Onedin Polls

[ivaradi]

I've put them in the photo section.
R.

— On Thu, 2/5/13, R <advcour@btinternet.com> wrote:

From: R <advcour@btinternet.com>
Subject: Re: [shiponedingroup] Re: Onedin Polls
To: shiponedingroup@yahoogroups.com
Date: Thursday, 2 May, 2013, 13:53

 

Oh, I sent two photos with that lot but they don't appear to be with the text……….
 
R.

— On Thu, 2/5/13, R <advcour@btinternet.com> wrote:

From: R <advcour@btinternet.com>
Subject: Re: [shiponedingroup] Re: Onedin Polls
To: shiponedingroup@yahoogroups.com
Date: Thursday, 2 May, 2013, 13:49

 

Some men were forced to go to sea but you could never run a ship purely with pressed men, the majority wanted to go to sea, yes it was a hard life and still can be if you get a grumpy owner/skipper, but it could represent a far better life than the one they had ashore.

 
Yes you're up a hundred feet or more standing on a rope, a wire rope (served with Marline impregnated with Stockholm Tar which gives fantastic grip and smells even better) that sometimes goes over 45deg as she rolls but you hang on, sailors tend to have fantastic grip!
A well found rig will have set dimensions, ie the distance the footrope hangs below the yard is a known distance on all ships which allows you to brace your knees between yard and footrope and at a height for the average man to have his belly over the yard so he can use both hands to get the sail in.
The sail is first hauled up to the yard from the deck (the arm is only the very tip of the yard usually painted white) with the Clewlines and the Bunt lines, like a Venitian blind, the crew then go aloft and pleat the sail onto the top of the yard by tucking each pleat under their bellies, the last pleat is the head of the sail which is tied to an iron rod along the top of the yard called the Headstay, you form a pocket the full length of the yard and together push the pleated sail off the top of the yard into the pocket where you punch and punch it into as small a 'sausage' as it will go.
Now comes the hardest (next to getting the wind out of a sail to be able to start pleating) and most dangerous bit,
You have the whole sail in what is hoped a long smooth and tight roll on the front face of the yard and need to get it onto the top, Everyone puts both hands over the front of the sail and together at the same moment roll the sail up ontop of the yard, this means you are leaning backwards with the footrope having swung forwards under the yard and both hands on top of a smooth roll of sail, modern square riggers have a backrope the full length onto which you clip your harness just incase, older ships had Beckets, a rope loop on the Headstay which a sailor could hook an arm through. A very well found ship might even have another iron rod along the top of the yard (see Discovery photo) purely there as a handrail for the sailors, known as the Jackstay.
The sail is then secured to the top of the yard with short lengths of rope known as Gaskets, each individual Gasket is permanently fixed and coiled a special way so that they remain coiled in any weather, if you ever see a closeup of a square sail full of wind from the front you will see the gaskets hanging along the top of the sail close to the yard. .
 
What I have described here is called a harbour stow, starting at the highest sail and working down as you can see on Sorlandet, harder work but done to show the ship off in port 'Bristol fashion' as well as protecting the sail from rain and sun when not in use. Canvas sails would often have a sacrificial head tabling for this purpose as well as for chafe against the yard. In the case of shortening sail at sea the Bunted up sail might just be rolled up onto the yard 'in the bunt' and the gaskets quickly tied around it for the duration of the blow. I had to go aloft with one other fellow in a force 11 mid Atlantic to re tie the Main Royal, the very topmost sail, whose gaskets had come undone and the sail was flogging 'in the bunt' fit to shake the top section of mast out of her. We weren't under sail but riding it out with the wheel lashed and all crew below so the ship was rolling very badly, rail under to rail under, at 110ft up that was a ride
and a half!
 
When setting sail only one or two 'boys' need go aloft to cast off the Gaskets and push the rolled up sail off the top of the yard to hang in it's gear, the rest is all done from the deck. When you see Errol Flynn or Jack Sparrow giving the order to make sail and the whole crew of burly men rush to the shrouds to go aloft…….. that's the romantic bit, and very incorrect!
 
I am not familliar with the term 'sluice' in reference to sails but it might mean to wash the salt out of them before stowing them below? I have my Dana to hand, page? As to what else one can 'do up there' once my work as a rigger was done I would sometimes find a corner to tuck myself away, don my shades, switch on the Walkman, open a book, slosh on the lotion and sunbathe, occasionally make a noise against some ironwork with a spanner or spike to fool the Bosun……..
 
What everyone needs to remember is that TOL is a romantic work of fiction and not to take all you see and hear as gospel.
 
Richard. 
— On Thu, 2/5/13, Lee Bonnifield <lee78@localnet.com> wrote:

From: Lee Bonnifield <lee78@localnet.com>
Subject: Re: [shiponedingroup] Re: Onedin Polls
To: shiponedingroup@yahoogroups.com
Date: Thursday, 2 May, 2013, 3:15

 

On 5/1/2013 4:02 AM, R wrote:
> In my experience all the nice girls liked a sailor, not much sign of
> contempt there!

In 19th century, crimping! Legal slavery, if a man can be drugged or
knocked unconscious near the docks.

> Plus going aloft isn't all that dangerous,

but but but you're standing on a rope? with arms over a polished smooth
(maybe wet) yardarm? & both hands occupied in pulling up canvas? Sounds
like a balancing act to me even without wind and rain and pitching ship
movements, exaggerated at that height. And if you fall into the sea you
won't be visible by the time a fast ship starts back? James left newbie
Samuel clinging to the rigging in a storm just for seasoning S5N5 The
Stowaway.

We never see details of the action aloft. And I forgot after reading
Dana 30 years ago — I'm not clear on what you do up there — raise the
bottom edge of square sails (reef)? tie it (with what?) to yard
(dictionary says sailor rolls it up hence he's called "reefer".) Untie
it? And why sluice sails S?N? ?

