the stays through the ends of the arms. Forks may be OK on the full size but the stays on models are difficult to keep under tension and would soon flap out.

 

The arms were raised and lowered with ropes. Some have eyes at the ends, some have eyes near to the mast. I made the holes and then did not fit the ropes. Pity!

 

Figure 2.18 shows the true proportions of the cross tree bracket and the arm.

 

The jack-line

The main mast must be fitted with a jack-line. This is a wire fitted into eyes running down the aft side of the mast and the luff of the mainsail is hanked to it. Figure 2.20 is of my model. The jack-line is a piece of stainless steel wire, the eyes were formed using the modified pliers, as were the shackles. Once the shackles were fitted to the sail they were soft soldered to stop them opening. The eyes were set in with cyanoacrylate. The jack-line really requires a head. I jumped up the wire by holding it in a three-jawed chick in the lathe with about 1/16² protruding and, with the lathe running, gently hammering until a head was formed. Make sure that the jack-line can be removed from its eyes. It will come up against the shoulder formed for the hounds but, as the top eye is a fair way from this shoulder, the wire should bend enough to clear.

Two more fittings are required. They are shown on my model in figure 2.21. The lower one has two jobs, it provides a stop for the loop in the fore stay and a lug for the shackle to the block on the yard tackle. This yard tackle supports the sprit at more or less its midpoint. These are important functions and I recessed mine into the mast. I cut it from brass rod but it could be fabricated using wire and sheet brass and silver soldering. I drilled and tapped for the 10 BA screws.

 

The upper fitting is the anchorage for the jib stay. It is a strap with eyes at each end and wrapped round the mast on a saddle cut into the mast.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The topmast

I have said elsewhere that I think that the topmast should be very stiff because it cannot be stayed to aft on a model and, if a flexible wooden mast is used, the flying jib will never set properly. I used 6 mm carbon fibre tubing for the mast. This is very stiff. It has a bore of 4 mm and is available from the local model shop. 4 mm rod is also available and is useful for the short extension of the mast for the bob to fly on. See figure 2.22.

 

Of course carbon fibre tubing is black and we want it to look like wood and it should be tapered. You could ignore the taper and paint it an appropriate colour. I chose to stick 1/16² bass wood to the tubing and to dress it for the taper. A joint in the wood is visible as a black line in figure 2.21. This topmast is about 18 1/4² long (the main is 20²) but it is easy to handle in a lathe because it is so stiff. I cut my tapers by turning steps of about 3 thousandths of an inch for increments of 1² and then sand off the steps. I think that I could sand the taper if I wished to do so.

 

Once the topmast has been made the bracket to join it to the mainmast can be made either in brass or wood. I have given the dimensions of the one that I made in figure 2.23. I made it in 1/8² brass but it could easily be cut from 4 layers of 0.08 mm ply glued together.

 

 The topmast has a collar with four staples to take shackles for the jib stay, the two shrouds and the running back stays fitted to its top. The collar can be made from brass and the staples from 1/32² diameter wire all silver soldered. The topmast must be turned down to take this collar which must be removable because the topsail is attached with mast rings.

 

The topmast also needs a wooden block at its foot as in figure 2.12.

 

The topmast

We now have a hull and a mast and we need to support the mast side to side and fore and aft. The forestay must be the first item for us to deal with and the really challenging items are the falls. I have shown two sets of falls in figures 2.24 and 2.25. They are used

to pull the mast from the horizontal to the upright position.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The falls are really just a pulley system but each block had three sheaves so there is a mechanical advantage of 6 to 1. A lot of rope is needed for this operation and that rope has to be stored during normal sailing. It goes through a flexible pipe set in the deck and into a rope locker below decks.

 

One block is attached to a band that runs up the stem and the other to a thimble on the end of the forestay. The pattern shown in figures 2.24 and 2 25 seem to be the most common although Bagshaw shows blocks with diamond shaped cheek plates.  The blocks are nominally of 9² diameter which is 3/8² to 1/24^th scale.

 

These blocks present the modeller with a problem because they are too small to make to scale and yet they are large enough to see their detail. I think that most modellers would see 10 BA as the most likely screw size to use for the spindle and for the swivel pins for the links to the stem and to the stay. The bolt that joins the several plates would be about 3/8², which is only 0.015² to scale, and spacers are needed as well. I came to the conclusion that the diamond pattern that Bagshaw shows and which I have seen on a barge gave the best chance to make something presentable.

