1.
Square rig
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These spars are called yards and their tips, beyond the last stay, are called the yardarms. A ship mainly so rigged is called a square-rigger, the square rig is aerodynamically the most efficient running rig, and stayed popular on ocean-going sailing ships until the end of the Age of Sail. The last commercial sailing ships, windjammers, were usually square-rigged four-masted barques, square-rigged masts may also have triangular staysails that are deployed fore-and-aft between masts. Square-rigged is also used for the uniform of a rating in the Royal Navy since 1857 and it is slang and refers to anyone wearing the famous blue square collar on the shoulders and bell-bottomed trousers. The name perhaps reflects the fact that it was men who managed the square-rigged sails. The peaked cap worn by Senior Ratings and Officers is known colloquially as fore-and-aft rig. A mast is considered square-rigged if its lowest sail or course is square-rigged, if the course is fore-and-aft, square topsails can still be carried in front of the mast. In their heyday, square-rigged vessels ranged in size from small boats to full rigged ships, but this rig fell from favour to fore-and-aft gaff rigs and bermuda rigs after the development of steam power and new materials. Ocean-going sailing ships stayed mostly square-rigged, Square rigs allowed the fitting of many small sails to create a large total sail area to drive large ships. 18th century warships would often achieve speeds of 12–13 knots. Some clipper ships that had square rigs and for speed was critical could be much faster. The late windjammers were as fast as the clippers, being much bigger, not only could a smaller sail be managed by a smaller crew but also these smaller sails constrained the impact of weapons on them. A hole from a cannonball affected only one area, whilst a hole in a large sail would eventually tear the whole larger area. This reduced running costs and also enlarged the space available in the ship for profitable cargoes, new materials also changed sail designs, particularly on hybrid vessels carrying some square-rigged sails. The low aspect ratio of square-rigged sails produces much drag for the lift produced, so they have poor performance to windward compared to modern yachts, the Bermuda rig is the undisputed champion of windward performance in soft sails, due to its very low drag and high lift-to-drag ratio. One advantage of square rigs is that they are efficient when running, where the high lift to drag is irrelevant. Square-rigged sails are also prone to broaching when running than Bermuda rigs. Ocean-going vessels take advantage of e. g. the trade winds, on a square-rigged mast the sails had names which indicated their vertical position on the mast
2.
London
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London /ˈlʌndən/ is the capital and most populous city of England and the United Kingdom. Standing on the River Thames in the south east of the island of Great Britain and it was founded by the Romans, who named it Londinium. Londons ancient core, the City of London, largely retains its 1. 12-square-mile medieval boundaries. London is a global city in the arts, commerce, education, entertainment, fashion, finance, healthcare, media, professional services, research and development, tourism. It is crowned as the worlds largest financial centre and has the fifth- or sixth-largest metropolitan area GDP in the world, London is a world cultural capital. It is the worlds most-visited city as measured by international arrivals and has the worlds largest city airport system measured by passenger traffic, London is the worlds leading investment destination, hosting more international retailers and ultra high-net-worth individuals than any other city. Londons universities form the largest concentration of education institutes in Europe. In 2012, London became the first city to have hosted the modern Summer Olympic Games three times, London has a diverse range of people and cultures, and more than 300 languages are spoken in the region. Its estimated mid-2015 municipal population was 8,673,713, the largest of any city in the European Union, Londons urban area is the second most populous in the EU, after Paris, with 9,787,426 inhabitants at the 2011 census. The citys metropolitan area is the most populous in the EU with 13,879,757 inhabitants, the city-region therefore has a similar land area and population to that of the New York metropolitan area. London was the worlds most populous city from around 1831 to 1925, Other famous landmarks include Buckingham Palace, the London Eye, Piccadilly Circus, St Pauls Cathedral, Tower Bridge, Trafalgar Square, and The Shard. The London Underground is the oldest underground railway network in the world, the etymology of London is uncertain. It is an ancient name, found in sources from the 2nd century and it is recorded c.121 as Londinium, which points to Romano-British origin, and hand-written Roman tablets recovered in the city originating from AD 65/70-80 include the word Londinio. The earliest attempted explanation, now disregarded, is attributed to Geoffrey of Monmouth in Historia Regum Britanniae and this had it that the name originated from a supposed King Lud, who had allegedly taken over the city and named it Kaerlud. From 1898, it was accepted that the name was of Celtic origin and meant place belonging to a man called *Londinos. The ultimate difficulty lies in reconciling the Latin form Londinium with the modern Welsh Llundain, which should demand a form *lōndinion, from earlier *loundiniom. The possibility cannot be ruled out that the Welsh name was borrowed back in from English at a later date, and thus cannot be used as a basis from which to reconstruct the original name. Until 1889, the name London officially applied only to the City of London, two recent discoveries indicate probable very early settlements near the Thames in the London area
3.