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[galacticprobe]

"R" sent a very detailed reply on what going aloft is like. I'm just glad I never had to do that in my Coast Guard career, other than to work on a wonky radar pedestal, and even that was a bit of a trial when the Cutter was rolling (and as I got older I found that I could no longer handle heights!). But there was one thing in R's reply I didn't see: Reefing sail.

Have you ever noticed those horizontal bands on a square sail, and how those bands have "strings" dangling from then every few feet across? Those bands are Reefing bands. (Excuse my terminology if I get something a little off; it's been ages since I've talked about this in my living history group.) And those "strings" are Reefing Points: pieces of line (rope) that run through grommets in the sail so the line dangles on the fore and aft sides of the sail.

Those are used to reef, or "shorten sail" so the ship can keep some sail rather than furling the whole sail and leaving the yard "bare". You heave in the sail just as R described until you reach one of the reefing bands. (Some large sails such as the topgallant can have upwards of three reefing bands. The captain will determine just how much sail he wants to leave out, and that determines which reefing band you'll use.)

Once you have the reefing band at hand, those reefing points I mentioned are used to tie the sail around the yard; the line is tied off with a square or "reef" knot (not a "granny" knot, which looks similar, but will slip loose). That's how you reef and tie off a sail. The captain would order sails reefed if the weather was turning harsh and carrying full sail would result in either a broken mast, snapped rigging, or worse. If things got really bad then all sails would be furled and the ship would continue under "bare poles"; the wind would be strong enough that the rigging would catch enough of it to push the ship along. (But we're talking winds near hurricane force now.)

The captain could also order a sail – usually one of the forward, lower sails such as a lower topsail – to be "goose-winged". This is when the weather side of the sail (the side taking the brunt of the wind) would be completely furled, and the lee side (the part of the sail on the other side of the ship, where the mast and rigging would block some of the force) would be reefed; you had a triangular portion of a square sail exposed, so you weren't under bare poles. It offered a little more speed and that gave you a little more rudder control.

As for sluicing sails… I believe that's when buckets of water (and this would be sea water) are hauled up the mast and poured on the sails to wet them down. As most people are aware, a wet cloth will catch and hold the wind better than a dry one, and the same holds true for sails. During the War of 1812, in one engagement, the USS CONSTITUTION used this method to catch a little more wind and outrun a heavier armed British warship. (I believe Onedin used this trick in an episode or two to overtake another ship.)

Dino.

—–Original Message—–
From: Lee Bonnifield <lee78@localnet.com>
To: shiponedingroup <shiponedingroup@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wed, May 1, 2013 10:56 pm
Subject: Re: [shiponedingroup] Re: Onedin Polls

I'm not clear on what you do up there — raise the
bottom edge of square sails (reef)? tie it (with what?) to yard
(dictionary says sailor rolls it up hence he's called "reefer".) Untie
it? And why sluice sails S?N? ?

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[ivaradi]

Reefing a square sail was back in the days when topsails and topgallants were single sails and very large, it wasn't an efficient way to reduce sail requiring reefing tackles and lots of men going aloft to tie the reef points. Common sense and practicality eventually prevailed and both sails were divided into uppers and lowers particularly on really tall ships with double t'gallants, mostly it was the topsails that got divided, the whole upper yard being able to slide up and down it's section of mast (see Sorlandet photo and the crew having finised the upper topsail and climbing straight down to help on the lower topsail), most of the work being done from the deck and a much quicker way of reducing sail.
 
Goosewinging was I'm afraid to say, done the other way around. When running down wind or more likely with the wind on the quarter it was the windward side of the sail that was left full to catch the brunt of the wind and the leeward side simply clewed up because it was in the lee and flogging, it was not a practice done in particularly heavy weather, more the direction of wind. Modern yachts do it for the same reasons when sailing downwind, the mainsail goes one side and the headsail the other so as not to flog. There are old photos of square sails in a goose wing condition with the windward side clewed up and men on the yard reducing sail but that was an attempt at 'killing' the sail to allow them to furl it. I've been in that situation and can tell you the ballooned out winward end of the sail is like concrete and you can do nothing with it.
Please forgive me for taking you to task again, I'm not trying to be argumentative and it's all too easy to fall out by email but reef points were never tied around spars, they still aren't, the grommets and usually triangular patches they are sewn into simply aren't man enough to take the strain of heavy weather, the whole reason for reducing sail.
In the case of reef points on square sails the sail was bunted up to the yard and the points were taken either side of the reduced canvas and around the boltrope along the top edge of the sail, not the yard, the reefing tackles would then pull the new head as taught as possible, the individual reef points then share the load with the boltrope.
Reefing square sails died out long before James' day!   
 
I don't think I would have liked going aloft on your Coast Guard cutter either, motor vessels have a much sharper roll, at least tallships rolled long but slow! Did you ever serve under Capt.Cassidy on the US barque 'Eagle' by any chance? He was my captain onboard the four mast barque 'Sea Cloud' in the Med.
 
Richard
 

— On Thu, 2/5/13, LambuLambu@aol.com <LambuLambu@aol.com> wrote:

From: LambuLambu@aol.com <LambuLambu@aol.com>
Subject: Re: [shiponedingroup] Re: Onedin Polls
To: shiponedingroup@yahoogroups.com
Date: Thursday, 2 May, 2013, 16:14

 

"R" sent a very detailed reply on what going aloft is like. I'm just glad I never had to do that in my Coast Guard career, other than to work on a wonky radar pedestal, and even that was a bit of a trial when the Cutter was rolling (and as I got older I found that I could no longer handle heights!). But there was one thing in R's reply I didn't see: Reefing sail.

