Calif Bill wrote:

"JohnH" wrote in message
...

On Thu, 26 Jan 2006 23:07:42 GMT, Shortwave Sportfishing
wrote:


On Thu, 26 Jan 2006 17:40:33 -0500, JohnH wrote:


That might not be bad. I never thought I'd like Aubrey, et al, until a
brother-in-law talked me into trying one.


Have you read any of the Hornblower series?


Sounds like Aubrey taking on France and Spain in his sloop, with the
studdingsails which I can't figure out what they are.

Fancy added-on sails & complicated rigging to make an
old-time ship sail faster in light winds.


http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q...=Google+Search

gives lots of descriptions. Small sails set outside the large square sails.


Dang, did you know that without looking it up? I'm impressed.

Basically the stun'sls are extensions of the ships large
square sails, set from smaller temporary spars rigged out
from the yardarms.

The best link I found (on short notice) explaining the
handling of square sail ships is here

http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...-set-sails.htm

if you scroll about half way down, you get to the pictures.

One of the reasons I prefer C.S. Forester's and Alexander
Kent's sea sagas is that they talk about sailing the ships
in ways that 1- you can understand what is happening and 2-
the action is realistic, ie what they talk about doing is
something that a smart captain would have actually done.
O'Brien is more into obfuscation & clever word games IMHO.

Fresh Breezes- Doug King