Sailing ship
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A modern sailing ship or sailship is any large wind-powered vessel. Traditionally a sailing ship is a vessel that carries three or more masts with square sails on each. Large sailing vessels that are not ship-rigged may be more referred to by their sail rig, such as schooner, barque, brig. There are many different types of sailing ships, but they all have certain basic things in common, every sailing ship has a hull, rigging and at least one mast to hold up the sails that use the wind to power the ship. The crew who sail a ship are called sailors or hands and they take turns to take the watch, the active managers of the ship and her performance for a period. Watches are traditionally four hours long, some sailing ships use traditional ships bells to tell the time and regulate the watch system, with the bell being rung once for every half hour into the watch and rung eight times at watch end. A severe storm could lead to shipwreck, and the loss of all hands, Sailing ships are limited in their maximum size compared to ships with heat engines, so economies of scale are also limited. The heaviest sailing ships never exceeded 14,000 tons displacement, there are many types of sailing ships, mostly distinguished by their rigging, hull, keel, or number and configuration of masts. There are also types of smaller sailboats not listed here. The steam power was used to drive the winches, hoists, a similar ship Kruzenshtern, a very large sailing vessel without mechanical assists, had a crew of 257 men, compared to the Preussen, which required only 48 men. In 2006, automated control had been taken to the point where sails could be operated by one using a central control unit. The DynaRig technology was first developed in the 1960s in Germany by W. Prolls as an alternative for commercial ships to prepare for a possible future energy crisis. The technology is a version of the same type of sail used by the Preussen. The main difference is that the yards do not swing around a fixed mast but are attached to a rotating mast. DynaRig along with extensive computerization was used in the proof-of-concept Maltese Falcon to enable it to be sailed with no crew aloft, as of 2013, with increasing restrictions on use of bunker fuel, attempts were underway to develop hybrid sailing ships using automated sail and alternative fuels. Tall ship Rigging Sail-plan List of large sailing vessels Cruising Shipbuilding, the History of a Ship from Her Cradle to Her Grave, With a Short Account of Modern Steamships and Torpedoes. The sailing-ship, six years of history. Media related to Sailing ships at Wikimedia Commons
4.