Have you ever noticed those horizontal bands on a square sail, and how those bands have "strings" dangling from then every few feet across? Those bands are Reefing bands. (Excuse my terminology if I get something a little off; it's been ages since I've talked about this in my living history group.) And those "strings" are Reefing Points: pieces of line (rope) that run through grommets in the sail so the line dangles on the fore and aft sides of the sail.

Those are used to reef, or "shorten sail" so the ship can keep some sail rather than furling the whole sail and leaving the yard "bare". You heave in the sail just as R described until you reach one of the reefing bands. (Some large sails such as the topgallant can have upwards of three reefing bands. The captain will determine just how much sail he wants to leave out, and that determines which reefing band you'll use.)

Once you have the reefing band at hand, those reefing points I mentioned are used to tie the sail around the yard; the line is tied off with a square or "reef" knot (not a "granny" knot, which looks similar, but will slip loose). That's how you reef and tie off a sail. The captain would order sails reefed if the weather was turning harsh and carrying full sail would result in either a broken mast, snapped rigging, or worse. If things got really bad then all sails would be furled and the ship would continue under "bare poles"; the wind would be strong enough that the rigging would catch enough of it to push the ship along. (But we're talking winds near hurricane force now.)

The captain could also order a sail – usually one of the forward, lower sails such as a lower topsail – to be "goose-winged". This is when the weather side of the sail (the side taking the brunt of the wind) would be completely furled, and the lee side (the part of the sail on the other side of the ship, where the mast and rigging would block some of the force) would be reefed; you had a triangular portion of a square sail exposed, so you weren't under bare poles. It offered a little more speed and that gave you a little more rudder control.

As for sluicing sails… I believe that's when buckets of water (and this would be sea water) are hauled up the mast and poured on the sails to wet them down. As most people are aware, a wet cloth will catch and hold the wind better than a dry one, and the same holds true for sails. During the War of 1812, in one engagement, the USS CONSTITUTION used this method to catch a little more wind and outrun a heavier armed British warship. (I believe Onedin used this trick in an episode or two to overtake another ship.)

Dino.

—–Original Message—–
From: Lee Bonnifield <lee78@localnet.com>
To: shiponedingroup <shiponedingroup@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wed, May 1, 2013 10:56 pm
Subject: Re: [shiponedingroup] Re: Onedin Polls

I'm not clear on what you do up there — raise the
bottom edge of square sails (reef)? tie it (with what?) to yard
(dictionary says sailor rolls it up hence he's called "reefer".) Untie
it? And why sluice sails S?N? ?

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[leebonnifield]

Thanks Richard & Dino for the descriptions of work aloft & the photos!
I'd rather navigate. Even with modern safety equipment it sounds
extremely dangerous. Not to mention the weight of the sail you're
pulling up and the difficulty of grabbing it when it is full of wind.

I just spotted what may be gaskets(?) 19 min 31 seconds in to S6N6 The
Reverend's Daughter . I think that's a fore&aft sail, so nobody would go
aloft to shorten it, but I suppose they're still used to tie it at
varying extensions.

Yes, the context of sluicing S?N? was James trying to get more speed
(did he EVER want less?) by hauling buckets of seawater aloft and
throwing the water on the sails.

[galacticprobe]

Richard,

Let me start off by saying that I'm the first one to say "I stand corrected" when I make a mistake, so worry not about "falling out" by e-mail. (As I mentioned, it has been some years since I was active in my living history group, so some of my info has gotten a little cloudy.) Once you started in about where the reefing points were tied off to and which side of a sail was goosewinged, I pulled a Homer Simpson… "DOH!"… and promptly had the heel of my hand make contact with my forehead. To be fair, I talked mainly at the Navigation Display – qualified underway Quartermaster of the Watch, which as an Electronics Tech was an accomplishment – helped me out there. I also did the Small Arms display (OJT for that one), and I developed a Ship's Carpenter display, again learning it all OJT while restoring an old wooden skiff for one of our local historic houses: accumulated a lot of period tools to work with, too. That was fun! (Seriously, it was.)

I rarely stood by at the Rigs and Rigging Display (which also dealt with sail-handling), but back then I knew that stuff. But as they say, 'if you don't use it, you lose it'. So I haven't "completely" lost the bit on sail-handling, but I have gotten cloudy and I do thank you for clearing up my misinformation, and for refreshing my memory. The other three Displays I worked I did so much they're ingrained in me and I doubt I'll forget those. 😉

Coast Guard Cutters – at least the ones from the mid 1980s on – are top-heavy, and to coin a phrase, "roll like pigs". More aptly, they ride like a Styrofoam cup in a jacuzzi! They have "stabilizer fins" at the bilge keel to counteract the rolling, but all they do is turn what would be a smooth rolling into a 'whipping' action, so the ride is even worse. I was on the CGC Harriet Lane during The Perfect Storm and we got the crap knocked out of us. Then in August 2004 when I was on CGC Legare, just back in the Atlantic from coming through the Panama Canal, with the seas at an 8-foot chop we rolled so badly that it threw my back out and I ended up having lower back surgery which haunted me from then on, leading to a series of ER visits, a second surgery in mid 2010 after my back slipped out again, this time causing sciatic nerve damage, which finally forced my retirement in Feb 2011 (and a third surgery about a year later, and things are still not right).

Now my buoy tender (vintage 1940s) that I was on in the early 1980s didn't have those fins, and she rode so much better even though she rolled quite a bit (round, pig belly hull with an ice-breaking bow). Aboard her we found and placed a wreck buoy at the MARINE ELECTRIC when she went down in a storm. It would be more correct to say the M E found us. It was the middle of the night and we could see the shape of a broken hull on the depth sounder chart recorder, and on a final pass to make sure, the M E's mooring line drifted up and caught us by our screw. Brought us to a screeching halt and held us there until we could get divers to cut the line from our screw later that day. (The divers also confirmed the wreck was the MARINE ELECTRIC, and not another ship.) Now that was creepy: looking off our stern and seeing a heavy line disappearing into the water knowing that 120 feet down at the other end was a 600-or-so-foot cargo ship that had sunk only a day or so before taking 31 of her 34-man crew with her.

