Help, please - what joins a topmast to a mainmast?

Assuming we’re talking a fore-and-aft rig on a pilot cutter or something, rather than a square-rigger, I’d call the top one a spectacle iron. Not aware of a specific name for a lower fitting, it’s more just a case of the topmast heel fitting in between the crosstrees and the lower mast. A fid passes through to bear the weight.

Pete
 
prv said:
Assuming we’re talking a fore-and-aft rig on a pilot cutter or something, rather than a square-rigger, I’d call the top one a spectacle iron. Not aware of a specific name for a lower fitting, it’s more just a case of the topmast heel fitting in between the crosstrees and the lower mast. A fid passes through to bear the weight.

Pete
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That sounds logical, but I thought there was a specific name for the pair of fittings. Something like a tabernacle - but that's something else. Or perhaps it's the same?
 
Robert Wilson said:
That sounds logical, but I thought there was a specific name for the pair of fittings. Something like a tabernacle - but that's something else. Or perhaps it's the same?
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I believe there’s a specific term for the overlap between the masts - not for the actual fittings though, just for the concept of the overlap in order to discuss for example how one boat might be more likely than another to lose her topmast. Can’t quite think of the word right now...

Pete
 
Robert Wilson said:
Almost.
But if you look at a diagram of the masts it shows a lower and upper fitting which encompasses both masts, rather than on both sides to hold the crosstrees.
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Well, your diagram might, but not the boats I’m thinking of :)

I think I’ve seen an arrangement where a relatively small topmast was just stuck on the front of the lower mast entirely above the hounds, using a pair of spectacle irons top and bottom. But that’s not the classic arrangement.

Pete
 
Robert Wilson said:
I hope this shows the two bits I'm talking about.
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Ok, but they’re not top and bottom. They’re one fitting on the mainmast and one fitting on the foremast, on a schooner. The drawing has them labelled as “caps”.

It would be helpful to see the side view that looks like it’s cut off just below them.

Pete
 
Not the best of pics, but the top right and bottom left shows the fittings I'm talking about.
e215363455885667de9e3f74f240f847_L.jpg
 
AntarcticPilot said:
This (page 26!) shows the traditional usage: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id...24&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=4#v=onepage&q&f=false

Darcy Lever's "Young Sea Officer's Sheet Anchor" was the standard text on rigging and seamanship for most of the Victorian era.
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Well done. Fig. 185 clearly identifies them. Thank you.
So it appears that the two fittings are called "caps". Apparently nothing to do with "cap-shrouds" - or perhaps originally the cap-shrouds attached to these "caps".

I always thought there was a much more interesting name for them.

Thank you.

It also appears I could have answered my own question on my #14 post above :rolleyes:
 
Robert Wilson said:
Well done. Fig. 185 clearly identifies them. Thank you.
So it appears that the two fittings are called "caps". Apparently nothing to do with "cap-shrouds" - or perhaps originally the cap-shrouds attached to these "caps".

I always thought there was a much more interesting name for them.

Thank you.

It also appears I could have answered my own question on my #14 post above :rolleyes:
Click to expand...
I happen to have it on my bookshelf; Amazon sell a facsimile version of it. I was fortunate enough to see an original copy when I was a student; a friend of our family had a copy which I arranged to be rebound. It is referenced frequently in Ashley's Book of Knots.
 
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