Sailboat
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A sailboat or sailing boat is a boat propelled partly or entirely by sails smaller than a sailing ship. Distinctions in what constitutes a sailing boat and ship vary by region, although sailboat terminology has varied across history, many terms have specific meanings in the context of modern yachting. A great number of sailboat-types may be distinguished by size, hull configuration, keel type, purpose, number and configuration of masts, and sail plan. Once a common racing configuration, today it gives versatility to cruising boats, a catboat has a single mast mounted far forward and does not carry a jib. Most modern designs have only one sail, the mainsail, however, a dinghy is a type of small open sailboat commonly used for recreation, sail training, and tending a larger vessel. They are popular in youth sailing programs for their short LOA, simple operation and they have three sails, the mainsail, jib, and spinnaker. Ketches are similar to a sloop, but there is a shorter mast astern of the mainmast. The second mast is called the mizzen mast and the sail is called the mizzen sail, a ketch can also be Cutter-rigged with two head sails. A schooner has a mainmast taller than its foremast, distinguishing it from a ketch or a yawl, a schooner can have more than two masts, with the foremast always lower than the foremost main. Traditional topsail schooners have topmasts allowing triangular topsails sails to be flown above their gaff sails, the most common modern sailboat is the sloop, which features one mast and two sails, typically a Bermuda rigged main, and a headsail. This simple configuration is very efficient for sailing into the wind, a smaller headsail is easier for a short-handed crew to manage. A yawl is similar to a ketch, with a mizzen mast carried astern the rudderpost more for balancing the helm than propulsion. Traditional sailboats are monohulls, but multi-hull catamarans and trimarans are gaining popularity, monohull boats generally rely on ballast for stability and usually are displacement hulls. This stabilizing ballast can, in boats designed for racing, be as much as 50% of the weight of the boat and it creates two problems, one, it gives the monohull tremendous inertia, making it less maneuverable and reducing its acceleration. Secondly, unless it has built with buoyant foam or air tanks, if a monohull fills with water. Multihulls rely on the geometry and the stance of the multiple hulls for their stability. Indeed, multihulls are designed to be as light-weight as possible and this absence of ballast also results in some very real performance gains in terms of acceleration, top speed, and maneuverability. The lack of ballast makes it easier to get a multihull on plane, reducing its wetted surface area and thus its drag. The absence of drag improves wind precision
5.
Shroud (sailing)
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On a sailboat, the shrouds are pieces of standing rigging which hold the mast up from side to side. There is frequently more than one shroud on each side of the boat, usually a shroud will connect at the top of the mast, and additional shrouds might connect partway down the mast, depending on the design of the boat. Shrouds terminate at their ends at the chain plates, which are tied into the hull. They are sometimes held outboard by channels, a ledge that keeps the shrouds clear of the gunwales, shrouds are attached symmetrically on both the port and starboard sides. For those shrouds which attach high up the mast, a structure projecting from the mast must be used to increase the angle of the shroud at the attachment point, providing more support to the mast. On most sailing boats, such structures are called spreaders, on large sailing ships, however, particularly square-riggers, the shrouds end at the projections and their loads are carried into the mast slightly further down by futtock shrouds
6.
Halyard
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In sailing, a halyard or halliard is a line that is used to hoist a ladder, sail, flag or yard. The term halyard comes from the phrase, to haul yards, halyards, like most other parts of the running rigging, were classically made of natural fibre like manila or hemp. A square rig sail with a halyard is mounted on a yard that is free to slide on a short section of the mast. The halyard is used to raise the yard when setting the sail, a gaff rigged sail has two, a throat halyard to lift the end of the gaff nearer the mast, and a peak halyard to lift the outer end. A more modern triangular sail has only one halyard which is attached at its uppermost point, halyards can be attached a number of ways to the head of a triangular sail. The most common methods are as follows, A shackle through a headboard on the sail, a bowline through a hole in the head. A half hitch with a knot, preferred over a bowline because it allows the sail to get closer to the top of the mast. The other end of the halyard is attached to the mast at its foot by way of a cleat. It is convention in some places to fasten the main halyard on the side of the mast. This allows quicker access to the lines in a time-critical situation, jumping the halyard is a technique used to raise a large sail quickly by employing a few crew members to work simultaneously on the halyard. The person jumping stands next to the mast and manually grabs the halyard as high as he can and pulling it down as fast and far as possible. While this crew member reaches for the next heave, a crew member tails or takes up the slack created by the jumper. When the person jumping can no longer pull up the sail simply by hanging on the halyard, to sweat the halyard is to take as much slack out of it as possible. This may be done with a winch, or manually, to manually sweat a halyard, the sweater grasps the line and, in a fluid motion, hauls it laterally towards himself, then down toward the deck, letting the tailer take up the new slack
7.