I never got to sail aboard EAGLE, though before my tour on LEGARE I was Fleet Support for the AN/SPS-73 Radar and spent many hours (and days) aboard EAGLE repairing her radar. (During OpSail 2000 in Norfolk, VA, my wedding ring ended up inside EAGLE's radar somehow, and they still haven't found it!) I spent all of OpSail aboard her trying to get that radar working. Again just before I went to LEGARE I was aboard EAGLE in New London, CT for a week in May 2003 giving her radar a full going over because she was on her way to the Med for several months. That was way after CAPT Cassidy was the CO, though (1972-1973). The COs when I worked on her radar were CAPT Ivan Luke (OpSail), and CAPT Eric Shaw, who had just taken command from Luke in 2003, though as an enlisted guy like I was, their first names were always "Captain"! And that CO info comes from the CG Historian's web site: http://www.uscg.mil/history/webcutters/eagle_1946.asp

Dino.

—–Original Message—–
From: R <advcour@btinternet.com>
To: shiponedingroup <shiponedingroup@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thu, May 2, 2013 2:35 pm
Subject: Re: [shiponedingroup] Re: Onedin Polls

Reefing a square sail was back in the days when topsails and topgallants were single sails and very large, it wasn't an efficient way to reduce sail requiring reefing tackles and lots of men going aloft to tie the reef points. Common sense and practicality eventually prevailed and both sails were divided into uppers and lowers particularly on really tall ships with double t'gallants, mostly it was the topsails that got divided, the whole upper yard being able to slide up and down it's section of mast (see Sorlandet photo and the crew having finised the upper topsail and climbing straight down to help on the lower topsail), most of the work being done from the deck and a much quicker way of reducing sail.

Goosewinging was I'm afraid to say, done the other way around. When running down wind or more likely with the wind on the quarter it was the windward side of the sail that was left full to catch the brunt of the wind and the leeward side simply clewed up because it was in the lee and flogging, it was not a practice done in particularly heavy weather, more the direction of wind. Modern yachts do it for the same reasons when sailing downwind, the mainsail goes one side and the headsail the other so as not to flog. There are old photos of square sails in a goose wing condition with the windward side clewed up and men on the yard reducing sail but that was an attempt at 'killing' the sail to allow them to furl it. I've been in that situation and can tell you the ballooned out winward end of the sail is like concrete and you can do nothing with it.
Please forgive me for taking you to task again, I'm not trying to be argumentative and it's all too easy to fall out by email but reef points were never tied around spars, they still aren't, the grommets and usually triangular patches they are sewn into simply aren't man enough to take the strain of heavy weather, the whole reason for reducing sail.
In the case of reef points on square sails the sail was bunted up to the yard and the points were taken either side of the reduced canvas and around the boltrope along the top edge of the sail, not the yard, the reefing tackles would then pull the new head as taught as possible, the individual reef points then share the load with the boltrope.
Reefing square sails died out long before James' day!

I don't think I would have liked going aloft on your Coast Guard cutter either, motor vessels have a much sharper roll, at least tallships rolled long but slow! Did you ever serve under Capt.Cassidy on the US barque 'Eagle' by any chance? He was my captain onboard the four mast barque 'Sea Cloud' in the Med.

Richard

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[galacticprobe]

No problem, Lee. that's what we're here for – to help people understand all things nautical (and of course, primarily, 'The Onedin Line').

You're right; fore-and-aft sails did/still do also have reefing bands and points, and no one had to go aloft to do the reefing when it was done. Notice how the reef bands are on the lower end of the sail. To shorten a fore-and-aft sail you just lower the gaff (the small boom at the top of the sail) and tie the reef points off at the bottom. That's what makes vessels like schooners easier for fewer people to handle. Theoretically all you need is one or two people per mast, plus one at the helm, a mate, and a captain (and a cook if you really don't want to "round robin" the job). So a three-masted schooner can operate with a crew of as little as 12-14, and they can work all masts simultaneously if necessary. A full-rigged ship (such as the CUTTY SARK) would take a crew upwards of 55 or more, and they'd be working one mast at a time.

And if I remember the episode in question correctly, James was chasing another ship down, gaining, and sluicing his sails to outrun even faster it before it entered someone's territorial waters. (Which didn't stop James anyway as I think he had to send his small boat into those territorial waters to get the person he was after.)

Dino.

—–Original Message—–
From: Lee Bonnifield <lee78@localnet.com>
To: shiponedingroup <shiponedingroup@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thu, May 2, 2013 8:57 pm
Subject: Re: [shiponedingroup] Re: Onedin Polls

Thanks Richard & Dino for the descriptions of work aloft & the photos!
I'd rather navigate. Even with modern safety equipment it sounds
extremely dangerous. Not to mention the weight of the sail you're
pulling up and the difficulty of grabbing it when it is full of wind.

I just spotted what may be gaskets(?) 19 min 31 seconds in to S6N6 The
Reverend's Daughter . I think that's a fore&aft sail, so nobody would go
aloft to shorten it, but I suppose they're still used to tie it at
varying extensions.

Yes, the context of sluicing S?N? was James trying to get more speed
(did he EVER want less?) by hauling buckets of seawater aloft and
throwing the water on the sails.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[pat.kitchener]

It was the evil Max Van Drader that James was after

—– Original Message —–
From: LambuLambu@aol.com
Sent: 03/05/13 07:05 AM
To: shiponedingroup@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [shiponedingroup] Re: Onedin Polls

No problem, Lee. that's what we're here for – to help people understand all things nautical (and of course, primarily, 'The Onedin Line').