 

Figures 2.26 and 27 show my falls and the strap on the stem to which they are attached. The strap is fixed with 10BA screws. The blocks are clumsy but not as clumsy as some that I have seen. The sheaves are a bit too thick for practical reasons and the 10BA nuts are clearly not to scale but they carry the load imposed on them when sailing and not many people actually look at them. I have no pretensions to exhibit in prestige scale competitions. I want my boats to sail in all weathers.

 

The attraction of the diamond is that the size of the fixing bolts can be increased to 10BA without changing the shape noticeably. I will draw my block.

 

The drawing in figure 2.28 is self-explanatory. The brass cheek plates can be made by making a block of 8 plates soldered together and drilling and profiling them before separating them again. I profiled mine from brass bar in a dividing head on the milling machine and then sliced them off using a slitting saw with the bar in a rotary table. The plates can be assembled and spaced with pieces of 1/16² bass-wood or hard balsa and the 1/32² wire soldered into place. Otherwise it is straightforward.

 

I think that a very passable block could be made in wood using 0.08 mm ply for the cheek plates and using brass wire as above. The sheaves could be just discs of wood stuck in place. After all, once the fore stay is adjusted for length, the ropes are tied together and not moved again. Nevertheless links are needed to attach the forward block, at least, to the strap on the stem. These are just plates but, I made an “H” shaped fitting instead of straps because I wanted to have the facility to lower the rig if necessary. The bolt joining my H to the stem can be removed without having fiddly straps to reassemble when the rig is raised.

 

The strap on the stem runs down to and round the foot. An eye is silver soldered to the top end. The eye matches the block.

 

I attached the forestay to the upper block using only a thimble as Bagshaw suggests but I think that there should be a shackle.. The stay is made from 7 strand stainless steel wire as used for control line models. This is quite thin so I covered it with black insulation taken off an electric wire. This is matt and looks OK. The upper end is shown in figure 2.21. This stranded wire can be bound with 10 amp fuse wire and soldered provided that any flux is cleaned off with alcohol or any other degreasing agent.

 

The mast can now be placed in the mast box and a rope run round the falls to hold it up temporarily. Ultimately a second rope will be used to bind the rope round the falls to stop it coming undone. This binding was done in a special way but we cannot follow this method if we plan to disconnect the falls from the stem. We can make a useful attempt by binding the second rope three times round one of the upper strands to start and then binding three times round two ropes and finally three times round all three ropes before making off in a few loops round all three lower strands. You will not need to do this until much later.

 

Now for the shrouds. The shrouds are looped in pairs over the mast and the bolsters and are adjusted for length using dead-eyes and they are eventually joined to the hull via chain plates on the gunwales and rigging chocks. We need to make and fit these chain plates. There are two sorts. In figures 2.29 and 2.30 I have shown a chain plate for the running back stays ready to fix and one in situ. They can be made from 1/32² brass plate and the eye can be formed with pliers and needs no soldering because all these stays are joined using an open hook that will also be made from 1/32² wire in the same way. The plates are 5/32² wide. The second sort is shown in figure 2.31 fitted to the rigging chock to anchor a shroud. These are simple plates with three holes, all for 10 BA clearance. Two holes are for fixing to the rigging chock and the other to take a shackle.

 

Six flat plates are needed for the shrouds, two for the topmast stays that are fitted inside the chock, six for the running back stays and two for the vangs although these last will have to be adapted to become fairleads. (A running backstay is a stay that can be changed as required to give support to say the topmast. They cannot be set permanently because they would impede the sail when the tack is changed.)

 

Figure 2.32 is of Cambria as she lay derelict. It shows what we have to model. We can see at the bottom the shackle to the chain plate. This goes through a steel strap formed round the lower deadeye. The deadeye is made of wood and there are three holes through it. The pair of holes are pretty much on a diameter. The upper deadeye has the shroud round it and that shroud is spliced to form a loop and above the splice a cleat is bound to the shroud. The deadeyes are joined with a 1² diameter tarred rope.

 

This is all straightforward but there is a complication. The tarred rope and the shroud that is made of 1² diameter wire rope are all bound with small diameter rope that has been tarred. This is to protect the load bearing ropes and wires. Judging by the state of Cambria and these ropes this protection works.