Brace (sailing)
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A brace on a square-rigged ship is a rope used to rotate a yard around the mast, to allow the ship to sail at different angles to the wind. Braces are always used in pairs, one at end of a yard, termed port brace. The braces are fixed to the ends of the yards. The lower yards braces can usually run directly to the deck, instead, the braces for the upper yards run to another mast and thence to the deck. On the aftermost mast, this may mean they have to be led forwards instead of backwards. Braces from the aftermost mast that run to the stern of the ship often pass through blocks attached to short outriggers projecting from the side of the ship in order to improve their lead. These projections are called bumkins and can be seen in the picture, in many ways, braces are the equivalent of a modern yachts sheets. However, where adjusting a sail on a yacht is an operation performed often. This is because the braces carry heavy loads but have few blocks and hence each one needs many people hauling, and because most ships with braces have many sails and hence many such teams. For this reason, all manoeuvres require plenty of notice and routine course changes may be planned well in advance for a time when as few of the crew as possible wish to be asleep. The sails on a ships mast must all be turned together. The rate of turn is set by the course, the heaviest yard, the teams on the other braces for that mast must watch the course and keep their own yard in line with it. The braces may be marked with leather tags or twine seizings to indicate the centre position and the two extremes, though these marks may not always be accurate due to stretch in the line
8.
Sheet (sailing)
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In sailing, a sheet is a line used to control the movable corner of a sail. Sheet derives from Old English scéata meaning the corner of a sail. Fore-and-aft rigs comprise the vast majority of sailing vessels in use today, including effectively all dinghies, the sheet on a fore-and-aft sail controls the angle of the sail to the wind, and should be adjusted to keep the sail just filled. Most smaller boats use the Bermuda rig, which has two or three sets of sheets, The mainsheet is attached to the boom, and is used to control the mainsail. In a rig with no boom on the mainsail, the mainsheet would attach directly to the mainsail clew, a mainsheet is a rope connected to the boom which allows a sailor to control the speed of a boat. The jib sheet attaches to the clew of the jib, the jib has a sheet on each side, only one of which will be in use at one time. The spinnaker sheet attaches to the clew of the spinnaker, if carried, a symmetrical spinnaker has two sheets, an active one and a lazy one, in the same way as a jib, but they are attached to the sails two separate clews. On boats larger than thirty feet, the spinnaker will also be fitted with guys. On smaller boats the lazy sheet is used as a guy, on the smallest boats, a sheet is often a simple rope, pulled by hand, on larger boats, usually on the mainsheet, it is often a system using several blocks to provide mechanical advantage. Square-rigged vessels are much less common, and are large ships. Nevertheless, they too have sheets on the corners of their square sails. They are then not adjusted significantly while sailing until the sail is to be handed again, the lowest sails, the courses, are trimmed using the sheets as these sails are loose footed and are secured to yards only at the head
9.