You're right; fore-and-aft sails did/still do also have reefing bands and points, and no one had to go aloft to do the reefing when it was done. Notice how the reef bands are on the lower end of the sail. To shorten a fore-and-aft sail you just lower the gaff (the small boom at the top of the sail) and tie the reef points off at the bottom. That's what makes vessels like schooners easier for fewer people to handle. Theoretically all you need is one or two people per mast, plus one at the helm, a mate, and a captain (and a cook if you really don't want to "round robin" the job). So a three-masted schooner can operate with a crew of as little as 12-14, and they can work all masts simultaneously if necessary. A full-rigged ship (such as the CUTTY SARK) would take a crew upwards of 55 or more, and they'd be working one mast at a time.

And if I remember the episode in question correctly, James was chasing another ship down, gaining, and sluicing his sails to outrun even faster it before it entered someone's territorial waters. (Which didn't stop James anyway as I think he had to send his small boat into those territorial waters to get the person he was after.)

Dino.

—–Original Message—–
From: Lee Bonnifield < lee78%40localnet.com >
To: shiponedingroup < shiponedingroup%40yahoogroups.com >
Sent: Thu, May 2, 2013 8:57 pm
Subject: Re: [shiponedingroup] Re: Onedin Polls

Thanks Richard & Dino for the descriptions of work aloft & the photos!
I'd rather navigate. Even with modern safety equipment it sounds
extremely dangerous. Not to mention the weight of the sail you're
pulling up and the difficulty of grabbing it when it is full of wind.

I just spotted what may be gaskets(?) 19 min 31 seconds in to S6N6 The
Reverend's Daughter . I think that's a fore&aft sail, so nobody would go
aloft to shorten it, but I suppose they're still used to tie it at
varying extensions.

Yes, the context of sluicing S?N? was James trying to get more speed
(did he EVER want less?) by hauling buckets of seawater aloft and
throwing the water on the sails.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[ivaradi]

Hey Dino, that's okay, I wouldn't know how to switch on half of all that electronic stuff you know about let alone use it, I still use a sextant and a leadline primed with tallow! It's each to their own and mine is them thar old ways, ha-harr Jim Lad.
I bet you miss it all as much as I do but whatever ships we sailed in we're still sons of the sea.
Interesting to note you know the Eagle, I picked up the handbook they issue to all raw recruits, 'Eagle Seamanship', very useful point of reference for sailing a square rigger in modern times. I used to keep in touch with Ed Cassidy (but yes, his real name was always Captain or Sir!), he retired to Naples Fla. He was liked very much by most of the crew. I joined Sea Cloud in Livorno, Italy as Rigger but within two weeks one of the three mast captains, or watch leaders, left the ship and guess who he gave the post to! Bit of a shame really as it meant a lot more responsibility but it also meant I learned every aspect of handling a big ship, as well as the 8 men in my watch.
 
I too have experienced the styrofoam/jacuzzi scenario you talk about, I've been through some rough stuff, 11 touching 12, always open ocean and with masts and sails to steady her but I've never been so frightened as when delivering a new 40ft line handling tug in the Med. Spain to Libya. A constant force 8 for three days and nights had built up a very nasty sea, very short and steep, that's the trouble with enclosed waters, I believe the Great Lakes suffer the same? and tugs are designed for harbour use! We arrived in Grand Harbour, Valletta and I thanked every deity on Earth and vowed never to go to sea again! But, you know all too well if there's salt in your veins you can't ever give it up completely, with or without illness to cope with, I'm currently laid up shoreside recovering from broken ribs and a punctured lung after falling from a ladder getting my canoe off the garage roof! All those times aloft without a scratch and I fall off a
ladder!!
I believe you regarding enjoying the skiff restoration, I am a boatbuilder too, City & Guilds bronze medalist 1979 from Falmouth college in Cornwall (it was whilst there I blagged my way on to the Onedin Line), currently building a 33ft steel Tahitiana, a version of John Hanna's Tahiti Ketch although mine is gaff cutter rigged, in the workshop a 14ft stich and glue plywood open canoe taking shape and on a trailer at the front of the house picked up for a song a very pretty vintage American designed glassfibre bilge keeler, a Signet20, designed in the early 60's by Ray Kaufman. I sometimes wonder if I will ever get afloat again!
 
Regards,
Richard.  
 

— On Fri, 3/5/13, LambuLambu@aol.com <LambuLambu@aol.com> wrote:

From: LambuLambu@aol.com <LambuLambu@aol.com>
Subject: Re: [shiponedingroup] Re: Onedin Polls
To: shiponedingroup@yahoogroups.com
Date: Friday, 3 May, 2013, 6:49

 

Richard,

Let me start off by saying that I'm the first one to say "I stand corrected" when I make a mistake, so worry not about "falling out" by e-mail. (As I mentioned, it has been some years since I was active in my living history group, so some of my info has gotten a little cloudy.) Once you started in about where the reefing points were tied off to and which side of a sail was goosewinged, I pulled a Homer Simpson… "DOH!"… and promptly had the heel of my hand make contact with my forehead. To be fair, I talked mainly at the Navigation Display – qualified underway Quartermaster of the Watch, which as an Electronics Tech was an accomplishment – helped me out there. I also did the Small Arms display (OJT for that one), and I developed a Ship's Carpenter display, again learning it all OJT while restoring an old wooden skiff for one of our local historic houses: accumulated a lot of period tools to work with, too. That was fun! (Seriously, it was.)