 

You have to decide whether to wrap your ropes. I did as you will see if you look at figure 2.31. I made a wrapper for the job and wound with cotton and stuck it with sanding sealer. The wrapper was a very temporary rig but it works well and it takes little time to wrap a rope.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was made on a block of wood with two bearing plates set upright at each end as in figure 2.33a. Gears were fitted at each end so that when the handle is turned both secondary shafts rotate together 2.33b and c. The secondary shafts are hollow and the rope to be wound passes through both secondary shafts and is locked with wooden wedges as in 2.33d. The result of winding cotton on to a rope made from three strands of linen thread is in figure 2.33e.

 

You make think that this is gilding the lily but, if you have the wrapper as I did, it is little bother. I do not think that most modellers have noticed the wrapping on the full size so they are not likely to notice it on a model. If you do decide to wrap note that the shrouds are also wrapped where they go round the mast.

 

So back to the deadeyes. They are made of hard wood and the shape is evident in figure 2.32. Figure 2.34 shows wooden deadeyes for my two barges. I changed the bore between Pearl and Jasper.  The dimensions for these deadeyes are given in figure 2.35. The lower deadeyes need bands to form an eye to take a shackle. I made rings of 1/32² diameter brass wire and silver soldered the joints. If you use a torch with a needle flame this joint can be made without softening all of the ring. Then the ring can be placed over the deadeye with the joint at the top and the un-softened part can be crimped as shown in figure 2.34. The top deadeyes will have the spliced end of the shrouds pushed over them. See figure 2.31. This splice was bound and a cleat was fitted on every shroud. (You will need have several ropes coming down the mast all needing to be made off to a cleat.)

 

The rope that joins the two deadeyes is laced in a special way as is evident from figure 2.32. I have shown the sequence in figure 2.36 where the diagrams are shown from the back of the deadeyes. The two free ends, that would be much longer, are laid side-by-side and bound together. But before we can lace up the deadeyes we need to have some shrouds.

 

 

 

 

 

The full sized shrouds are made from steel wire. I showed in figures 2.12 and 2.17 how these shrouds are made in pairs, each pair being a single rope folded and bound together to form a loop that will go over the main mast and rest on the hounds. On my first barge I used multi-strand stainless wire but on the second I changed to black Dacron cord of 1 mm diameter. (It is used on model racing yachts.) This latter is woven, as distinct from spun, and almost unstretchable with ordinary force just like wire but is much more flexible and this gives a better appearance to the model. We need, with or without wrapping, four pairs of shrouds and one stanliff that can be made from the same cord. They go on in a standard order. The first is the stanliff that comes down on the starboard side, then the forward pair of shrouds that come down the port side, then the forward pair down the starboard side and a pair aft on the port side followed by a pair aft down the starboard side.  The three forward shrouds go to sets of deadeyes but the two aft shrouds go to a pulley system and become running backstays. These are set with a system of pulleys shown in fig 2.37. It is the arrangement shown by Taylor and by Cooper and Chancellor.

The figure shows the three shrouds with their deadeyes and a fourth “shroud” coming down to a 9² block (I think). A purchase is applied to this block by another rope that runs from a chain hooked into a chain plate, through the block and down to a shackle to a second block. This block is one of two forming a three rope system with a third block that is made off to another chain and hook. The free end is made off to a cleat inside the rail. This arrangement permits the backstay to be set as required and the force in the back stay to be adjusted to suit the sailing conditions.

 

There is one final running backstay to support the topmast to aft and windward on each side.

 

I think that I have now completed the main mast.

 

 

 

 

 

The next item in the rig is the sprit.

 

The sprit

The sprit is a very substantial piece of timber and is very heavy. It is about 60 feet long and about 10² diameter at its midpoint. Most barges that exist now have steel sprits. On my model the sprit is 29 3/4² long, 0.42² in diameter at the mid point, 0.375² diameter at it foot and 0.31² at its head. These dimensions correspond to 10², 9² and 7². It is very light.