Old English
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Old English or Anglo-Saxon is the earliest historical form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers probably in the mid 5th century, Old English developed from a set of Anglo-Frisian or North Sea Germanic dialects originally spoken by Germanic tribes traditionally known as the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes. As the Anglo-Saxons became dominant in England, their language replaced the languages of Roman Britain, Common Brittonic, a Celtic language, Old English had four main dialects, associated with particular Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, Mercian, Northumbrian, Kentish and West Saxon. It was West Saxon that formed the basis for the standard of the later Old English period, although the dominant forms of Middle. The speech of eastern and northern parts of England was subject to strong Old Norse influence due to Scandinavian rule, Old English is one of the West Germanic languages, and its closest relatives are Old Frisian and Old Saxon. Like other old Germanic languages, it is different from Modern English. Old English grammar is similar to that of modern German, nouns, adjectives, pronouns, and verbs have many inflectional endings and forms. The oldest Old English inscriptions were using a runic system. Old English was not static, and its usage covered a period of 700 years, from the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain in the 5th century to the late 11th century, some time after the Norman invasion. While indicating that the establishment of dates is a process, Albert Baugh dates Old English from 450 to 1150, a period of full inflections. Perhaps around 85 per cent of Old English words are no longer in use, Old English is a West Germanic language, developing out of Ingvaeonic dialects from the 5th century. It came to be spoken over most of the territory of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms which became the Kingdom of England and this included most of present-day England, as well as part of what is now southeastern Scotland, which for several centuries belonged to the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria. Other parts of the island – Wales and most of Scotland – continued to use Celtic languages, Norse was also widely spoken in the parts of England which fell under Danish law. Anglo-Saxon literacy developed after Christianisation in the late 7th century, the oldest surviving text of Old English literature is Cædmons Hymn, composed between 658 and 680. There is a corpus of runic inscriptions from the 5th to 7th centuries. The Old English Latin alphabet was introduced around the 9th century, with the unification of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms by Alfred the Great in the later 9th century, the language of government and literature became standardised around the West Saxon dialect. In Old English, typical of the development of literature, poetry arose before prose, a later literary standard, dating from the later 10th century, arose under the influence of Bishop Æthelwold of Winchester, and was followed by such writers as the prolific Ælfric of Eynsham. This form of the language is known as the Winchester standard and it is considered to represent the classical form of Old English
10.
Standing rigging
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Standing rigging comprises the lines, wires, or rods which support each mast or bowsprit on a sailing vessel. This term is used in contrast to running rigging, which elements of rigging which adjust the position. Standing rigging is placed under tension to keep each mast securely in position, early sailing vessels used rope of hemp or other fibers, which gave way to wire ropes of various types. Galvanized steel was common for the first half of the 20th century, continuing as an option to its 1960s successor material—stainless steel cables. In the late 20th Century, racing yachts adopted composite fiber lines for standing rigging, with the goal of reducing weight, on modern yachts, standing rigging is often stainless steel wire, stainless steel rod or synthetic fiber. Semi-rigid stainless steel wire is by far the most common as it combines extreme strength, unlike rigid stainless steel rod, it is comparatively easy to recognize wear and stress as individual strains break often near a swage fitting, and can be inspected while standing. Solid rod stainless steel is more aerodynamic so is used in extreme racing yachts. Great care must be used when swaging fittings onto stainless steel rod as this can start minute cracking, rod-type stays fail suddenly, often where the rod bends around a spreader. Bending can induce unseen stress fractures, most fore-and-aft rigged vessels have the following types of standing rigging, a forestay, a backstay, and upper and lower shrouds. Less common rigging configurations are diamond stays and jumpers, both of these are used to keep a thin mast in column especially under the load of a large down wind sail or in strong wind. Rigging parts include swageless terminals, swage terminals, shackle toggle terminals, whereas 20th-Century square-rigged vessels were constructed of steel with steel standing rigging, prior vessels used wood masts with hemp-fiber standing rigging. This construction relied heavily on support by an array of stays. Each stay in either the fore-and-aft or athwartships direction had a one in the opposite direction providing counter-tension. Fore-and-aft the system of tensioning started with the stays that were anchored at in front each mast, each additional mast segment was supported fore and aft by a series of stays that led forward. These lines were countered in tension by backstays, which were secured along the sides of the vessel behind the shrouds
11.
