Mary E; 1906 Schooner

[Soundbounder]

Some photos of the 1906 Mary E;
a 75' (LOA) schooner in Essex, CT.

http://soundbounder.blogspot.com/2009/11/mary-e.html


;)

[Soundbounder]

These are some shots of her hauled in City Island last year.

http://georgeconk.blogspot.com/2009/04/schooner-mary-e-hauled-out-on-city.html

[Roger Long]

Ah, the "Mary E", aka the world's slowest schooner. I sailed on her many times as a guest when she was doing daysails out of Boothbay Harbor in the early 70's and there was extra room.

I was talking to Captain Stan Parks once about foresail gaff vangs on schooners. I went up the mainmast and he went up the fore and tied a line to the end of the foregaff which he threw to me. The wind was fairly light but, when I pulled on the end of the line, we could feel and hear the whole rig creak and strain forward. The hull would then seem to sort of catch up underneath. When I slacked the line and let the gaff sag off, we could feel the rig relax back.

We did this several times to confirm that it was the result of the gaff vang and not a coincidental increase in the wind. Every schooner rig I drew after that had a vang shown for the foregaff.

Nice to know she's still afloat and operational.

[Harbormaster]

Doesn't some of that depend on how high the gaffs peak up? Real flat and they swing out to leeward, higher and you can make the sail sit flatter.

Years ago we tried that on the Mary Day and all it did was backwind the main sail. On the other hand, it worked fairly well in light airs with the fore topsail set.

For the most part it was just a pain in the butt, just one more line to worry about and it was just that much more work - the antithesis of what the schooner rig should be about.

[Roger Long]

For the most part it was just a pain in the butt

I'll certainly defer to your much greater schooner experience. I just drew vangs after that, I never got a chance to sail on a schooner that had one.

It's quite possible that the Mary E's slowness had more to do with the rig than the hull and the vang was making up for some deficiency in the set of the sails. It's also possible that the perception of greater strain on the rig didn't actually translate into much more speed.

The vangs I drew had a block on the end of the gaff and were deadended at the main spreaders. They could thus serve as sort of a traveler when lowering the foresail off the wind. It wasn't my idea. Someone well known, I've forgotten who, had written recently about their virtues which is where I got the idea to try it. I can't remember where it was but probably "National Fisherman".

[Harbormaster]

It's possible that the Captain thought that the gaff vang made the schooner go faster, but as crew we thought that anything that required extra work was too much to ask of us....

I don't like backstays either.

[Roger Long]

we thought that anything that required extra work was too much to ask of us....I don't like backstays either.

The "Mary E" only had the vang for those few minutes we were fooling around so Stan probably agreed with you. I don't get excited any more about things that only increase performance a few per cent. They seem a lot more important when you are young and on land than old and in the boat.

BTW whatever happened to Stan Parks? I haven't heard his name since those days and he seemed like the kind of guy who would become a fixture on the coast.

Speaking of backstays, you would have loved the ones on "Te Vega", the 135 foot schooner I sailed to Bermuda on a couple of times. 1 1/8" wire. I remember seeing 6 - 8 people hanging on their ends, two horizontal and walking sideways along the deckhouse side, to set them up. We were running up the channel into St. George early one morning when the Captain realized that we were running her 19 foot draft out of the channel. He quickly decided that any rig damage was preferable to running aground, grabbed the wheel, and just jibed her all standing. I'll never forget the crash of that huge rig coming up against the backstays. Nothing broke though.

More on that ship here:

http://www.pointseast.com/template.shtml?id=EEuApppyplMkENKsEG&style=story

[Harbormaster]

I haven't heard about Stan or his brother Paul in years.
Getting older I can't trust my memory, but I seem to recall hearing something quite a few years ago about his untimely passing. Let's hope he just moved to the islands instead.

[Soundbounder]

Ah, the "Mary E", aka the world's slowest schooner. I sailed on her many times as a guest when she was doing daysails out of Boothbay Harbor in the early 70's and there was extra room.

I was talking to Captain Stan Parks once about foresail gaff vangs on schooners. I went up the mainmast and he went up the fore and tied a line to the end of the foregaff which he threw to me. The wind was fairly light but, when I pulled on the end of the line, we could feel and hear the whole rig creak and strain forward. The hull would then seem to sort of catch up underneath. When I slacked the line and let the gaff sag off, we could feel the rig relax back.

We did this several times to confirm that it was the result of the gaff vang and not a coincidental increase in the wind. Every schooner rig I drew after that had a vang shown for the foregaff.

Nice to know she's still afloat and operational.She had a fire on board sometime back in the 1990's, and it took a few years to repair the damage.

[Soundbounder]

NYAC, Pelham, 2007

http://i851.photobucket.com/albums/ab79/Soundbounder/glenislandparknewrochelle021.jpg

[Soundbounder]

http://i851.photobucket.com/albums/ab79/Soundbounder/oct09soundbounder086.jpg

[George.]

Doesn't some of that depend on how high the gaffs peak up? Real flat and they swing out to leeward, higher and you can make the sail sit flatter.


I think it depends on how far the boom extends abaft of the gaff peak. On a mainsail it is easy, but on a foresail the gaff is usually the same or longer as the boom, so the higher you can peak it, the further forward it will set over the boom end, and the better you'll be able to control sail twist.

Of course there is the triatic stay, so the only way to have a higher peak is to have a lower throat, and so less sail.

[Soundbounder]

http://i851.photobucket.com/albums/ab79/Soundbounder/august08soundbounder392.jpg