Gaff top sails

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Capt_Marlinspike

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Help. I am rigging a 1/12 scale model of a bristol pilot cutter and I can't figure out the top sail. It is a four sided sail with a sprit. I have got it all rigged except the corner that attaches to the outboard end of the gaff. Can anyone please tell me how this works? Is the sail fixed there so that you have to raise it with the main sail (seems unlikely) or is there a cunning way of raising the sail and then tensioning that corner. Any advice or photos very welcome.
Thanks
 
It does run through the end of the main gaff, But it can be raised after the mainsail is up, the rope through the end of the gaff, is in fact the sheet for the sail. All the topsails I have seen, are three sided. Dont understand how it can be four sided? Better folk than I willp probably be able to explain further5, with drawings etc.
 
The topsail sheet runs up the mast to the throat end of the gaff, through a pulley---a Timminoggy---to another pulley at the outer end of the gaff. The sheet then runs down to the boom at the mast end--loosely and diagonally. The sheet can then be attached to the topsail and pulled tight as the topsail is raised.
Does this make any sense /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
 
Sheet runs from clew of topsail to a sheave in a comb on the starboard (usually!) side of the gaff and from there to a block hung from the jaws or saddle.

The topsail is usually set and handed to starboard because the boat is on the right of way tack assuming the topsail is set and handed to windward of the mainsail.

When the topsail is handed, the business end of the sheet comes down with the sail and is belayed at the mast. Can be taken aft and used to control the gaff should it be necessary to hand the mainsail and set the trysail.

I take it the fourth side is the yard i.e. it is a lug topsail.
 
I have only ever set a topsail from the port side. Have I got the rigging set up incorrectly?
Has been like this on both types of Gaffers I've owned, though do not have a topsail for present boat.
 
i dont know if this picture will be any help but its a good excuse to show it again /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Olga.jpg
"Olga"
 
Ar, well, they do funny things in Falmouth!

(The late Hervey Benham once pointed out to me that working craft from East of Shoreham have their bowsprit to port, and those from West of Shoreham have it to starboard!)

No, seriously, I reckon it is a matter of taste, and perhaps of whether you set and hand to windward or to leeward of the mainsail.
 
Early topsails had a lug rig, more like a slanted squaresail -look at pictures of early Victorian boats. The yards gradually became more nearly vertical. John Leather in Gaff Rig has some late 19th century photographs of fishing boats displaying a mixture of the two types. Some boats now set the sail on a vertical projecting yard, some have a topmast and the sail sets directly on the mast.
Some too have another yard on the end of the gaff, extending the sail beyond the end of the gaff.
The attachments to the yard/mast vary also - all nicely explained and illustrated in Gaff Rig.
It is sometimes possible to lower the mainsail leaving the topsail set, or to trice up the mainsail if loose-footed. Used in light winds in confined spaces, or tree-lined rivers, where all the wind is high up.
 
The yard on the end of the gaff, where used, is the jack yard.

More of a yachty thing, really, not used in working sail because of its tendency to get foul of things.

With respect, you can only keep the topsail set with the main not set of you have either a spritsail rig (Thames barges) or a standing gaff (bawleys) and brail the mainsail.
 
I wondered about that when I read it somewhere. Surely it would depend on the shape of the topsail and the length of the boat, as to whether it was possible to take the sheet far enough aft to keep the topsail spread? On a broad reach or when running the sheet would not need to be very tight.

It would be a bit like having a loose-footed bermudan sail with a large hole cut in the lower half.
 
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