gaff rigging

[merlinron]

my knowledge of gaff rigging, or any sail rigging, for that matter, barely makes it to a decent idea of the basics, i'm sure there's allot more i need to know even to rig up a simple 136 sq. ft. sail plan. i know there's a few good books about gaff systems around,please, would someone give the name of them and where i can get them. is there a site dedecated to gaff rigged boats(?),or, being what this forum is all about, maybe i'm already there.
thanks much in advance.

[JimD]

John Leather's The Gaff Rig Handbook is a good one, but much of it is devoted to the rig's history on larger boats.

[merlinron]

jimd, thanks, that's the book i was thinking of. i'll have to look into it, there's probably some info that would pertain. ironicly enough, i was just cruising the design forum and his name was mentioned on pg 19, in a post reguarding hollow built gaff mast scantlings compared to alum. mast strength (one of my main questions). there were scantling rules listed, both from his book, but (unless they were mis printed in the post),they massively contradicting answers for my mast. one 7/32" per foot of mast height above decks and the other 7/8" per beam foot. the answers...3-3/8" and 6-3/8" respectively. the first, i would think is reasonably accurate, but the second, 6-3/8 for a 15'-4" inch tall mast?...pretty hefty!. there was nothing mentioned about one being for unstayed and one for a stayed mast, but that might be a reasonable assumption. or maybe the second is "beam at the mast location"... = 5.8" still pretty big, unless unstayed. anyone have a clue?.

[Frank Wentzel]

The masts on my chinese junk rigged Egret sharpie are unstayed, 24 and 26 feet long and only 5 3/4" at the partners.

/// Frank ///

[Thad]

and many of Ralph Munroe's sharpie type boats carried unstayed gaff rigs

[gert]

I have the "Handbook", in hindsight it would not be my first coice for a ref to rig a small boat.

Frank:
More please!

[ 09-06-2005, 01:08 PM: Message edited by: gert ]

[ingo]

A nice book is "Canoe Rig - The Essence and the Art" from Todd E. Bradshaw or "Der Gaffelfreund" from Andreas Köpke - but in German.

A very fast gaff-rigged class with about 150 square feet is the german "H-Jolle" ( http://www.yachtsportarchiv.de/yachten/klassen/h-jolle-engl.html) or the netherland "BM-Jolle" (
www.bm-jolle.de (http://www.bm-jolle.de) - my own homepage) or the 12sqm Sharpie (somewhere in http://www.fky.org/prestodata/documents.php4?document=jollenklassen or http://www.sharpie.nl/)

All these rigs are cheap and the sails as well. For the BM-Jolle for example a new cruising mainsail is about 560 Euro ( http://www.zeilmakerijmolenaar.nl/eenheidsklasse/16m2wed.html)

[Kim Whitmyre]

Very nice boat, Ingo! Great pictures of folks having a great time. . .

Kim

[pippo]

This web page (http://www.messing-about.com/gaffrig/) is devoted to the gaff rig!

[George.]

For setting up the rig, "The Rigger's Apprentice", by Brion Toss. "The Sailmaker's Apprentice", by Emiliano Marino, is also good for tips on how to hank on and trim gaff sails.

For handling the rig, as well as some advice on setting it up, Tom Cunliffe's "Hand, Reef, and Steer".

[mdevour]

Gaff Rig Handbook, John Leather
Hand Reef and Steer, Tom Cunliffe

Both of the above focus more on larger boat rigs, but give you a feel for the range of possibilities as well as shiphandling and extensive history.

Learning to Sail, H.A. Calahan, Dover Publications

This is a re-publication of a '30's vintage beginner's manual covering all aspects of sailing and cruising smaller wooden boats. Because of its vintage, it includes a fair amount on gaff rigs on boats under 30 feet.

