G
Guest
Guest
Any idea where these names originate? Anything to do with a church pulpit? Or is push from aft and pull from fwd more relevant?
jleaworthy
New member
Does anyone remember who first used pushpit instead of taffrail? I seem to recall hearing it first in the mid to late 60s.
<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1>Edited by jleaworthy on 13/01/2003 12:50 (server time).</FONT></P>
<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1>Edited by jleaworthy on 13/01/2003 12:50 (server time).</FONT></P>
Sybarite
Well-known member
If one excludes the very large boats and the odd exception pushpits are a relatively modern phenomenon on smaller sailing boats.
Mirelle
N/A
But a pushpit isn\'t a taffrail!
I think that the first "pulpits" were adopted in the 1930's aboard offshore racers. Anyone with access to a run of "Yachting Monthly" for those years will be able to find this out, but I am pretty sure that Robert Clark's early offshore racers had them, and they were remarked on and written up.
The term comes from the fact that a crew member could stand up, jammed in the pulpit, a bit like a preacher in church, to handle a headsail change; with both hands free, whereas previously he would have been lying on the deck and hanging on with one hand. I am sure that I read that in a 1930's YM.
"Pushpit" comes later, late 1940's early 1950's, when long booms had gone out for offshore racing and they therefore became practical (a long boom with an aft mainsheet, such as a gaff cutter has, will lie across the guardwires). I'm pretty sure they crop up in Illingworth's "Offshore". The word is simply a joking derivation from "pulpit".
A taffrail is a continuation of the bulwark rail across the stern. Of course this assumes the boat has bulwarks.....Walker's "Excelsior" Patent Log, "taffrail model", has circular bronze plates which are screwed into the wooden taffrail - no way this could be attached to a pulpit.
I think that the first "pulpits" were adopted in the 1930's aboard offshore racers. Anyone with access to a run of "Yachting Monthly" for those years will be able to find this out, but I am pretty sure that Robert Clark's early offshore racers had them, and they were remarked on and written up.
The term comes from the fact that a crew member could stand up, jammed in the pulpit, a bit like a preacher in church, to handle a headsail change; with both hands free, whereas previously he would have been lying on the deck and hanging on with one hand. I am sure that I read that in a 1930's YM.
"Pushpit" comes later, late 1940's early 1950's, when long booms had gone out for offshore racing and they therefore became practical (a long boom with an aft mainsheet, such as a gaff cutter has, will lie across the guardwires). I'm pretty sure they crop up in Illingworth's "Offshore". The word is simply a joking derivation from "pulpit".
A taffrail is a continuation of the bulwark rail across the stern. Of course this assumes the boat has bulwarks.....Walker's "Excelsior" Patent Log, "taffrail model", has circular bronze plates which are screwed into the wooden taffrail - no way this could be attached to a pulpit.
jamesjermain
Active member
Re: But a pushpit isn\'t a taffrail!
While accepting that the 'taffrail' is strictly the covering rail for the transom timbers, I rather like the extension of the meaning to include the stainless steel stern rail of a grp yacht. I have no objection to 'pushpi't but I prefer taffrail and its certainly more elegant than 'stern pulpit', which is used in some nautical dictionaries.
JJ
While accepting that the 'taffrail' is strictly the covering rail for the transom timbers, I rather like the extension of the meaning to include the stainless steel stern rail of a grp yacht. I have no objection to 'pushpi't but I prefer taffrail and its certainly more elegant than 'stern pulpit', which is used in some nautical dictionaries.
JJ
G
Guest
Guest
The earlier ocean racers (late 20s, early 30s) had lifelines, but from the forward stanchion the top line simply ran direct to a pad eye ahead of it. The 'sharp end' therefore had no rail of any kind. An RORC owner (Col King?) had the idea (around about 1935) to fabricate a rail in order to protect crew working right forward.
The word 'pulpit' was easily coined. The word 'pushpit', a system which came rather later (not before at least one fatality when an RORC crew went aft to read the Walker patent log during a Fastnet race) was an obvious derivation.
The word 'pulpit' was easily coined. The word 'pushpit', a system which came rather later (not before at least one fatality when an RORC crew went aft to read the Walker patent log during a Fastnet race) was an obvious derivation.
Mirelle
N/A
For obvious reasons, James
I deprecate boats made out of you-know-what giving themselves airs and borrowing terminology from real boats. If they have'nt got futtocks, knightheads, shelves, clamps, floors, lazarettes, bitts, wales, channels, kelsons, deadwoods, garboards, aprons, carlins, kevels and horn timbers, they ought not to be allowed to have taffrails!
Let them make up their own words!
Anyway, like you, I like "pushpit".
I deprecate boats made out of you-know-what giving themselves airs and borrowing terminology from real boats. If they have'nt got futtocks, knightheads, shelves, clamps, floors, lazarettes, bitts, wales, channels, kelsons, deadwoods, garboards, aprons, carlins, kevels and horn timbers, they ought not to be allowed to have taffrails!
Let them make up their own words!
Anyway, like you, I like "pushpit".
Mirelle
N/A
The definitive answer....
You are precisely correct.
I happen to have a copy of YM for January 1938, because it's got the description of "Mirelle" as a new boat in it, and there on page 206 is chapter and verse....
"Since the RORC made it compulsory to carry the wire rail right round the stem, various attempts have been made to evolve a rail-head fitting. But Ortac's adaptation of the sword-fishing pulpit (fig 10 - caption "the "pulpit" at Ortac's stemhead) seems by far the best, particularly if the forward stanchions follow out the flare of the bow sections to increase the elbow room on the foredeck. Stanchions aand wire rails are such sensible fittings that they will probably spread from the racers to the cruisers...."
("Ortac", for anyone who does'nt know was Colonel King's new ocean racer, designed by the young Robert Clark.)
So, the term "pulpit" was already in use for this structure on swordfishing powerboats in the USA and it was simply adopted into sailing vocabulary along with the thing it describes.
<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1>Edited by Mirelle on 13/01/2003 22:40 (server time).</FONT></P>
You are precisely correct.
I happen to have a copy of YM for January 1938, because it's got the description of "Mirelle" as a new boat in it, and there on page 206 is chapter and verse....
"Since the RORC made it compulsory to carry the wire rail right round the stem, various attempts have been made to evolve a rail-head fitting. But Ortac's adaptation of the sword-fishing pulpit (fig 10 - caption "the "pulpit" at Ortac's stemhead) seems by far the best, particularly if the forward stanchions follow out the flare of the bow sections to increase the elbow room on the foredeck. Stanchions aand wire rails are such sensible fittings that they will probably spread from the racers to the cruisers...."
("Ortac", for anyone who does'nt know was Colonel King's new ocean racer, designed by the young Robert Clark.)
So, the term "pulpit" was already in use for this structure on swordfishing powerboats in the USA and it was simply adopted into sailing vocabulary along with the thing it describes.
<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1>Edited by Mirelle on 13/01/2003 22:40 (server time).</FONT></P>
