Sprit rig, topsail ? for Todd B.

[Clipper]

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid82/pcbc5a1665fa7780a0f15d4595bf45568/faea1ccd.jpg

Shown in the picture is a top sail as sailed in N. Carolina. It seems to be set on a topmast or yard that is hoisted via a halyard rigged through the mast head. It also has a yard on the foot and is sheeted via a single line from the clew to the aft end of the cockpit. It also requires a fore stay from the top of the top mast leading to the bow.

Another version of a topsail is in WB # 157 in which Mr Garden rigs his Peapod. His version is a single yard along the luff of the top sail hoisted the same as in the N. Carolina. But Mr Garden rigs the sheet via. a bee hole in the sprit and then belayed along the sprit. Both have advantages and disadvantages. Mr Garden's seems more simple, but may not be able to point as high and has less lines to attend to and less weight aloft.

Which is a better rig method ? Todd are you there ?

[Todd Bradshaw]

I'm not much of a topsail rigging expert and I haven't seen that configuration before, but at first glance don't see any really clear advantages to it. I'm trying to figure out whether the topsail sheet is actually hanging free or instead, connected to the sprit which would make more sense. I blew-up the picture, but it's too blurry at that resolution to really tell.

If you were to hang a block under the aft end of the jackyard and run the topsail sheet from the sprit's peak, up through the block on the jackyard (under the topsail's clew) and down to deck level it would, at least keep some sort of relationship going between the sprit, the mainsail's head, the jackyard and the lower part of the topsail. The only possible benefit of rigging this way that I can think of might be that it's one way to essentially rig a "gaff vang" on a spritsail.

The wide head of a four-sided sail like a gaff, lug or spritsail tends to twist a lot to leeward. The weight of the gaff or yard, especially when the boat is heeling, just adds even more twist. A gaff vang is as simple as a line tied to the aft end of a gaff and secured to the weather rail to counteract some of this excessive twist. If, in this case, the mainsail yard, topsail jackyard, mainsail peak and topsail clew are all connected (even if it's not a fixed connection) then sheeting-in on the topsail sheet as it's shown here should decrease some of this excessive twist in the sailplan from about halfway up the main all the way to the topsail's peak. This would also probably require the addition of the headstay to the topmast to prevent the topsail sheet from just bending the topmast aftward. It would have to work pretty well before I could justify having that long sheet hanging out in mid-air over the back of the boat.

One interesting thing to note though, is that in the photo, at least the top half of the mainsail and most likely the topsail as well are pretty badly overtrimmed. Notice the flag on the upper mainsail leech and how it's hiding behind the leeward side of the sail rather than streaming aft. The unsupported upper edge (leech) of the topsail is also either stalled-out, cut badly or not under enough tension to pull it tight. If this topsail sheeting system does act like a gaff vang, they need more practice with it because it's being overused as shown here. I'm not sure it's even possible to rig one line which will properly control sprit twist while maintaining proper topsail leech tension and the proper relationship between the two sails.

If, on the other hand, the topsail sheet drops directly from the jackyard' peak or the topsail's clew corner all the way down to the deck (not in any way connected to the sprit or mainsail) I think it would be quite an annoyance an would tend to ocillate enough that the sail would never stay stable and trimmed properly. I can't think of any reason to rig such a system.

It all tends to make Garden's system look pretty simple and hassle-free, which certainly can have a lot of merit. Unless somebody with some experience using a system similar to the one in the photo knows something about the rig that I haven't thought of and which is a big advantage, I'd take the Garden path.

[Clipper]

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid82/pd90fa5ac791367c700aceb3d4dd82002/faea246d.jpg

Todd, This picture is deceptive but the sheet is completely free from the sprit. The advantage as far as I can figue is that the sail can be sheeted in closer ( P.or S. near the transom )and will not follow the sprit in sagging off. It may well even hold the wind better close hauled. The topmast stay opposes the pull of the sheet. Also the sail can be set or pulled down after the rig is up, unlike the the other Bill Garden method. There, one has to make the decision to at least rig up the topsail sheet before the sprit & sail are raised.

In this picture the boats were not under way but tied to a dock. There seems to be some kind of a brail on the top sail.

Incidently these pictures were take at Beaufort NC. Prior to a race. The boat that won didn't rig a top sail at all and the one shown in the first picture came in 2,nd out of 7.

[Todd Bradshaw]

Beats me. I can see where being able to raise or strike the sail while underway would be great, perhaps the only reason the two sails' systems are kept completely seperate, but I'm not sure the sheeting angle aspect is an advantage. A topsail's function is to be a removable extension of the mainsail, offering added sail area and more lift-producing luff length. I would think the proper angle of attack for the topsail would be to be twisted just slightly more to leeward than the top of the main, the same way the top of a Marconi main works.