Some web sites I found helpful:

http://www.messing-about.com/gaffrig/

http://www.kastenmarine.com/gaff_rig.htm
http://www.classicmarine.co.uk/articles/Reference%20s tart.htm (http://www.classicmarine.co.uk/articles/Reference%20start.htm)

Some of the best resources I found were right here, however. When I scratch designed the rig for our skiff (http://www.eskimo.com/~mdevour/boatproject.html), forum members steered me toward ideas that worked, first try, and continue to serve us well. The rig works better than I had any right to expect! :cool:

Which brings me to my last comment: It's really a better idea to choose a boat to build that does all that you want, rather than grafting something ambitious onto a simpler plan. If the plans you're following don't show all the details you need, then ask here. I'm sure you'll get enough help.

Be well,

Mike D.

[ 09-07-2005, 08:27 AM: Message edited by: M. G. Devour ]

[merlinron]

thanks for the leads guys!,lots of readingto do now.
mike d., nice little skiff. it must have been fun working on it with your kids,(nice looking family as well). the stuff is all on the prints... but in aluminum and lugs. the alternate wood mast is just listed as, <"or wood mast and spars, round in section"> i want to build it with wood spars,self made wood blocks where i need them , hoops and lacing, etc, all the classic looking, quiet stuff.i also have a whole bunch of merriman bronze(circa 1936, 2jib sheet tracks and slides/end caps,tiller yoke,3 boom bails and blocks,out hall fitting, 2 small winches,2 yard director thing a ma jigs, they go at the base of the mast on the deck to turn the yards to the cockpit.) that will look much nicer with wood than aluminum, so i'm starting to look for info real early. the wood spars are a piece of cake to make and i have a bunch of 18-22 ring doug fir 4x6's that are straight as an arrow grained and 6 to 9 ft long.i have to use that stuff!

[mdevour]

It was definitely an education, Ron! Probably twice as much for me as for the kids. :eek:

It sounds like you've got the gear to put together a pretty high performance boat. I've heard of people building a boat for an excuse to use only one lovely bronze thingamajig! I can understand that you couldn't resist. :D

Any idea what the bronze bits all came off of?

What design is it you have plans for?

Be well,

Mike D.

[merlinron]

the merriman stuff came off of a star sloop that i had 20 some years ago. i rebuilt the boat, (my first post, "swabby intro with questions" a few days old now, has more details) converting to a more docile day sailer and eventually it would up sitting on it's trailer for years as i got more involved with raising my kids and and coaching soccer, baseball, etc. niether one of them ever really took to sailing much("too slow and boring", they said). too much rot forced me to eventually cut it up, but of course, i kept all the neat the shiney stuff and the trailer. sadly, over the years, somehow, i managed to loose the goose neck,... of all pieces to loose,hey?. i did fabricate a replacement from stainless steel, but i don't think i'll use it, it just looks way out of place with all the bronze. i plan to get some bronze flat stock and build a "good one". for the life of me, i can't recall how or when that dissapeared!
the boat i am getting ready to build is a 4.9 m. raised flush deck sloop called "sztrandek". you can see it by searching on google. the origin of it's plans and a change i intend to make caused a little controversy with some of the more staunch traditionalists on this forum, but i have searched hard and long and amoungst all the more well known designers, can't come up with a boat in that size that suites my desires more accurately....you have to like what you build. i am just in the process of gathering/sourcing materials and related information, right now. i plan to build the spars, keels, boxes, rudder, sliding hatch, and ather small parts over the winter as money and time permits, in my shop and build the hull in the spring. i like to have as much info as i can as early as possible.

[essaunders]

This the boat?
http://www.zeglarstwo.3miasto.pl/sztraeng/ofertowy.gif
link (http://www.zeglarstwo.3miasto.pl/sztraeng/sztrengl.html)

Looks almost 'Gunterish' to me. Seems that the designer anticipated other rigs too:
http://www.zeglarstwo.3miasto.pl/sztraeng/18.gif

[merlinron]

essaunders, yup, that be her. there's actually two fractional rigs drawn in the plans, 10 m.sq.and 15m.sq. and there's a masthead rig w spinaker designed by some else for this boat on the net. i'm not quite sure what a gunter layout is compared to a gaff, is it because of the highly peaked gaff? i know the bermudan rig is probably lighter aloft and maybe easier to haul and strike, but i want to try a gaff and it sits good on this little boat, sooo...
there's 14 ft version of this boat drawn by him also, can be seen by googling "sztranduza", i think. i 've been there once a while back.

