lugsails and luggers

[John Gearing]

Okay, the Bob Guccione of WBF strikes again! Watch this thread for more tomorrow...but for now...check out this lovely lady!

http://www.swallowboats.com/storm/stormbal5.jpg

[Wiley Baggins]

Thanks "Mr. Guccione." The aesthetics of the lug rig are hard to beat. That holds for gaffers too.

[John Gearing]

From www.cornishluggers.co.uk..... (http://www.cornishluggers.co.uk.....)

http://www.cornishluggers.co.uk/p3_3.jpg

[Bruce Taylor]

Sweet. That Cornish boat is reminiscent of some Breton craft, isn't it? Not surprising, given the history & location.

[Wild Dingo]

Luggers ye say me hearty?!! :eek:

Pretty soon we will have that old lugger reprobate from the East Coast of Aussie TonyH regaling us with all manner of photos of luggers!!

But heres one or two Aussie versions...
Buccleuch then...
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid42/p557dbc31f8ed17fd4acda89114202d1e/fceb751f.jpg

Buccleuch now...
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid42/p2f68232c6f6d1f1b74fa6088907844ad/fceb7522.jpg

Galton...
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid40/p0abad3c738d9ebba1b091e42c0c3806a/fd041973.jpg

One that was for sale but I think sold?
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid42/pf0567b5f0edb7863067ba99e2cba46ea/fceb27dc.jpg

Thats me in me younger days in the foreground holdin some chunk of spar or some such... fine fettle of a fella eh?

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid40/p81e49f96022e347f5e1827b066c33801/fd041ab8.jpg

Well okay Im not quite that old but still the luggers are pretty sweet eh? ...Gotta find some nice sailing ones :rolleyes: ... these tired old girls make me a tad on the sad side sigh ...aye young John ye be a fella after me own heart aye that ye be! ;)

[Bruce Taylor]

Can't have a lugger thread without posting a Scottish herring drifter:

http://www.theswan.shetland.co.uk/imagecat/earliesttest.jpg

Luggers always make me think of the old song "Bonnie Shoals of Herring" (Clancy Brothers did a nice version, a little different from this one):

With our nets and gear we're faring
On the wild and wasteful ocean.
Its there that we hunt and we earn our bread
As we hunted for the shoals of herring

O it was a fine and a pleasant day
Out of Yarmouth harbor I was faring
As a cabinboy on a sailing lugger
For to go and hunt the shoals of herring(G)

O the work was hard and the hours long
And the treatment, sure it took some bearing
There was little kindness and the kicks were many
As we hunted for the shoals of herring

O we fished the Swarth and the Broken Bank
I was cook and I'd a quarter sharing
And I used to sleep standing on my feet
And I'd dream about the shoals of herring

O we left the homegrounds in the month of June
And to Canny Shiels we soon were bearing
With a hundred cran of silver darlings
That we'd taken from the shoals of herring

Now you're up on deck, you're a fisherman
You can swear and show a manly bearing
Take your turn on watch with the other fellows
While you're searching for the shoals of herring

In the stormy seas and the living gales
Just to earn your daily bread you're daring
From the Dover Straits to the Faroe Islands
As you're following the shoals of herring

Oh I earned my keep and I paid my way
And I earned the gear that I was wearing
Sailed a million miles, caught ten million fishes
We were sailing after shoals of herring

[John Gearing]

Hey Shane,
Are those Ozzie luggers lug rigged or gaff rigged? Suddenly I got the inspiration that they might be gaff rigged and are called luggers because they lug oysters, cargo, etc to market?

[Wild Dingo]

Sorry its taken a while to respond mate busy as eck around here just now...

TonyH would be the man to talk to about what rig they used John... Im want to think they were Gaff rigged but Im not sure...

The luggers were used to harvest Pearl shell they had booms which would drag divers along either side the divers were connected to the boat by way of long air hoses out either side and the boat cruised along draggin the diver along while the diver collected the pearl shell... bends were common... from what I read at the yukphuee new maritime museum in Freo the other week prior to the air hoses the divers were dropped overboard then dove down to the bottom harvested the shell and back to the surface with their basket that was transfered to the boat and down he would dive again... death was common.

As I say Tony is the man when it comes to luggers and the pearl industry here on the board... but hes been pretty quiet of late. :(

[John Gearing]

Hi Shane,
I was thinking that here on the wrong side of the world, we tend to think of a lugger as being a sailing vessel with a lug rig, while on your side it may be more of a designation of what the boat was used for rather than the rig. But hey, a lugger is as a lugger does and looks like, so keep those pearl luggers coming. I've got some more pics to post soon.....I think that even with the "Terms and Conditions" I am okay with a fair use exception, or else because I have so little money that I am judgment proof. There's one advantage to being poor, nobody can get at you by threatening to take away what you've got if you haven't got anything to take.

[Wild Dingo]

John mate... I will back yer to the hilt with yer posting of the pics! mate in these times boat porn is the absoflaminlute best medicine to calm us fellas down! ;)

Luggers down here have a sort of mystique to them a historical romatizm {sp?} about them... they are a beautiful part of our history albeit imbued with a level of cruelty violence death and such from a time and place on our continent that denoted the isolation and hard living of the harsh far north... luggers are for the most part lovingly cherished and restored unless such as what has happened with Bucceleach {B6} happens then its disgusting amoral and soooo flamin painful to such as us... I can imagine TonyH when he recieved the photos I took of her going through them slowly with tears rolling down his cheeks as the realization that B6 would almost definantly never sail the waters again... well thats what I did!! :rolleyes: and hes more into them than I was :cool: funny some say that Luggars get into yer blood... just happens and theres nothing you can do about it... you become hooked on them... I think thats sorta happened to me along the way... they are purely beautiful :cool:

[John Gearing]

Just for you, Dingo, a shot of an Ozzie lugger used by the US Army in WW2, the Penguin!
http://home.st.net.au/~dunn/usarmy/penguin01.jpg