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You know who might have the right stuff on this is Geoff Hunt, who did
the cover art for Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin books.  -Hewitt

On 12/23/08, George Huxtable  wrote:
> It's always gratifying when a new topic tempts old-lurkers from their dens
>  and brings them out, blinking, into public view. I hope for further
>  postings. So thanks to William Sellar, John Rae, and  Frank Reed too, for
>  helpful and perceptive comments about the New England schooners of colonial
>  days. Clearly, I need to consult Chappelle when the University awakens after
>  its break (not until Jan 5).
>
>  Both William and John mention a stay that joins the heads of the two masts,
>  the "triadic" stay, as John calls it, though I'm more familiar with
>  "triatic". That was indeed a common way of supporting, from forward, a
>  schooner's mainmast (and also the further-aft masts on multi-mast jobs). It
>  had serious snags, though. Because the masts were no longer supported
>  independently, if one failed, it could bring down the others too.
>
>  In their book on the 4-mast Schooner, "Bertha L Downs", Greenhill and
>  Manning describe an event on the 5-mast "Gov. Ames", which must have been
>  around 1900-
>  "The stretch which developed in her new rigging gave concern, so she was
>  anchored and her sails furled. The violent pitching that ensued caused a
>  splice to fail in one of her headstays. Almost immediately the foremast and
>  mainmast snapped close to the deck and crashed overboard to starboard,
>  followed in short order by the three after masts, which fell fore and aft
>  along the deck".
>
>  But my curiosity about the smaller and earlier schooners wa aroused by the
>  attached picture of "Baltick", a thumbnail of a well-known picture by an
>  unknown artist held at the Peabody Essex Museum. The text (rather fuzzy in
>  this low-resolution image) reads  "This shews the Schooner BALTICK Coming
>  out of St Eustatia, ye 16th Novr 1765". That's a schooner of the right
>  period, presumably of New England build.
>
>  It's a pretty picture, but does it represent reality? You will see that the
>  mainmast is held up by a mainstay, which judging from its angle won't reach
>  deck-level until some way along the bowsprit, and what's more, carries its
>  own, large, staysail. And that stay, and staysail, occupy just the
>  swinging-room, aft of the foremast, which the boomed gaff-foresail needs to
>  occupy when changing tack. The arrangement Frank described, having two such
>  forestays, going down to deck-level port and starboard, presents similar
>  problems.
>
>  So how would you contrive to put such a vessel about? It would be somewhat
>  easier if the foresail was loose-footed, without a boom, and the sail could
>  then be brailed up and over the mainstay when going about, perhaps given a
>  pair of sheets, one each side: the leeward one held taut, the other passing
>  loosely over the mainstay. It would be even harder to manage, if the
>  foresail was boomed, as the Baltick picture clearly shows it was. Many
>  pictures of schooners I've seen show that it was common for two masted
>  vessels to have a loose-footed foresail and a boomed mainsail.
>
>  Does that rig of Baltick give others the same difficulties that worry me?
>  Not all ship-artists knew about the practical working of such vessels,
>  commonplace though they would have been in their era. Did this one get it
>  right?
>
>
>  George.
>
>  contact George Huxtable, at  george@hux.me.uk
>  or at +44 1865 820222 (from UK, 01865 820222)
>  or at 1 Sandy Lane, Southmoor, Abingdon, Oxon OX13 5HX, UK.
>
>
> >
>
>

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