Running rigging

See my longer article on rope

Essentially all of the running rigging on sailing vessels from the ancient Egyptians to the quite recent introduction of woven rope was 3-strand, hawser-laid, right-handed rope. There were very few exceptions. The rope used in running rigging was made out of lightly tarred hemp during clipper ship era and likely a light tan when new – fading to grey in the sun and spray. It would be very unlikely that any running rigging on a clipper ship would be bright white.

Rope and cable on sailing ships was measured by circumference. Thus a 2-inch rope was 2 inches in circumference which meant it was a little smaller than 3/4 inch in diameter.

Running rigging needed to be small enough for sailors to grab and pull it and wrap it around a belaying pin so it could not generally be larger than 1 1/2 inches in diameter, i.e. 4 3/4 inches in circumference. The list of running rigging I developed for the Flying Cloud shows the largest rope to be 4 inch, except for the course sheets. The sheets and tacks for the square course sails on large sailing ships, both military and merchant, starting at least as early as the mid 1700s and continuing until at least the late 1800s were cable laid and tapered. (See, for example, S.B. Luce’s 1884 Textbook of Seamanship (page 23) and the rigging tables in Steel’s Art of Rigging second edition.) At the sail end they were quite large, 5 or more inches in circumference, and tapered to a much more manageable 3.5 inch or so at the end that needed to be handled by sailors and be secured to a belaying pin. Note that a large clipper ship has many different sizes of rope used for running rigging – in the case of the Flying Cloud, eight different sizes.

Note that the rope used on most models is far too big. Take for example the fore course leach lines, which on the Flying Cloud were 3 in rope. On a 1:96 scale model such lines are about 0.01 inches in diameter. The fore royal clue lines were 1.5-inch rope which is 0.005 inches diameter at 1:96. (equivalent to 36-gauge wire)

At least in the mid 1800s, according to Textbook of Seamanship (page 140) the lower yard and topsail yard braces were 3-strand hawser-laid left-handed rope. This could have been because these ropes were quite large since they were under great stress and making them left-handed could make them more pliable. (E.g., see Luce Textbook of Seamanship pages 22-23.)

According to [D-Perry-1925], the arrangement of running rigging was basically the same on all large sailing ships so that sailors could move between ships and not be confused. For example, Perry says that the clue, leach and bunt lines for each side of each sail were led to the bulwark pin rail through three-hole fairleads fastened to each of the lower shrouds. With the clue-line going through the forward hole, the bunt-line through the middle hole and the leach-line through the aft hole. The three lines for the lower sail (the topsail or lower topsail for split topsails) went through the fairlead fastened to the forward shroud. The three lines for the next highest sail went through the fairlead fastened to the next aft shroud. And so on. ([Perry-1925] pages 9-10)

2024-06-04