 

Clearly the sprit has to swing round the mast in just the same way as the jib of a crane. It requires a swinging hinge at its foot and a tie of some sort to the mast. The arrangements for swinging the foot round the mast on a barge are shown in figures 2.39 and 2 40.  Both are for steel sprits. In figure 2.39 the steel tubing has stout lugs welded to its foot whereas in 2.40 there is a band on the tubing with the lugs welded to it. This latter follows the ordinary practice for mounting a wooden sprit. In fact there are three lugs, the front one is the lower fixing for the stanliff that supports the foot of the sprit. We have met the other end of the stanliff as the first loop to go on the hounds during mast dressing. You can see that the stanliff terminates in a thimble connected to a short length of chain. A shackle goes to the forward lug and through one link of the chain. By choosing different links the foot of the sprit can be raised or lowered. In figure 2.40 you can see the half strap that slips round the mast. It should be lower that it is in this photograph and work on the greased band just below it. The half collar which is called the muzzle band, has two eyes and you can see in figure 2.39 how these are joined with two shackles and a twisted link to the end collar on the foot of the sprit to the two aft lugs. This all makes a swivel for the foot of the sprit. I think that the whole mechanism is called the muzzle.

Now we must look to see how the sprit is supported aloft. I have shown two pictures of sprits without their sails in figures 2.41 and 2.42. In both cases the head of the sprit is supported by a single steel wire running to the top of the main mast. This, in fact, does two jobs. It supports the sprit and doubles as the head rope for the mainsail. It swings round the mast with a half collar as well. This is now equivalent to the jib of a crane where no other support is provided. There is no provision to alter its length. However, on a barge another rope goes to the middle of the sprit. This, with its pulleys etc, is called the yard tackle. So far as I can see it is redundant but nothing is provided without purpose on a barge so its real function is likely to elude me. The two pictures show two different arrangements. Both sets of yard tackle go over a pulley at the doubling but in 2.42 there is a block on the sprit giving a double purchase on the rope. Presumably this tells us that the yard tackle was adjusted during sailing. All that it can do is raise the sprit to reduce the force in the head rope. We have to model it and, as we cannot adjust it during sailing, it cannot be functional.

 

The sprit can be made from ramin or the like and straight tapered to my dimensions. However the two ends will have to be turned down to accept the muzzle collar at the foot and the fixing for the head rope, the down-haul for the top sail and for the vangs. See my photographs 2.43 and 2.46.

 

The first fitting is the collar for the yard tackle, I show it in figure 2.44. It is a simple brass band with a staple silver soldered to it. The rope is connected with a thimble and shackle in the usual way. The other end goes over a block shown bottom right in 2.21 and down to be made off to a cleat at the foot of the mast. Nothing about the full size suggests that this ever carries a large force. It puzzles me.

 

It is the head rope that is designed to carry weight but I cannot find its size. It terminated on the mast end in a spliced loop as I modelled it in picture 2.45. A short chain is attached to the half loop by two shackles and this half loop was supported by a wedge let into the mast to stop it slipping down the mast as shown in 2.46.

 

The head end also terminated in a loop but this one was formed to fit over the end of the sprit. See pictures 2.47 and 2 48. A smithed fitting went on top of the head rope end to provide a fixing for the topsail down haul and for the vangs and I have drawn this in figure 2.49.  This curiously shaped ring can be made from 1/32² brass wire with the joint silver soldered. I made a dummy one from copper wire to find out the required length. I think that it is best to hold the loop in the vice showing only a short length either side of the joint and use a pencil flame so that the main part of the loop is not softened. Then form the part for the vangs from the hard wire and the loop for the up-haul from the soft. Then this loop can be bound with fuse wire and soft soldered to prevent the loop opening.

 

A cleat will be required at the foot of the sprit but that can be fitted later as required.

 

 

 

The bowsprit

The bowsprit is an awkward thing to model and much of the problem stems from the variability of the design. I have seen all sorts of variations on the basic layout of a spar sticking out over the stem. Some of the complication arises from the universal need to raise the bowsprit when alongside and so shorten the length of quay wall taken up by the barge. This then calls for a hinge at the inboard end that is provided by a fairly simple bracket that is the bowsprit tabernacle. In the lowered position the bowsprit must be fixed down at the stem and, as it carries stays for the jib and the flying jib, is must be stayed to the forefoot by a chain called the bobstay. All of these stays have to be tightened once the bowsprit has been lowered and this leads to a collection of ropes running back along the bowsprit or to the rails all of them needing cleats.

 

I think that the first decision to be made by the modeller is whether to make provision to raise the bowsprit on the model. I chose to fix mine. I like to take my barges to the lake ready to sail and I store them rigged. If I were to be confronted with the need to raise the bowsprit I would see the gammon iron and the wedges as my real problem. The gammon doubled at this point.