I rarely stood by at the Rigs and Rigging Display (which also dealt with sail-handling), but back then I knew that stuff. But as they say, 'if you don't use it, you lose it'. So I haven't "completely" lost the bit on sail-handling, but I have gotten cloudy and I do thank you for clearing up my misinformation, and for refreshing my memory. The other three Displays I worked I did so much they're ingrained in me and I doubt I'll forget those. 😉

Coast Guard Cutters – at least the ones from the mid 1980s on – are top-heavy, and to coin a phrase, "roll like pigs". More aptly, they ride like a Styrofoam cup in a jacuzzi! They have "stabilizer fins" at the bilge keel to counteract the rolling, but all they do is turn what would be a smooth rolling into a 'whipping' action, so the ride is even worse. I was on the CGC Harriet Lane during The Perfect Storm and we got the crap knocked out of us. Then in August 2004 when I was on CGC Legare, just back in the Atlantic from coming through the Panama Canal, with the seas at an 8-foot chop we rolled so badly that it threw my back out and I ended up having lower back surgery which haunted me from then on, leading to a series of ER visits, a second surgery in mid 2010 after my back slipped out again, this time causing sciatic nerve damage, which finally forced my retirement in Feb 2011 (and a third surgery about a year later, and things are still not right).

Now my buoy tender (vintage 1940s) that I was on in the early 1980s didn't have those fins, and she rode so much better even though she rolled quite a bit (round, pig belly hull with an ice-breaking bow). Aboard her we found and placed a wreck buoy at the MARINE ELECTRIC when she went down in a storm. It would be more correct to say the M E found us. It was the middle of the night and we could see the shape of a broken hull on the depth sounder chart recorder, and on a final pass to make sure, the M E's mooring line drifted up and caught us by our screw. Brought us to a screeching halt and held us there until we could get divers to cut the line from our screw later that day. (The divers also confirmed the wreck was the MARINE ELECTRIC, and not another ship.) Now that was creepy: looking off our stern and seeing a heavy line disappearing into the water knowing that 120 feet down at the other end was a 600-or-so-foot cargo ship that had sunk only a day or
so before taking 31 of her 34-man crew with her.

I never got to sail aboard EAGLE, though before my tour on LEGARE I was Fleet Support for the AN/SPS-73 Radar and spent many hours (and days) aboard EAGLE repairing her radar. (During OpSail 2000 in Norfolk, VA, my wedding ring ended up inside EAGLE's radar somehow, and they still haven't found it!) I spent all of OpSail aboard her trying to get that radar working. Again just before I went to LEGARE I was aboard EAGLE in New London, CT for a week in May 2003 giving her radar a full going over because she was on her way to the Med for several months. That was way after CAPT Cassidy was the CO, though (1972-1973). The COs when I worked on her radar were CAPT Ivan Luke (OpSail), and CAPT Eric Shaw, who had just taken command from Luke in 2003, though as an enlisted guy like I was, their first names were always "Captain"! And that CO info comes from the CG Historian's web site: http://www.uscg.mil/history/webcutters/eagle_1946.asp

Dino.

—–Original Message—–
From: R <advcour@btinternet.com>
To: shiponedingroup <shiponedingroup@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thu, May 2, 2013 2:35 pm
Subject: Re: [shiponedingroup] Re: Onedin Polls

Reefing a square sail was back in the days when topsails and topgallants were single sails and very large, it wasn't an efficient way to reduce sail requiring reefing tackles and lots of men going aloft to tie the reef points. Common sense and practicality eventually prevailed and both sails were divided into uppers and lowers particularly on really tall ships with double t'gallants, mostly it was the topsails that got divided, the whole upper yard being able to slide up and down it's section of mast (see Sorlandet photo and the crew having finised the upper topsail and climbing straight down to help on the lower topsail), most of the work being done from the deck and a much quicker way of reducing sail.

Goosewinging was I'm afraid to say, done the other way around. When running down wind or more likely with the wind on the quarter it was the windward side of the sail that was left full to catch the brunt of the wind and the leeward side simply clewed up because it was in the lee and flogging, it was not a practice done in particularly heavy weather, more the direction of wind. Modern yachts do it for the same reasons when sailing downwind, the mainsail goes one side and the headsail the other so as not to flog. There are old photos of square sails in a goose wing condition with the windward side clewed up and men on the yard reducing sail but that was an attempt at 'killing' the sail to allow them to furl it. I've been in that situation and can tell you the ballooned out winward end of the sail is like concrete and you can do nothing with it.
Please forgive me for taking you to task again, I'm not trying to be argumentative and it's all too easy to fall out by email but reef points were never tied around spars, they still aren't, the grommets and usually triangular patches they are sewn into simply aren't man enough to take the strain of heavy weather, the whole reason for reducing sail.
In the case of reef points on square sails the sail was bunted up to the yard and the points were taken either side of the reduced canvas and around the boltrope along the top edge of the sail, not the yard, the reefing tackles would then pull the new head as taught as possible, the individual reef points then share the load with the boltrope.
Reefing square sails died out long before James' day!

I don't think I would have liked going aloft on your Coast Guard cutter either, motor vessels have a much sharper roll, at least tallships rolled long but slow! Did you ever serve under Capt.Cassidy on the US barque 'Eagle' by any chance? He was my captain onboard the four mast barque 'Sea Cloud' in the Med.

Richard

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[galacticprobe]

That's right! The conniving Max van der Rheede (van der Rayda). Thanks, Pat!

I was actually hoping they would catch that snake earlier in the episode so we could see him thrown in prison for everything, including the White Slave Trade – after Onedin and his clan rescued the girl van der Rheede sold to a slaver while trying to cover his tracks. We know van der Rheede went to prison, but the rest of that story was left open-ended so my imagination says they did rescue the girl (she'd written a letter to "Mrs." Onedin (thinking it was still Letty) spilling the beans on van der Rheede, so they'd have a return address to track her down).

