What Is My Time Worth, Part 6: Running Rigging

I had planned to have this post in place before Christmas, but there were two things I didn't plan on.  They are:

1. General holiday season craziness, and
2. A bout with the flu.

I should have known that the holiday season would mess up my schedule; after all, it's not my first Yuletide season.  I am, however, going to plead ignorance about the flu as I really didn't expect to get sick.  I certainly didn't expect it to turn a week of my time into a blur of sleep, coughing and fatigue.  That's enough about my issues though, as I suspect you're here to read about sailing ships and not sickness.

In this post, I'm going to deal with running rigging.  That's the rigging that, in real life, operates the yardarms and other parts of the sail set.  These lines were not coated with tar, because they had to move through blocks in order to operate properly.  This is whey they are called "running rigging."  On my models, they are done with a light tan thread so as to differentiate them from the standing rigging.  Unlike the standing rigging, when doing running rigging we start at the bow of the ship and work our way towards the stern.    Another difference is that, unlike standing rigging, the number of steps in doing running rigging will vary based on which sails your ship has set.  So, while the Langton rigging guide shows 16 basic steps for running rigging (plus more if the model has its staysails set between the masts), some of those 16 basic steps will be ignored as we go. 

So, from this...

to this in only 16 steps or less.

One other picture that should have been included in the previous post, but wasn't.  The picture below is a homemade tool I use to get glue onto knots in tight spaces.  In practice, I use it almost everywhere, given that the nozzle on a container of glue is way too big to get into small spaces.

It's just a pin vise with a straight pin that has a large head chucked into the larger of the two openings.  It is so useful that I'm tempted to buy a new vise, and convert this one into a permanent tool for gluing knots.

Before starting, I should point out that the running rigging on this model is considerably simpler than the standing rigging.  As the Langton guide points out:

we are only showing the lifts, braces and sheets of the running rigging.

Lifts were the lines from the mast down to the yard arms. Braces were

taken from the yardarms to the next mast in order to be able to trim the

sails to the wind.  Sheets were used to haul on the lower part of the sail.

The first step is to run a line from the foremast stay to each side of the spritsail yard below the bowsprit.  In Harland's book Seamanship in the Age of Sail this line is called a spritsail brace.  I refer to it as "another line to keep the spritsail yard in place if the glue breaks," but then I'm not as precise as Harland.  

So that's the first step....

Step 2 involves the sheets for the jibsails, which are those triangular sails out over the bowsprit.  According to the guide, you should use a separate line for each of the jibsails, but I find this to be too fiddly given the small area you're working in.  What I do is to drill a hole in the rearmost jibsail, tie the line there, run it back to the hole where the shrouds are, take a turn and then glue the end of the thread under the second jibsail.

The highlighted lines run inside the line from step 1, and behind the ratlines.

The next photo covers steps 3,4 and 5, and will have us installing the braces and lifts for all of the foremast.  Here, we start from the lowest line and work our way towards the top of the mast.  Step 3 is highlighted in blue, step 4 in green and step 5 in red.  As you can see, each thread provides both the brace from the main mast to the foremast, and the lift for the yard.

Despite what the picture looks like, the lines do not foul each other.

With this sail set, we skip steps 6 and 7.  That's because there is no royal sail at the top of the mast for step 6, and with the foresail brailed up there is no need for a line to the bottom edge of the foresail.

There are different versions of step 8, depending on whether or not the mainsail is lowered or furled. Either way, step 8 is the most time-consuming step of all for running rigging.  I've tried to color-code the picture below in such a way as to let you see the different sub-assemblies of step 8.  Keep in mind that, even though I've used different colors, this is all one long piece of thread.  You start by tying the thread onto the main yardarm, and then taking it back to hole A (dark blue).  You go through hole A, wrap around the bottom boom of the spanker sail, go up the sail and under the ratlines, go over the crossjack boom and then do the same thing on the other side of the sail (teal blue).  Then, go through hole A on the port side and back up to the top boom of the spanker sail.  Take a turn around the top boom, then take the line up through the gap in the standing rigging and back down to the upper boom of the spanker where you take another turn (light blue).  From there, go back down to and through hole A on the starboard side (light blue).  From hole A, go back up to the top of the spanker boom, take a turn and go down and through hole A on the port side (pastel purple).  From hole A on the port side, to up to the port mainyard and wrap the thread around it (dark blue again, on the port side).  From there, take the line over the topgallant yardarm, back down to the yardarm on the starboard side, tie off and glue it (dark green).  Trim off any excess once you're done.

Sorry, but I don't think I can make it any simpler than this.

Step 9 is ignored because the main sail is furled, so the next picture shows us steps 10, 11 and 13.  We ignore step 12 for the same reason as step 6: i.e., there is no royal sail on the mainmast.  For the sake of consistency, I've colored the steps in this photo the same way I did the photo for 3 through 5.  This set of steps is a little different, because here we start in the middle, move to the top,and then drop back to the bottom for step 13.  When you look at the model in person, though, this makes sense, because you do the interior lines first and then go back to the crojack line which is outside of the other two.

Light blue first, then green, then red.

The green line in the above photo should be back against the mast like all the other braces, so that's a mistake on my part.  I suspect I didn't let the glue on the knot dry enough before I started running the lines.

Now, we're in the homestretch as there are only 3 steps left.  We can ignore step 16 though, as there are no royal sails on the mizzenmast.  In these last two steps however, are the major differences between British warships and every other nation's vessels.  British warships (and warships only) ran the running rigging for their mizzen sails back to the top of the spanker boom.  Every other nationality ran these lines forward to the main mast.

British mizzen rigging.

 

Everyone else's mizzen rigging, including British merchants.

With the mizzen rigging finished, the ship is now complete.  Total time for the running rigging was 106 minutes, or 1.76 hours.

There are still some little things, like finishing the ship's base. However, as  I make my own bases and buy the material in bulk, there is no way to directly compare them to buying and painting a resin one.  Because of that, I won't be including the time or cost of the base in the project.  I had also wanted to make this the final post, but given how long it already is I think I'll save the final analysis for one more post.