 

In figure 2.50I show the fixing arrangements in my model. The heel of the bowsprit goes into the green painted tabernacle and is retained with a wooden shear pin. The bowsprit lies beside the stem and rests in a round groove across the rail. The strap that holds it down is the gammon iron and it is shown in 2.51. (The crud on it is the result of sailing on salt water.) It is bolted to the rail and the stem post. One wonders how the gammon iron was removed quickly to raise the bowsprit on the full sized barge. I cannot get a photo of the bowsprit in place on a full sized barge because I only see them at the quayside where they have their bowsprits up. Bagshaw shows this gammon iron and the wedges in his book on page 135. Cooper and Chancellor show to a very small scale on page 95 that the lugs on the gammon iron fitted over two spigots through which pins were fitted to retain the gammon iron This would have left it slack and sufficient space is left to drive two wedges between the gammon iron and the bowsprit to tighten it all up. I had more than enough trouble making this gammon iron and fitting it to contemplate removing it on a regular basis!

 

So we can see what has to be made.

 

On my model the bowsprit is 14¾² long tapering from 0.36² to 0.30² diameter. The heel is ½² square and about 1² long. About 11¼² overhangs the stem. Figure 2.52 shows that the tip must be turned down to accept a collar with four staples for bowsprit stays, the bobstay and for the topmast stay and the down haul. A second similar collar is needed for the jib and its down-haul.

 

Cooper and Chancellor and Taylor show a traveller that had some function but they do not say what it is nor do they say how the system works. I encountered this when I was building and, as I could see prospect of finding out how it worked in a very short time, I omitted it and got on with building. You may be able to do better.

 

I think that the bobstay is a modelling problem if you are intending to sail. The chain is vulnerable. All the chains should be welded chain and the only one that I know is from Marati but even so a chain of an appropriate size will not stand running across a fixed kerb to a sailing lake. I have taken to fitting a wire in parallel with the chain to protect the chain. You can see the wire and the chain tensioner in figure 2.52. As the bobstay must be released to raise the bowsprit it must have an arrangement to permit this. The bobstay is a chain that goes from the tip of the bowsprit down to a pulley, just like the one for the anchor, fixed to the stem near its foot. Then it goes up through the hawse hole in the rail and then I think (I am not sure about this.) that a pin was put though the chain to snag it into some fitting. Then when the stays were tightened the bobstay would also be put under tension. Whatever the arrangement may be, I omitted it and fixed the bobstay to an eye in the stem.

 

A tabernacle is required. There does not seem to have been any preferred design. Cooper and Chancellor said that the tabernacle was smith’s work and show two examples that appear to be unlikely designs to me because they have no sideways rigidity. Bagshaw draws a tabernacle that looks very like the Cooper and Chancellor design but has tie bars. I have sketched the Bagshaw design in figure 2.53. If you omit the tie bars it becomes the Cooper and Chancellor design.

 

This design is clearly possible for most modellers to make from brass. However I think that I would soft solder the side brackets to a base-plate that I show dotted and consider adding stiffeners that are also shown dotted. I would use 1/32² brass plate or possibly 3/64². The base plate will need to be mounted on a plywood base to give it a flat surface. The critical height is that of the groove in the rail to take the bowsprit and if the bowsprit is to have the correct angle to the waterline the height of the pivot pin in the tabernacle will follow from this.

 

 

For my barge I machined a bracket from the solid and fitted it to a base-plate by soft soldering. During the first few outings the water level in the lake was low and, whilst I was getting the hang of sailing the barge, I broke the relatively small soldered joint during 3 collisions with the kerb. It was a good weak link. Now I use a wooden shear pin but have never put it to the test.

 

The bowsprit has two stays to stabilise it sideways. These are wire and they go from the collar at the tip to the rail with a four-rope pulley system to give purchase. The arrangement on my barge is shown in figure 2.54. The anchor for the block at the rail is a 10 BA screw with a brass U silver soldered to its head. The rope passes through a stainless steel eyelet fitted through the rail and then on to a cleat inside the rail.  It is a fair copy of the full size.

 

That completes the bowsprit with the exception of some blocks etc. that will properly belong to fitting the sails.

 

The mizzen

The mizzen sail is small and it is mounted on standing rigging that is small to match. For the modeller it represents a significant step down in size. The fittings for the main rig are small enough that if one is dropped on the workshop floor it is often easier to make a new one than to find it. Now the fittings are smaller again. Fortunately the most common fittings are thimbles, shackles and blocks and a step down is not so difficult after making all the fittings for the main rig. The small muzzle might try your patience.

