Before reading this you should have read the
introduction to sailing ship terminology which is part of a series on
sailing ships.

More about masts

As has been mentioned, masts are prevented from falling over by shrouds (to the side) and stays (fore and aft). As additional spars were added, and masts grew taller, more standing rigging had to be added to keep up. In addition to the mainstay and shrouds we now had the fore-top-stay, main-t’gallant-stay, foremast-shrouds, etc. Again, each new piece of rigging was named for the section of mast that it supported. While this was simple enough there was one problem with the new arrangement – every piece of rope has two ends and somewhere had to be found to secure the end that was not attached to the new mast.

Stays run diagonally down to the first point along the centreline of the ship that presents itself, and usually this would be the mast ahead. As long as that mast is strong enough then there is no problem, but the foremast doesn’t have a mast ahead of it. Stays angled diagonally would simply disappear over the pointy end of the ship. Clearly there needed to be some secure point ahead of the ship for this purpose, and the obvious answer was to place another spar in a horizontal position at the front of the ship – the bowsprit.

The bowsprit was a successful innovation however the forces acted on it laterally, causing it to snap upwards, so the stays were doubled back from the end of the bowsprit to a point on the bow just above the waterline. This prevented the bowsprit flexing, and was so successful an idea that later the bowsprit was lengthened by adding yet another spar, called the jiboom, so that yet more stays could be added and more staysails hung off them. (Actually the new staysails were called jibs, and the new spar was originally the jib-boom.)

The shrouds on the upper masts had special problems of their own. There really was no place for them to be safely anchored except for the spar below, so that’s what happened! The topmast shrouds, for instance, run from the top of the topmast down and outwards to the edges of the top – a platform built at the top of the mast below. They then run inwards again and are secured to the mast below. The t’gallant-shrouds are secured to the topmast via the crosstrees (two small spars instead of a platform).

Getting up there

There is a tremendous amount of work to be done on sailing ships that can’t be done from the deck. Sooner or later, and this is the good bit, people have to lay aloft - climb up the masts and go out along the yards to fix or replace things! Although health and safety at work was less of an issue in the days of sail than it is today people were not stupid and efforts were made to make this easy enough for a person of average fitness.

The starting point from the deck will be the weather shrouds - the standing rigging on the side of the ship from which the wind is blowing. (So that if you fall off you get blown back into the ship, instead of into the sea.) Battens of wood or thin ropes are tied horizontally between the shrouds forming a ladder, as seen in old Errol Flynn pirate movies, and they are known as ratlines.

Ascend the ratlines and you find yourself at the top of the shrouds, underneath the top platform and wondering how on Earth you’re going to get onto it. The answer is that more ratlines have been added to the topmast shrouds under the top and the only thing wrong with this ladder is that it is angled outwards from your position. As you negotiate this obstacle you find yourself with your body above the top, hanging on for dear life while your feet poke around blindly in search of something to stand on. Usually you get tangled up with these ratlines, so they became known as ‘foot-hooks’, which today is pronounced futtocks.

Eventually you come to the yard you are seeking, but shimmying out along a pole a hundred feet above a turbulent ocean is not a very effective way of getting the job done, so yet more ropes are added. Hanging from the yard (behind the sail) are several short lengths of line called stirrups and they support a footrope - something about the diameter of your thumb which sits parallel to the yard a few feet below it. Yes, you are expected to move out along this rope, and stand on it while doing your work, but to make life easier there is also a rope or cable for you to hang on to. This jackstay is attached to the yard at several points and can also be used to clip a safety harness on to if you’re wearing one.

More about sails and running rigging

The main tasks when aloft are usually associated with sails or rigging, and there is a bit more vocabulary you need before tackling this. The sails are not tied on to the yard, they are bent on using special string called robands. Once tied on the top of the sail needs to be pulled tight along the yard, and there is a special hitching point on the sail called the ear-ring for doing just that.

The bottom corners, the clews will be pulled down to the yard below using the sheets when sailing, so they also have to be attached, but thought has also to be given to what happens when the sail is no longer needed. When not in use sails are furled - rolled up by the crew and secured to the yard using yet more ropes called gaskets - but handling a billowing sail in a big storm can be tricky and it helps to do as much of the work as possible to bring the sail under control before laying aloft.

This is achieved by clewlines and buntlines, both of which pull the bottom of the sail up to the yard to which it is bent. Clewlines are attached, unsurprisingly, to the clews and work in opposition to the sheets. (Remember to release - ease - one before hauling on the other!) Buntlines are attached to various points along the foot and don’t normally have anything pulling against them except for the wind. Bunting up a sail creates ‘bunting’ which has been copied at midsummer fetes and political conventions for centuries.

The exact numbers and configurations of bunt- and clewlines vary from ship to ship and sail to sail. Sometimes there will be buntlines but no clewlines, sometimes vice versa, often both. Whatever the details, these lines run from the foot of the sail to the yard, along the yard to the mast, down the shrouds through guides called fairleads and finish up at the pin rail, where they are organised using the system described in the entry on
basic sailing ship terminology
.

A bit more about fore-and-aft sails

Square sails are all very well if the wind is behind you or to the side, but what happens if the wind is not blowing in the direction you want to go? How do you get under way? Square-riggers tend to blow sideways, to the lee, when the wind is from the side. It’s called making leeway and is not really very useful, which is why we give leeway to someone who needs time to get their act together. What we need to do is make headway - to go forwards, and for that we may need some fore-and-aft sails.

Because fore-and-aft sails are orientated along the centreline of the ship they are able to sail close to the wind compared to square sails. That is they can push the limits of what is possible. Staysails improve a tall ship’s ability to point into the wind, but there is a price to be paid. Staysails are all forward of a mast, there are often many of them at the front of the ship, and they all tend to push sideways as well as forwards. Although the leeway can be taken into account when sailing the ship it must be a balanced force. All those staysails at the front tend to push the front to the side and turn the ship off course.

A fore and aft sail at the stern counters this tendency, makes the ship much more manageable. The fore and aft mizzen sail was unaccountably christened the spanker, is the most powerful single sail on the ship, and is generally gaff-rigged. This means that there are booms above and below the sail, changing the shape from a simple triangle, increasing the size, and providing a convenient starting point for the addition of a mizzen tops'l! Not all ships had spankers, but they became increasingly common in the later nineteenth century.

You now know all that you need to learn
how to sail a tall ship
. Enjoy!