There have been a few "split Marconi sails" built, where the top section had it's own controls, but as far as I know it was mostly to allow the addition of extra twist up top as a depowering aid in heavy air. I've never heard of one being used to sheet the top half of the sail tighter than the bottom half - which on most sails stalls-out the top.

If your yard or gaff is sagging more to leeward than is ideal, can you make up for some of it by sheeting the topsail in closer? I don't know, but my guess is that you can't. I also still wonder about just how much sailshape control they can get and maintain from that long topsail sheet hanging out in the wind.

The brail-like line is not that unusual on jackyard topsails with full length yards (which themselves seem to be common only over here).The British and Europeans seem to favor shorter, club-style jackyards and brailing them would be difficult.

The whole system may just be a regional variation that somebody figured out over the years and which seems to work for them. It wouldn't be the first non-standard rig with a solid local support base. Hopefully somebody who reads the forum and who has more experience with these boats or this way of rigging the topsail will chime-in and give us some help.

[ 10-05-2003, 01:43 AM: Message edited by: Todd Bradshaw ]

[brian.cunningham]

:cool:

Do the spars stay up?
That is do you leave it in place and brail it up?

[Todd Bradshaw]

I got the feeling that the spars went up and down with the rest of the package. A brail would then be just another line to keep track of during the hoist and would be used as a short-term, temporary furl. There are however topsail rigs where the spars stay up and the furling line just douses the sail. I ran into a guy with a nice topsail schooner on Superior a few years ago. His topsail had what he called a "bagging line" which went around the sail's edges and would collapse the sail into a small bundle against the topmast.

[dadadata]

==
Beats me. I can see where being able to raise or strike the sail while underway would be great, perhaps the only reason the two sails' systems are kept completely seperate, but I'm not sure the sheeting angle aspect is an advantage. A topsail's function is to be a removable extension of the mainsail, offering added sail area and more lift-producing luff length. I would think the proper angle of attack for the topsail would be to be twisted just slightly more to leeward than the top of the main, the same way the top of a Marconi main works.
==

Todd, this is the traditional North Carolina rig - I think CP Kunhardt referred to them as "Sounders" and I know Chapelle mentions them somewhere.

This "topsail" is actually a working sail for the light air East Coast summer weather. It's rigged on spars and the whole mess comes up and down as a unit. It's said the sail is struck by letting all the lines go and heaving the thing to leeward (obviously you want the pole itself to leeward, etc., etc). Apparently "reefing" this way in a hurry in advance of a squall was functional enough in N Carolina.

I can supply a scan of a very nice CP Kunhardt drawing from ca 1885 showing the same setup as shown in the opening photo.

[Clipper]

Craig,

Could you pin point just where your pages are about the sprit top sail? The more I think about it the more it's seems not worth the trouble.

Unless ya like to play with a bunch of strings.

In the article WB had it, W. Garden mentioned that WB's own Manard Bray was the expert on the subject.

Do any of the contributors chirp in here ?

[dadadata]

I sent someone thumbnails of CP Kunhardt's drawings; he said he'd link them here (I'm just too lazy to figure out how to link images; sorry).

The O'Brien topsail concept is findable by using the Picosearch text box on the first Cheap Page. Like I said, I have NO CLUE anymore where things are on the Cheap Pages <chuckle> since they just keep accumulating. Like rust. Or layers of paint on a barn.

[Bill Perkins]

Oh yeah .

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid83/pf8b3b3cabbfbcaebcf618dc7e7f43ded/fadd0373.jpg

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid83/pbb4dd604baf8d099c0bd0c3ddd9f1a7d/fadd034e.jpg

Photos courtesy of DaDa at: The Cheap Pages
http://www2.friend.ly.net/~dadadata/

I assume the artist got it right and the luff of the topsail was at least as long as that of the mainsail .Big.This would be fun to try over my Ducker's small spritsail .

[ 10-10-2003, 04:08 PM: Message edited by: Bill Perkins ]

[Clipper]

Thanks Bill for posting the illustrations. It clears up a few things in my mind.

On the looks of it, the top mast is longer then the main mast. Could be a storage problem when the sail is not being used. A lot of lines and one seems to be a brail, probably to control the topsail when lowering or hoisting. So to set up this sail you apparently need a halyard, fore top mast stay, a bail line and a sheet. Not to mention a way to secure the heel of the top mast

Gives one something to do in light air.

Are you going to do it ?

Nice way to go wing & wing and wing again.

[Bill Perkins]

Tried the search engine at the Cheap pages for O'Brian and topsail and ended up in Dixons Dictionary of nautical terms .

"Jack Yard.--
The small yard on the foot of large topsails to extend them beyond the gaff. Termed also jenny yards and foot yards."

From this I gather that one wasn't expected to bother with the yard on smaller topsails , but sheet them to the end of the gaff or sprit instead .