 

I think that there is a modelling decision to be taken. When I first became interested in Thames barges I could find no-one who could tell me how the mizzen fitted into the sailing of the barge. The model barges that I saw had fairly nondescript mizzens that either just flapped in the wind or moved with the rudder. As the rudders appeared to move through 60° or 70° either side this was not very realistic. By the time that I came to build my sprit-sail barge I knew what jobs the mizzen had to do. I devoted a substantial part of section 2.1 of my chapter on Thames sailing barges in this website to this mizzen. There I suggested that the little mizzen can be a busy sail if you set it up properly. It can help to drive the barge, it can help in a tack and it can balance the boat at other points of sailing. If you fancy doing the job in this way then there are things that need to be done when building this part of the standing rigging. Otherwise simplify the job to whatever level satisfies you. I rather enjoy operating this mizzen when I am sailing but I cannot operate it properly and talk at the same time. I have to concentrate on the boat.

 

If you intend to make the mizzen functional then you will need to be prepared to program your transmitter and to weight the boom of the mizzen. The special feature of the sail is that it was flat. Most sails are not flat but carefully set to have some optimum camber but the mizzen had to be set in unusual attitudes to the wind and needs to be ready to drive in any position. The sail has a sprit and a boom so getting it taut is possible, but as it has no kicking strap, it must be weighted. On the full-size chains hung down from the boom and were attached in a pulley system to the rudder. I can see no reason for using chain when light rope would be adequate to resist the small forces involved so I assume that the weight of the chain had a role in the operation of the mizzen. Indeed some mizzens had a chain between the boom and the transom with a weight on it.

 

The mizzen mast and sail are mounted aft just where the crew accommodation is built up on the deck and just where the steering mechanism crosses the roof of the cabin.[2] All this is unavoidable but it has lead to considerable variation in the layout. The mast seems to have been mounted on the cabin roof and either stayed to the deck or to the roof. Normally there are four stays but also a fifth that goes to a bracket on the steering gear just aft of the wheel. I have shown the pulpit on a steel barge in figure 2.55. You can see that it spans the steering shaft and that it is fitted just forward of the steering gear cover. Figure 2.56 shows one of the rope stays for this mast and the eye bolt in the deck to which it is made off. Presumably, even though four rope stays like this one were used, they could not keep the mast upright given the space constraints in this part of the deck.

 

On existing barges the mizzen is no longer used as it used to be because most barges have auxiliary engines. These engines mean that tacking in confined waters is no longer a problem. The result is now a wide variation in the area of the mizzen sail presumably to balance the rig and the absence of the old mechanisms. This all means that finding an old fashioned mizzen to photograph is difficult. Certainly I cannot offer reliable photographs. Instead I have given photographs of my barge. Then you are looking at the outcome of my modelling decisions and you should treat the information accordingly.

 

There are drawings in both Bagshaw and Cooper and Chancellor and I used these to set up my mizzen.

 

When modelling the mizzen I think that there is a decision to be made about the cabin roof. I take the view that one should maximise access to the hull. Others recommend sticking both the cabin roof and the forward hatch in place but this seems to me to be perverse. It gives no advantage. I chose to make my cabin top removable and to hold it down with the four shrouds that support the mizzen mast and these can be attached to eye bolts in the deck with open hooks. Then the rudder servo and the radio battery can go in the cabin space and be accessible.

In figures 2.57 I have shown the cabin top and the shrouds going down to the deck. The steering-cover hides the drive for the rudder. Figure 2.58 shows the rudder linkage. Only one link drives the rudder, the other is free to slide in a containing loop. From the outside it looks as though two arms are used as in the full-size[3]. The rudder servo is mounted aft under the cabin roof.

 

If the mizzen mast is to be mounted on the cabin roof the roof must be strong enough to support it. The mast is about 9 ½ ² long , tapering from 0.25² to 0.20² with a ¼ ² square on the lower end and a sort of finial at the top. I have drawn the mast on my sprit sail barge in figure 2.59. The jack-line is a piece of 0.040² wire held in eyes made from 1/32² brass wire. During assembly the shrouds and the stanliff go on to the shoulder at the top of the mast and then the collar is fitted. The boom is mounted on gooseneck one part of which is shown in the diagram. Bagshaw and Cooper and Chancellor show similar arrangements. I have redrawn them in figure 2.60. The forked end was forged on a serrated spike that was driven into the end of the boom and the collar reinforced the boom. It seems that the bracket on the mast was formed like a garage door hinge from a flat strip. We can do the same and make that bracket from a piece of tubing with strip wrapped round it and soldered together. Then a slit has to be made in the mast to accept the bracket.

