Rum_Pirate
Well-Known Member
Which sailing rig do you consider the most beautiful?
Practicable is not a consideration in this query.
Practicable is not a consideration in this query.
Which sailing rig . . .
- Thread starter Rum_Pirate
- Start date
Poignard
Well-Known Member
A gaff-rigged schooner.
Rum_Pirate
Well-Known Member
Posting of pictures is encouraged.
Motor_Sailor
Well-Known Member
I always had the European antithesis to schooner rigged vessels, they were just something you didn't see around our waters very much. In my youth, the gaff cutter was the epitome of style, class, practicality, beauty, elegance, sophistication . . .
But later in life I've warmed a bit to the schooner rig in all of it's various configurations. Rebecca of Vineyardhaven is for sale and she really is attractive.
But later in life I've warmed a bit to the schooner rig in all of it's various configurations. Rebecca of Vineyardhaven is for sale and she really is attractive.
Poignard
Well-Known Member
Catalina36
N/A
60 years ago my brother, a Merchant Navy officer, built a beautiful 3 foot scale model of a Grand Banks schooner, cut from solid pine and complete with hand-spliced standing rigging. I sailed it as a nipper on Canoe Lake Southsea and Walpole Park boating lake in Gosport. 40 years later I stood on a pontoon in Mystic River Massachusetts talking to the owner of a real one, 102 feet and every bit as lovely as the model! I still have the model but it hasn't sailed since those days. Classic lines.
Concerto
Well-Known Member
I love ¾ rigged yachts as the massive mainsail looks graceful with smaller headsail(s). The best looking are the original J Class yachts like Endeavour, Valsheda and Ranger. The multiple headsails looks best in my opinion. The very tall rig with a narrow beam and long overhangs makes them look so graceful.
Motor_Sailor
Well-Known Member
Your upper photo is about the best angle to photograph the modern Js if you want the mainsail to look graceful. Square on and you can see that they have far too much roach these days. Even at their size, it makes the rig look dumpy somehow.
LittleSister
Well-Known Member
I do like a good yawl.
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Poignard
Well-Known Member
Why is it the schooner rig has never been popular for European Yachts?
Bajansailor
Well-Known Member
They do generally seem to have been more popular in the USA, with the Herreshoffs probably being the most famous, along with the Alden Malabar schooners.
Some nice photos of the 1915 Herreshoff schooner Mariette here -
https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ai...:5086907/mmsi:235010150/imo:0/vessel:MARIETTE
And
Living legend: Inside the major refit of Herreshoff schooner Mariette of 1915
And a couple more Herreshoff schooners, Elena -
https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ai...235074534/imo:1010789/vessel:ELENA_OF_LONDON/
And her near sister ship Eleonora -
https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ai...mmsi:235008680/imo:8732984/vessel:ELEONORA_E/
And the Schooner Columbia -
https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ai...:1499679/mmsi:338734000/imo:0/vessel:COLUMBIA
The Schooner Columbia
A photo of her sailing in our Round the Island Race a few months ago -
And an aerial photo I found of her moored in Marigot, St Lucia -
And a photo taken in 1955 of the schooner 'Bounding Home' - she was designed by Francis Sweisguth (who had previously worked at Sparkman & Stephens), built in 1933 by Minneford's in New York, and her hull form is very similar in many ways to the S & S designed 'Stormy Weather'
The photo is also in this link -
BOUNDING HOME, #A11, starboard beam view undersail, Off-Soundings, 1955 | Mystic Seaport
Stormy Weather for reference -
home
https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ai...57/mmsi:235069277/imo:0/vessel:STORMY_WEATHER
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Catalina36
N/A
Take a look at paintings by Stephen Dews, he's done several of the classic yachts racing in the Solent and the detail is superb.
Biggles Wader
Well-Known Member
Nothing quite like a full rigged ship such as Cutty Sark. Not one of the newer versions though which are ruined by large deck houses and enclosed bridge structures.
Motor_Sailor
Well-Known Member
I'm not sure in absolute terms that the schooner wasn't to be found anywhere in Europe. If you look through the Sandeman Yacht Company porn pages there seem to be plenty that were either built or designed in Europe before the second world war. There were also West Country trading schooners and some French (?) fishing boats used the rig.
But for a young lad growing up on the East Coast during the 50s and 60s, they didn't feature in our reality: The old work boats were cutters and large family yachts were Harrison Butlers, Folkboats and Stellas with some 'racy' sorts having (what my Dad would describe as "rather unnecessary") boats like Twisters. In the news we read about a place called Cowes, where important people like the Duke of Edinburgh, King of Norway and Prime Ministers raced mega yachts such as the S&S34, and then every so often, it appeared the whole country would club together to be able to send the British 12M off to race the Americans and Australians (whoever they were) for an enormous Cup that was the most important trophy in the world ever. And that was done in sloops.
But we were also influenced by books and stories we heard. Our heroes didn't sail schooners - they either sailed versions of the old work boats we recognised (Tilman, Dyarchy, Jolie Brise, pilot cutters), or followed the 'law' as outlined in Peter Heaton's books where modern bermudan sloops were best until each sail become too large to handle (500 sq ft) and then they become ketches like Gypsy Moth or Peter Duck. The big boat era from before the war was one of stories from a Grandfather who sailed them as professional crew, and walks with him in the early 60s along the mud at Mersea and Pin Mill, with him describing every boat laying there and how they sailed. All tinged in sadness, especially as I was told for the 100th time about the scuttling of Britannia which brought him to tears every time. But the rigs never featured in these walks down memory lane as although in his mind he could see them all in full sail, I as a small boy struggled to even make out the shape of the hulls in the mud and under their houseboat tops.
It was when I started work in Maine that I discovered schooners were central to US east coast culture as the gaff cutter was to mine. Their heroes did go out to the Grand Banks in them, their CoastGuard had them, they did race them, they did cherish them. To take your own schooner to Camden Week was to have made it.
Poignard
Well-Known Member
Twisters rather uneccessary? That's hurtful.
Mine has been a very necessary part of my life for more than 20 years!
Mine has been a very necessary part of my life for more than 20 years!
Motor_Sailor
Well-Known Member
It was the early 1960s and we were a family of five and dog in a Folkboat. Dad was under a certain amount of pressure to get a 'bigger' boat, but paled at the idea of jumping all the way up to a 28 footer!
The solution in the end was to get my elder brother and me an old RNSA dinghy with an ex-army canvas bivi-tent to put over the boom and we sailed around in company with the folkboat, rafting up at the end of the day.
matt1
Well-Known Member
Fractional Maxi Ketch "Steinlager" with everything set....a thing to wonder at ;-)
LittleSister
Well-Known Member
I was told once it was because it was not such a good rig for upwind work, which was more important in European waters than American. No idea whether there's any kernel of truth in that.
Poignard
Well-Known Member
You're made of sterner stuff than me! After that a Twister would seem luxurious.
Poignard
Well-Known Member
I don't know if that's true or not but although not popular with yachtsmen there were many trading schooners and topsail schooners around our coasts. Still a few even in my lifetime.
"The Merchant Schooners" by Greenhill is a good read, at a bargain price.
The Merchant Schooners by Basil Greenhill: VG+ Paperback (1988) Revised Edition. | Richard Sylvanus Williams (Est 1976)
Sorry, I just bought that copy but there are others available from Abe Books!