Deck (ship)
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A deck is a permanent covering over a compartment or a hull of a ship. On a boat or ship, the primary or upper deck is the structure that forms the roof of the hull, strengthening it. Decks for some purposes have specific names, the main purpose of the upper or primary deck is structural, and only secondarily to provide weather-tightness and support people and equipment. The deck serves as the lid to the box girder which is the hull. It resists tension, compression, and racking forces, the decks scantling is usually the same as the topsides, or might be heavier if the deck is expected to carry heavier loads. The deck will be reinforced around deck fittings such as the capstan, cleats, on ships with more than one level, deck refers to the level itself. The actual floor surface is called the sole, the term refers to a structural member tying the ships frames or ribs together over the keel. In modern ships, the decks are usually numbered from the primary deck. So the first deck below the deck will be #2. Some merchant ships may alternatively designate decks below the deck, usually machinery spaces, by numbers. Ships may also call decks by common names, or may invent fanciful and romantic names for a deck or area of that specific ship. Equipment mounted on deck, such as the wheel, binnacle, fife rails. Eastern designs developed earlier, with efficient middle decks and minimalist fore, in vessels having more than one deck there are various naming conventions, numerically, alphabetically, etc. However, there are various common historical names and types of decks,01 level is the term used in naval services to refer to the deck above the main deck. The next higher decks are referred to as the 02 level, the 03 level, afterdeck an open deck area toward the stern-aft. Berth deck, A deck next below the gun deck, where the hammocks of the crew are slung, Boat deck, Especially on ships with sponsons, the deck area where lifeboats or the ships gig are stored. Boiler deck, The passenger deck above the vessels boilers, may also refer to the deck of a bridge. Flight deck, A deck from which aircraft take off or land, flush deck, Any continuous unbroken deck from stem to stern
12.
Tension (physics)
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Tension is the opposite of compression. At the atomic level, when atoms or molecules are pulled apart each other and gain potential energy with a restoring force still existing. Each end of a string or rod under such tension will pull on the object it is attached to, to restore the string/rod to its relaxed length. In physics, tension, as a force, as an action-reaction pair of forces. The ends of a string or other object transmitting tension will exert forces on the objects to which the string or rod is connected and these forces due to tension are also called passive forces. Tension in a string is a scalar quantity. A string or rope is often idealized as one dimension, having length but being massless with zero cross section. If there are no bends in the string, as occur with vibrations or pulleys, then tension is a constant along the string, by Newtons Third Law, these are the same forces exerted on the ends of the string by the objects to which the ends are attached. If the string curves around one or more pulleys, it still have constant tension along its length in the idealized situation that the pulleys are massless and frictionless. A vibrating string vibrates with a set of frequencies that depend on the strings tension and these frequencies can be derived from Newtons laws of motion. Each microscopic segment of the string pulls on and is pulled upon by its neighboring segments, tension = τ where x is the position along the string. If the string has curvature, then the two pulls on a segment by its two neighbors will not add to zero, and there will be a net force on that segment of the string, causing an acceleration. With solutions that include the various harmonics on a stringed instrument, tension is also used to describe the force exerted by the ends of a three-dimensional, continuous material such as a rod or truss member. Such a rod elongates under tension, a system is in equilibrium when the sum of all forces is zero. ∑ F → =0 For example, consider a system consisting of an object that is being lowered vertically by a string with tension, T, at a constant velocity. ∑ F → = T → + m g → =0 A system has a net force when a force is exerted on it. Acceleration and net force always exist together, ∑ F → ≠0 For example, consider the same system as above but suppose the object is now being lowered with an increasing velocity downwards therefore there exists a net force somewhere in the system. In this case, negative acceleration would indicate that | m g | > | T |
13.
Forestay
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On a sailing vessel, a forestay, sometimes just called a stay, is a piece of standing rigging which keeps a mast from falling backwards. It is attached either at the top of the mast. The other end of the forestay is attached to the bow of the boat, often a sail is attached to the forestay. This sail may be a jib or a genoa, in a cutter rig, the jib or jibs are flown from stays in front of the forestay, perhaps going from the masthead to a bowsprit. The sail on the forestay is then referred to as the staysail or staysl, the dictionary definition of forestay at Wiktionary
14.
