"Jan Gelbrich" wrote in message
...
Hello,
I always wanted to know one thing about the handling of brases for square
yards:
On a tall sail ship of three masts, bark rigging consists of two square
rigged masts.
Letīs say each square rigged mast carries 5 sail yards.
Each yard has 10 brases, 5 to the left and 5 to the right.
That makes up 20 brases to handle on the ship.
AFAIK the brases are belayed on deck, on the ships sides.
Now: when this ship is about to make a turn, the yards are trimmed
simultaniously,
and it can be done rather quickly, as I saw - but I did not see the actual
work on deck ...
How do the sailmen handle those 20 brases alltogether on deck ?
How do they move them ? Is there a team technique behind it ?
Sorry for my bad English, I tried my best ...
Hi Jan,
Your English is fine.
I sailed a few times on the Bark Star of India in San Diego. We marked the
braces for their port, starboard, and center positions. Manning for bracing
from a starboard tack to a port tack would be one person each on the port
braces, one person each on the starboard topgallant and royal braces, and as
many as you could grab (3 to 6 each) on the starboard upper top, lower top,
and mainsail braces. On the command "ease port braces, haul away on
starboard", the portside tenders would cast off the port braces to ensure
minimum resistance to the haulers and would ensure to stop the line and make
it fast at the proper mark. At the same time, the haulers on starboard
would heave away on the starboard braces until they were able to bring the
proper marks in to the belaying pins. The haulers on the royal, topgallant
and upper top would need to pace themselves so as not to get ahead of the
lower top and mainsail.
In a tack, you want to brace around quickly, but you only brace one yard at
a time -- first the main and then the fore (after the bow is through the
wind), so you could share crew between the two yards. In a ware, you would
brace both yards together, but slowly as the stern goes through the wind wo
as to keep the sails square to the breeze.
Hope that helps.
-rock-