Aside from that ambiguous ending, my only complaint about Series 8 is that it really needed that final, 10th episode to round things off. They could have finished the series so much better with just one more episode. (It was – and still is – so popular that I'm surprised they made only nine, and not ten as they had from Series 4 on.)

But maybe that's just me.

Dino.

—–Original Message—–
From: Pat Kitchener <patk100@gmx.co.uk>
To: shiponedingroup <shiponedingroup@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Mon, May 13, 2013 5:39 pm
Subject: Re: [shiponedingroup] Re: Onedin Polls

It was the evil Max Van Drader that James was after

—– Original Message —–
From: LambuLambu@aol.com
Sent: 03/05/13 07:05 AM
To: shiponedingroup@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [shiponedingroup] Re: Onedin Polls

No problem, Lee. that's what we're here for – to help people understand all things nautical (and of course, primarily, 'The Onedin Line').

You're right; fore-and-aft sails did/still do also have reefing bands and points, and no one had to go aloft to do the reefing when it was done. Notice how the reef bands are on the lower end of the sail. To shorten a fore-and-aft sail you just lower the gaff (the small boom at the top of the sail) and tie the reef points off at the bottom. That's what makes vessels like schooners easier for fewer people to handle. Theoretically all you need is one or two people per mast, plus one at the helm, a mate, and a captain (and a cook if you really don't want to "round robin" the job). So a three-masted schooner can operate with a crew of as little as 12-14, and they can work all masts simultaneously if necessary. A full-rigged ship (such as the CUTTY SARK) would take a crew upwards of 55 or more, and they'd be working one mast at a time.

And if I remember the episode in question correctly, James was chasing another ship down, gaining, and sluicing his sails to outrun even faster it before it entered someone's territorial waters. (Which didn't stop James anyway as I think he had to send his small boat into those territorial waters to get the person he was after.)

Dino.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[lobsanghoskins]

Why no Episode 10?

I worked (Music Adviser) on the last series of the show and can offer some insights into this. The fact is that there was only just a Series 8. BBC Drama (Series and Serials) were very reluctant to commission the last series; they thought that the show had run its course. One problem was that the producer, Geraint Morris, was already thinking about his next commissioned show (King's Royal), and was also working on a new series that was going to showcase Jessica Bentham – The Heywood Files. The Heywood Files went all the way through the commissioning process (I was listed to write the music) before being shot down at the very last moment. At best, Geraint was phoning it in on The Onedin Line's last series, and frequently said so.

Series 8 was not a happy show. Geraint Morris and veteran director Gerry Blake had a simmering feud at best, fueled largely by Geraint's shameless nepotism and Welsh-centricity; by Series 8, the language of the control gallery was most emphatically Welsh, with the producer, half the directors, half the DA's (one was Geraint's nephew) and the Production Manager leaping into Celtic-language titters at every opportunity, to the snarling fury of all around them (and I write as a Gaelic speaker).  Meanwhile, the script editor (Mervyn Haisman) was driving the show further and further into soap opera, to the horror of the standing cast. Merv the Scribe (as we called him, more or less affectionately) actually drafted an Episode 10 for Series 8, but it had so many insane plot twists and character implausibilities that it was put down long before it could be produced.

At the end of the very last dub of the very last show, just after Peter had intoned "I've got a son," Gerry Blake turned to me and the Sound Manager and said "Thank God that's over. If we tried to make another series of this thing, someone would get hurt." We then all went and got very, very drunk.

Bill Scanlan Murphy

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[ivaradi]

Ha! So that's why my suggestion of another series titled 'Son/Grandson of Onedin' (managing a shipping line of 'stinkpots' but hankering to bring back sail) with yours truly playing the lead fell on deaf ears at the last night party? Wish I'd known affecting a Welsh accent/parentage might have made some difference……..
 
Richard.  

— On Tue, 14/5/13, William Murphy <lobsanghoskins@yahoo.com> wrote:

From: William Murphy <lobsanghoskins@yahoo.com>
Subject: [shiponedingroup] Re: Onedin Polls
To: "shiponedingroup@yahoogroups.com" <shiponedingroup@yahoogroups.com>
Date: Tuesday, 14 May, 2013, 13:21

 

Why no Episode 10?

I worked (Music Adviser) on the last series of the show and can offer some insights into this. The fact is that there was only just a Series 8. BBC Drama (Series and Serials) were very reluctant to commission the last series; they thought that the show had run its course. One problem was that the producer, Geraint Morris, was already thinking about his next commissioned show (King's Royal), and was also working on a new series that was going to showcase Jessica Bentham – The Heywood Files. The Heywood Files went all the way through the commissioning process (I was listed to write the music) before being shot down at the very last moment. At best, Geraint was phoning it in on The Onedin Line's last series, and frequently said so.

Series 8 was not a happy show. Geraint Morris and veteran director Gerry Blake had a simmering feud at best, fueled largely by Geraint's shameless nepotism and Welsh-centricity; by Series 8, the language of the control gallery was most emphatically Welsh, with the producer, half the directors, half the DA's (one was Geraint's nephew) and the Production Manager leaping into Celtic-language titters at every opportunity, to the snarling fury of all around them (and I write as a Gaelic speaker).  Meanwhile, the script editor (Mervyn Haisman) was driving the show further and further into soap opera, to the horror of the standing cast. Merv the Scribe (as we called him, more or less affectionately) actually drafted an Episode 10 for Series 8, but it had so many insane plot twists and character implausibilities that it was put down long before it could be produced.

At the end of the very last dub of the very last show, just after Peter had intoned "I've got a son," Gerry Blake turned to me and the Sound Manager and said "Thank God that's over. If we tried to make another series of this thing, someone would get hurt." We then all went and got very, very drunk.