Backstay
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A backstay is a piece of standing rigging on a sailing vessel that runs from the mast to either its transom or rear quarter, counteracting the forestay and jib. It is an important sail trim control and has an effect on the shape of the mainsail. Backstays are generally adjusted by block and tackle, hydraulic adjusters, backstays may be permanent or running. A permanent backstay is attached to the top of the mast, running backstays appear in pairs attached about two-thirds of the way up the mast. In general, most modern sailboats will have a permanent backstay, backstays are not always found on all vessels, especially smaller ones. A permanent backstay is attached at the top of the mast, in a masthead rig, tensioning the permanent backstay will directly tension the forestay. This control is used to adjust the amount of sag in the headsail, increased mast bend tends to reduce the draft of the mainsail. A running backstay always attaches to the mast at a point below the top of the mast and is used in conjunction with a permanent backstay. Running backstays are found on both masthead rigs and fractional rigs, there are some rigs for which running backstays may be used without a permanent backstay. This occurs most often where the mainsail has a significant roach or a large mainsail. Gaff rigged boats invariably have running backstays with no permanent backstay, in both of these cases the mainsail extends aft of a line from masthead to stern, and so a permanent backstay would interfere with the operation of the sail. As a direct consequence of its attachment point a running backstay is always adjustable because it must be engaged and disengaged during every tack or jibe. Adjusting the tension on the running backstay has two effects, First, the forestay is tensioned and Second, mast bend is increased, the overall effect of tensioning the running backstay is a shallower mainsail combined with a reduction in headsail sag. Both effects are desirable as the wind increases
15.
Deadeye
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A deadeye is an item used in the standing and running rigging of traditional sailing ships. It is a round thick wooden disc with one or more holes through it. Single and triple-hole deadeyes are most commonly seen, the three-holed blocks were called deadeyes because the position of the three holes resemble the eye and nose sockets of a sheeps skull. Single deadeyes are used to guide and control a line and, particularly in older vessels, when blocks came into common use for adjusting running rigging, deadeyes continued to be used for tensioning standing rigging. Triple deadeyes are used in pairs, a called a lanyard is run back and forth between them, through the holes, so that they function again much as a block. This provides an advantage, pulling harder on whatever the deadeyes are attached to. Pairs of deadeyes are placed in the shrouds, where they are used to create tension in the shrouds. To set up the lanyards used with dead-eyes, a suitable grease such as tallow is first applied to the holes, after reeving the lanyard through the deadeyes, the end is hooked to a handy purchase in the rig above, such as the throat halyard. By hauling on the halyard the lanyard in the deadeyes is drawn up taut, a small wooden wedge is knocked into the last hole, to prevent the lanyard sliding back, and the end is unhooked from the purchase and made up on the shroud above the upper deadeye. The wedge can then be removed ready for the next shroud, as an alternative the tackle on the lanyard can be made fast to the shroud well above the upper deadeye so that it compresses the deadeyes. The last part of the lanyard can then be seized to an adjacent part between the deadeyes, when this is finished the tackle is cast off and the lanyard made off. In recent decades, as steel wire became the prevalent material for sailboat rigging, deadeyes and laynards gave way to metal turnbuckles for tensioning the wires
16.
Top (sailing ship)
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The top on a traditional square rigged ship, is the platform at the upper end of each mast. The main purpose of the top is to anchor the shrouds of the topmast that extends above it, placing a few timbers between these struts produces a useful platform, the top. The futtock shrouds carry the load of the upper shrouds into the mast below, at the upper end of the topmast and topgallant, there is a similar situation regarding the next mast up. At these points a smaller top might be constructed, but it is more simply to leave the shroud-bearing struts open. Access for sailors to the top may be by a Jacobs ladder, lubbers hole, a fore-topmast might be stepped into a similar fore-top platform on the foremast. A mizen-top would be a platform on the mizenmast, similar main-top and fore-top platforms have been retained on steam ships and motor vessels as preferred locations for installing rotating radar antennae. A fighting top was a top with swivel guns, designed to fire down at the deck of enemy ships. They could also be manned by snipers armed with muskets or rifles, media related to Top at Wikimedia Commons
17.