Now for my model.

 

Figure 2.61 shows the boom. This is a length of 5/32² diameter brass tubing filled with lead from end to end. The collar has two staples, one is for a small block to carry the out haul for the sail and the other for the chains representing the control system. The first staple also doubles as an eye for fixing the topping lift that alters the level of the boom. The second collar also carries the chain system and the third is the eye for the sheeting cord that, in my case, is two cords.

 

Figure 2.62 shows the inboard end of the boom and its gooseneck. The photo in 2.63 shows the jack-line and the luff of the mizzen sail. This is just a smaller version of that on the mainmast. I will describe the wire clips for the sail in the section on sail making.

 

Figure 2.64 is of the top of the mast. It is a busy place with the four shrouds, the fore-stay, the stanliff, the in-haul for the sail and the two blocks for the brails all jostling for space. When dressing the mast the sequence is, forestay, stanliff, and the two pairs of shrouds.

 

Figure 2.65 shows my version of the forward bracket for the steering shaft with the shackle for the fore-stay and the locking gear for the shaft. The lug with its hole is not used because the drawing that I worked to placed the mast in the wrong position by about 1/2² and the stay had too small an angle.

 

Figure 2.66 shows the whole mizzen assembly. Note that the sail is flat.

 

The mizzen

Figure 2.53 shows a mizzen tabernacle that looks very much as if it is a weld-on-site job. I do not think that this is unusual but I feel sure that in the hey-day of barge building it would have been a job for the smith and that a yard would have had some preferred design. I took the view that I needed a practical design and that it should have a base with a relatively large area to spread the load to be borne by the cabin roof. It is shown in figure 2.65. and in figure 2.67.

 

I made my tabernacle from the solid with the exception of the base. It could just as easily have been made from 1/32² brass sheet and the 1/4² by 1/8² brass channel that is available from KS. 1/8² equal angle brass from KS could be used to join the frame to the base. I made no arrangement to let the mizzen fold back and used a 10 BA nut and bolt to tighten the tabernacle round the foot of the mast. The two spacers, that could be from channel, must be located to suit the steering shaft on the model.

 

The tabernacle sits on a wooden base on the cabin roof. The deck between the cabin and the main hold is very crowded with the wheel, the fairlead for the main sail sheet, the main horse, the helmsman all requiring space. So the only way to adjust the angle of the fore-stay is by the position of the mast. Locate the base so that the fore-stay has a large enough angle to be effective.

 

 

 

The mizzen sprit

The sprit is in ramin or beech and it is 13 ¾ ² long tapering from 1/4² at its heel to 0.02² at the peak with the ends turned down to accept a loop in the head rope of the sail at the peak and the muzzle fitting at the heel. The muzzle for the mizzen is not so complicated as the one for the main. It consists of four components, a strap to go round the mast, two plain links and two specially shaped rings with eyes formed in them to go on the end of the sprit.

I have shown the muzzle on my model in figure 2.68 and drawn the parts for the muzzle in figure 2.69. In 2.69 the parts are laid out flat so that their shapes are clear. The muzzle strap to go round the mast is made in the same way as the muzzle strap on the main mast from a piece of brass strip formed round the mast and a piece of 1/32² diameter wire soldered to it. There are two rings on the heel of the sprit. One has one eye formed in it, the other two. There are two links like chain links so that when the strap is round the mast and the rings are on the sprit the two are joined but the sprit is free to move round the mast. If now the sprit is inclined the links will move to accommodate the new angle and, if they are the correct length set the sprit alongside the mast. The eyes may need bending and the links twisting to make it work nicely. The eye through which the hook of the stanliff goes must be bent up to keep the rings on the sprit. Unlike the main stanliff, which is a single wire rope, the stanliff for the mizzen has a four-rope purchase which suggests that the rake of the mast was in some way critical.

 

Endnote

I think that I have described all the standing rigging now. There are other details like davits, a ship’s boat, lifebelts, riding lights and so on but they have no role in sailing the barge.