Bill Scanlan Murphy

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[galacticprobe]

Whoa. Sounds like there was also a "soap opera" going on behind the scenes. Thanks for the insight. You're the only other person involved with the Series that I've ever corresponded with. The other was Michael Billington. He was a great guy and seemed to love answering e-mails from fans. We e-mailed back and forth (about TOL and 'UFO') from about 2000 until his untimely passing in about 2005.

Anyway, about TOL… I wasn't thinking there should have been a Series 9; I just thought Series 8 needed that 10th episode to wrap up some loose ends. They certainly left the triangle between Samuel, Charlotte, and Samuel's new obnoxious American wife Caroline unresolved. (By the way, I'm also American, but not the obnoxious kind: no "Waldorf Salad" here!) Samuel seemed to be growing weary of Caroline's "holier than thou" personality and ambitions, and realizing that he really did have feelings for Charlotte, and the two of them seemed to be growing closer while Samuel and Caroline were growing apart.

And maybe it's just me being a sucker for happy endings (because reality sucks and doesn't always have happy endings), but I just couldn't see any reason why they made Elizabeth a widow again, having Daniel Fogarty die in a wreck at sea. If I correctly remember the message she received, it was said after the collision and sinking, they didn't think there were any survivors. That was left hanging as well as the Sam-Charlotte-Caroline triangle. And an Episode 10 could have resolved both of those. Daniel could have been found alive and adrift and brought home; Samuel could have divorced the obnoxious Caroline and remarried Charlotte; and we could have at least gotten a glimpse of James' son. (Happy endings for all: that would have been a good way to go out.)

Just me.

Dino.

—–Original Message—–
From: William Murphy <lobsanghoskins@yahoo.com>
To: shiponedingroup <shiponedingroup@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tue, May 14, 2013 8:21 am
Subject: [shiponedingroup] Re: Onedin Polls

Why no Episode 10?

I worked (Music Adviser) on the last series of the show and can offer some insights into this. The fact is that there was only just a Series 8. BBC Drama (Series and Serials) were very reluctant to commission the last series; they thought that the show had run its course. One problem was that the producer, Geraint Morris, was already thinking about his next commissioned show (King's Royal), and was also working on a new series that was going to showcase Jessica Bentham – The Heywood Files. The Heywood Files went all the way through the commissioning process (I was listed to write the music) before being shot down at the very last moment. At best, Geraint was phoning it in on The Onedin Line's last series, and frequently said so.

Series 8 was not a happy show. Geraint Morris and veteran director Gerry Blake had a simmering feud at best, fueled largely by Geraint's shameless nepotism and Welsh-centricity; by Series 8, the language of the control gallery was most emphatically Welsh, with the producer, half the directors, half the DA's (one was Geraint's nephew) and the Production Manager leaping into Celtic-language titters at every opportunity, to the snarling fury of all around them (and I write as a Gaelic speaker). Meanwhile, the script editor (Mervyn Haisman) was driving the show further and further into soap opera, to the horror of the standing cast. Merv the Scribe (as we called him, more or less affectionately) actually drafted an Episode 10 for Series 8, but it had so many insane plot twists and character implausibilities that it was put down long before it could be produced.

At the end of the very last dub of the very last show, just after Peter had intoned "I've got a son," Gerry Blake turned to me and the Sound Manager and said "Thank God that's over. If we tried to make another series of this thing, someone would get hurt." We then all went and got very, very drunk.

Bill Scanlan Murphy

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[liamegan2000]

Bill,

Years ago I remember a BBC radio interview with Cyril Abraham, in which he
mentioned that he had intended to write the story of the shipping line right
up to the (then) present day which was the 20th century.

There's mention of this on the wikipedia page
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Onedin_Line.

I always wondered if any of the 20th century story was ever written down
anywhere?

Bill.

—– Original Message —–
From: "William Murphy" <lobsanghoskins@yahoo.com>
To: <shiponedingroup@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, May 14, 2013 1:21 PM
Subject: [shiponedingroup] Re: Onedin Polls

Why no Episode 10?

I worked (Music Adviser) on the last series of the show and can offer some
insights into this. The fact is that there was only just a Series 8. BBC
Drama (Series and Serials) were very reluctant to commission the last
series; they thought that the show had run its course. One problem was that
the producer, Geraint Morris, was already thinking about his next
commissioned show (King's Royal), and was also working on a new series that
was going to showcase Jessica Bentham – The Heywood Files. The Heywood Files
went all the way through the commissioning process (I was listed to write
the music) before being shot down at the very last moment. At best, Geraint
was phoning it in on The Onedin Line's last series, and frequently said so.

Series 8 was not a happy show. Geraint Morris and veteran director Gerry
Blake had a simmering feud at best, fueled largely by Geraint's shameless
nepotism and Welsh-centricity; by Series 8, the language of the control
gallery was most emphatically Welsh, with the producer, half the directors,
half the DA's (one was Geraint's nephew) and the Production Manager leaping
into Celtic-language titters at every opportunity, to the snarling fury of
all around them (and I write as a Gaelic speaker). Meanwhile, the script
editor (Mervyn Haisman) was driving the show further and further into soap
opera, to the horror of the standing cast. Merv the Scribe (as we called
him, more or less affectionately) actually drafted an Episode 10 for Series
8, but it had so many insane plot twists and character implausibilities that
it was put down long before it could be produced.

At the end of the very last dub of the very last show, just after Peter had
intoned "I've got a son," Gerry Blake turned to me and the Sound Manager and
said "Thank God that's over. If we tried to make another series of this
thing, someone would get hurt." We then all went and got very, very drunk.

Bill Scanlan Murphy

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

————————————

Website about the Onedin Line
http://www.sound-research.co.uk/onedin_line.htm Yahoo! Groups Links

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