Crosstrees
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Crosstrees are the two horizontal spars at the upper ends of the topmasts of sailing ships, used to anchor the shrouds from the topgallant mast. Similarly, they may be mounted at the end of the topgallant to anchor the shrouds from the royal mast. Similar transverse spars remain on ship and motor vessel masts to secure wire antennae or signal flag halyards. Any vertical structure like a mast is subject to dynamic swaying stress from wind, such stress is countered through guy ropes which are diagonally supporting ropes from mast top to its base. These ropes share the load on the mast tops and communicate that force to the base structure, the taller the mast, the wider a base is required for the guy wires so as to form an appropriate angular support against the sway the mast is exposed to. Yet, ships are fixed in their beam and hence only a limited angle is possible for the guy-ropes to support very high masts, thereby, the taller the ships mast, the more narrow and unfeasible would be the angle between its support wires and its top. This is where a simple innovation like the crosstree helps to overcome such limitation, the Crosstree serves as a fresh base to spread the next level of supporting guy ropes, thereby providing a stable height extension to the masts. Without the crosstree, the ships mast would have severely limited in height. Each crosstree serves to spread another level of holding ropes on a fresh wider spar so as to support to the next mast top section. Effectively, the crosstree allows to extend the height, mount yet another layer of sail shrouds, the crosstree also serves to spread the shroud tops. See tops for the description of their purpose, on modern rigs the same function is provided by spreaders. Media related to Crosstrees at Wikimedia Commons
18.
Running rigging
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Running rigging varies between vessels that are rigged fore and aft and those that are square-rigged. In centuries past, a ships rigging was typically fashioned from rope, in the 19th century this was commonly referred to as Manilla, a reference to the origin of much good quality rope. On modern vessels, running rigging is likely to be made from synthetic fibers, since the 1990s, several new synthetic fibers have become common, particularly on racing and other high-performance sailing boats. These fibers include Ultra High Molecular Weight Polyethylene, Vectran, fore-and-aft rigged vessels have rigging that supports, shapes, and adjusts the sails to optimize their performance in the wind. Halyards, are used to raise sails and control luff tension, in large yachts the halyard returns to the deck but in small racing dinghies the head of the sail is attached by a short line to the head of the mast while the boat is lying on its gunwale. Topping lifts, which hold booms and yards aloft, barber haulers, which adjust the spinnaker/jib sheeting angle by pulling the sheet/sail inboard at right angles to the sheet. Consists of either a ring or clip on the attached to cordage which is secured and adjusted via fairlead. Kicking straps / boom vangs, which control a boom-footed sails leech tension by exerting downward force mid-boom. Normally this is a system of highly geared blocks, of stainless steel wire and low stretch cordage but recently some sail boats have a short spar instead. When sailing downwind the kicking strap is tensioned to stop the boom lifting, cunninghams, which tighten the luff of a boom-footed sail by pulling downward on a cringle in the luff of a mainsail above the tack. The idea is to flatten the sail in heavier weather or when sailing to windward. In its simplest form a steel hook that goes through the cringle. From the hook a cordage tail passes through a turnblock on the deck at the base of the mast, often the tail is split so the cunningham can be operated from either sidedeck in a racing dinghy. Downhauls, which lower a sail or a yard, and can be used to adjust the tension on the luff of a sail, outhauls, which control the foot tension of a boom-footed sail. This is one of the controls for sail fullness. In a racing boat the boom outhaul runs from the sail clew through a block along the inside of the boom. For simplicity many small racing craft have the boom attached to a powerful hyfield lever mounted on the boom or deck. The lever is let off for down wind sailing, so the sail becomes full