[ 09-07-2005, 06:53 PM: Message edited by: merlinron ]

[Todd Bradshaw]

Not that it really matters, but that is a gunter rig, not a gaff rig. It's a blurry line that divides the two types, but this one falls on the gunter side. The single halyard will lift the upper spar in a more or less vertical position, rather than horizontal as would happen on a gaff - making the proper name for the spar a yard, rather than a gaff. Then there is that big, battened roach, which is pretty uncharacteristic of most gaff sails. When this is combined with a peak angle that small, it requires the sail to be designed as a three-sided sail (gunter) rather than as a four-sided sail (gaff). The edge attached to the yard will certainly be designed and shaped as a slightly off-angle portion of the sail's luff, not as the head of a gaff sail would be. To further define it, since the yard is not permanently fixed in a true, zero-degree-rake, vertical position by hardware (which would allow it to slide straight up the back of the mast, as would be the case on a sliding gunter) but rather uses jaws and halyard tension to stay peaked-up, it would be a regular or "folding" gunter.

You can't tell from the plan with it's aluminum spars, but in wood you could do more mast tapering over a longer distance with the gunter than would normally be done on a gaffer's mast, saving weight aloft. I think you'll also find that simple, solid wooden jaws and fittings will greatly simplify construction, eliminating a whole pile of metal hardware, look much better and work just as well.

I like the formulas that Iain Oughtred provides for solid mast scantlings. For a gunter mast, it's maximum diameter would be around 1:52 of the mast length above the partners (can be adjusted if needed to 1:55 for big boats, 1:50 for little boats). It can also be beefed up a bit for heavy boats and reduced slightly for stayed rigs. The masthead tapers to 70% of maximum diameter, half-height is 95% and below the partners it tapers to 2/3-3/4 of maximum diameter at the heel. Somebody who has the bird's mouth conversion formulas could translate these solid-stick diameters for you to come up with proper hollow-spar dimensions.

[Lucky Luke]

"Gunter"???
I thought that was called "leg of mutton" in English (well understandable considering the shape of the jaws in such a rig)....?
Any difference? Americanism?

[JimD]

Looks like quite a nifty boat. Plenty roomy inside I'd bet.

[Todd Bradshaw]

At least around here, Leg-O-Mutton generally means a low-aspect, 3-sided sail, boomed (may be either a conventional boom or sometimes a sprit-boom) and hoisted on a one-piece mast with a fairly modest roach or a hollow leech and no roach. Some have raked masts and some have conventional booms which are raised at their stern ends. They typically look something like this.
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid99/p53435078fd4ab7bb1e888dfe2620a00f/f9f899b2.jpg

[merlinron]

jmd, there's a ton of room inside, being so beamy with the long fore deck and bilge boards it's like a bigger boat.
todd, very interesting, i have heard the term "gunter" before, but never investigated it's discription, assuming it was a variation based on a lug or sprit design, was i way off! ( you know what happens when you assume! redface.gif ) i wonder,considering Leather's parameters, where does the angle of gaff/yard dictating it's differentiation lie? i like the single halyard concept. i was just at my drawing table trying to figure a layout for all the tackle i'd need for the (gaff). typicly, the prints are sort of vague in running rigging specs. trying to keep things uncluttered and as light as possible is generating all these questions. this new information will make it allot lighter aloft and simple....simple is good.i have all the bird's mouth info, and will surley run through it with I. oughtred's formulas. seeing that you are only a couple hours away, i will assuredly look you up when it comes time to canvas my sticks. i would like to try my hand at making a set of tyvek "try sails" first, just for the experience of better understanding while i save my pennies for a real set. i've worked with tyvek for years and when it first appeared on the market, my first impression of it was," besides being a good house wrap, i wonder if this stuff could be used for small sails?. thanks again guy's for all great info!