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The runners are a two part arrangement. The upper portion is a wire, just like the rest of the standing rigging. A well angled shroud if you will. Attached to the bottom of this wire and also to the chain plate is the tackle portion of the runner. Yours would be a 3 or 4 part tackle. The tackle is slacked and the wire brought forward and tied to the shroud. It lives in this location most of the time. When it's needed, the runner is released from it's bindings and the tackle cinched up to relieve strain on the mast.



Attached is the hard chine, sloop version of your boat. It shows the starboard runner in both locations. Shown in gray is the runner when cinched up and in color is the runner when slacked out of the way, but ready to deploy if necessary. In reality, the tackle would be tied down if you didn't expect to need the runner, to prevent it fouling and flopping around.

OK, I see. I thought the lower end of the tackle would have a hook or a shackle attached to the main shroud chainplate while it was not needed and moved to its own one when tightened.

After doing some measuring and cussing at the calculator, I've realized that several things will need to change with the addition of topsails, fiddled or not. The extra area in the rig places ~40% more strain on the standing rig and spars. This is a result of the height and weight of the new area and spars. This pushes the safety margin into an uncomfortable zone. You could safely fly the tops, but if you hung one up just a little too long in building winds, you pay the price with a broken stick or a knock down.

She'll recover from a knock down without worry, but it's not something I think any skipper should experience if they don't have to. This leaves the possibility of broken spars. Increasing spar dimensions is a vicious circle of descending effectiveness, attempting to prevent this, so the other option is the standing rig. The foremast would need it's outer jib moved to the tree and the runner chain plate moved forward a few inches to accommodate the changes in the mainmast. The mainmast will need the swept lower shroud made vertical by moving it forward a few inches (where the fore runner chain plate used to live), putting the compression in column, then an additional shroud (much like the foremast) would be mounted a few inches aft of the previous chain plate location. This will serve to triangulate the mast in double lowers, keeping her in place without a lot of force (the key to good gaff rig design BTW).

The results of these rigging changes will permit the masts to tolerate free standing topmasts. The topsails would be Cornish style and I can't recommend jackyard topsails without additional standing rigging. Naturally, the topmasts will be sacrificial if you carry them too long with canvas on them, but this is cheaper then new masts or raising a sunken boat. How much is too much wind? Hell, I don't know, but 15 knots is the most you'd ever want to experience. You'll be rail down at that point and should have reefed the tops long before. If a 20 knot gust gets you, you might see the tops bend unmercifully and I would expect they wouldn't survive very long like this. So, plan on striking the tops at 10 to 12 knots, so you don't have to worry about breaking things high up in the rig. Having had to climb up into a rig to cut away broken and fouled gear, I can assure you, it's not something you want to do, no matter how nice a day it is (was).

Of course this would be in concert with the other changes to lower gaff angles, re-dimension the sails (including the jib), headstay changes, topmast and tree dimensions, etc.

Yes, I remember the talk we had regarding the sprit now. 20% stave thickness with the whiskers, 25% without. I don't suspect the sprit will be too effected by the topsails, as these are light air sails.

The addition of these topsails moves the SA/D from a comfortable 17 to almost 19.7, which puts into the very good light air ability column.

Sounds good  8)

Two questions, though (as always ): "The foremast would need it's outer jib moved to the tree" Do you mean stay, I only have one jib? And what do you mean with "tree"? You dropped me totally here.

Second one about the cornish topsail: if there are the fidded topmasts do I need the yard at all? I would prefer hoisting plain canvas without any lumber attached  ;D

Yes, I did mean outer stay, not jib.

The tree is the assembly of parts that make up the portion of the lower mast, that hold the topmast. In actually, the part the stay eye is moved to is called the mastcap and this is the piece that is attached to the masthead and has the upper hole for the topmast to pass through. The parts are: the top knee, which supports the top (often referred to as the fighting top in war ships), which is where the heel of the topmast stops (it passes through slightly, but is wedged tight), the cap which is described above and usually a cross tree is fitted above the cap if the standing rigging continues up. In this case, the standing rig terminates so a crosstree isn't required. The crosstree is the piece that gives the assembly it's name, if it's not being called a top or a fighting top. Yes, it get confusing.

Typically, a topsail flown on a fiddled stick would be furled in place vertically to the topmast. This requires a crew aloft to furl and unfurl. You could just hoist the topsail itself without the yard but it will not set as well, because the luff will be "free" and making it taunt from on deck would be difficult to say the least. This is the reason behind a hardened luff. The sail's leading edge is firm and taunt when it's hoisted, so you don't have to try to harden it from below. You could try it without the yard, but I'll bet you quickly elect to install one, as the luff will sag horribly to leeward without it. On the big racing schooners and sloops of the golden age, they were done both ways. The boats that didn't have a yard on the luff, had winches or at least a few crew members hanging on the tail end of the "leader" to harden it up as it was cleated.

Timo my tops had light yard to hold them.  They raised with no problem.  The stick also helps to prevent tangles going up and down.  Hold the down haul and the halyard to control the sail when raising or dousing and it is much easier control them.

Thanks Paul, that clarified it. I have a problem with sailing vocabulary, because some of the things I have only studied and read in English and I have problems finding the corresponding Finnish words. This is especially true for smaller gaff rigged vessels.

New racing style bermudian rigs are commonly used used and there is plenty of litterature about square riggers so the parts in the mast top are familiar to me in Finnish. But it took some time to find the names for gaff rig details and I am still not 100% certain how to name the sails of my schooner in Finnish  :

Timo, I've taken a look at some definitions and translations and your language is a tough one. You seem to have as many different ways to say "sail" as the gaff rig has different terms for the same things.

The terms used on gaffers are quite confusing at times. Most just use what they feel comfortable with. In Europe the terms are different then the USA, which compounds things. As for the names of the sails, it wouldn't be uncommon to number them and many skippers named them after children, girlfriends, etc.

(03-24-2010, 01:49 AM)Paul Riccelli PE,NA link Wrote: [ -> ]As for the names of the sails, it wouldn't be uncommon to number them and many skippers named them after children

That might be a good idea. As it happens, we have five children so there would be one sail for each. Even better, there are three of them who are adults and away from home already and two "little ones" still at home. That would be just like the three big working sails + the two tiny topsails  ;D

I prefer to name them after ex-lovers, this way when they're not drawing as well as they could be, I can feel justified in yelling at them and tossing them all sorts of profanity.