Both the fore and main topsails are pretty much identical in the way that they are rigged, so similar that we can discuss them both together. First off, since I delved into a description of how sails are bent (attached to their yards) in my previous blog entry about the spritsail, I will forego repeating much of that process in this and subsequent postings. And, further, bear in mind that a lot of the lines used to handle the sails are the same – so you will be seeing terms like “clewlines,” “buntlines” and “sheets” again and again as we go forth.

The lines of rigging such as these are appropriately prefaced by whichever sail is being discussed or handled, e.g. “spritsail clewlines” as opposed to “fore-topsail clewlines” or “main-topsail clewlines.” Clewlines all serve the same purpose regardless of which sail they are attached to; only the nomenclature changes. As with the spritsail, there are two basic functions of the topsails’ gear – lines used to douse the sail, spilling the wind so that it can be drawn back up to its yard for furling and lines that are used to set the sail so that it can catch the wind. Each of the two topsails has clewlines to draw the corners up to the yard and each one has two buntlines and two leechlines which draw up the bottom and sides, respectively.

In order to set the sail, the restraining clews, bunts and leeches are slackened and the sheets are lines attached to the clews and these pull the corners of the topsails out to large leadblocks at the ends of the next lower yards – in Mayflower’s case the fore and main yards. Once the sail is loose and the clews have been “sheeted-home” out to the ends of the lower yards, now is the time that the topsail yard must be hoisted aloft up the topmast.

The hoisting of these yards is done by crewmembers on deck, and it’s usually necessary for only one person to remain aloft in the working top while the topsail yard is going up; his or her duties would include making sure that nothing goes afoul as the yard goes up and to overhaul the buntlines, leechlines and the topsail yard lifts once the yard is raised up in place.

And speaking of the yard being hoisted, one interesting story goes back to the day in May, 1990 when we set the ship’s two new topsails for the first time. We fully expected to be able to raise the topsail yards up almost all the way to the topmast cross-trees. No such luck. Imagine our chagrin when the yards only went a little more than half-way the topmasts and then would go no further. What was the problem? It was a mystery to us so we decided to mull over the situation during coffee break across the street at Pebbles. As we sat there swilling java (and while Paul DiSalvatore enjoyed his customary ice cream cone for breakfast!) we reasoned out what was wrong.

There are two issues which affect the height to which the topsail yards can be raised and, luckily, both were things which could be fixed. First, the lower yards were not as high as they should’ve been and needed to be raised several feet each. Second, the tyes and runners (parts of the topsail yard halyards) were too long and needed to be shortened and adjusted. The ship’s natural hempen cordage does expand, contract and stretch and such was the case with these items of gear. It’s only conjecture but over several years the lines had stretched and when time came to replace them the new pieces of rigging were made the same length as the stretched-out old pieces, rather than being cut back to their proper length as specified in the rigging plans.

So the next day we went to work raising the fore and main yards up to their correct positions right at the point where the futtock shrouds are seized onto the lower shrouds. We didn’t bother using the truck to raise them; we used the capstan – the old-fashioned seagoing way – and it worked out quite well. After the lower yards were raised up we shortened up and adjusted the topsail yard tyes and runners.

All in all, this work took about a half a day. The next time we set the topsails, we were able to easily raise the yards almost all the way up the topmast cross-trees right where they were supposed to be – and right where they were shown on both the rigging plan and on the 1/2-inch to the foot scale model of Mayflower II which was built in the mid-1970’s by Erik A. R. Ronnberg, Jr. and which is on display in the Plantation Visitor’s Center.

I’d like to start off by discussing the spritsail, one of the smallest sails on Mayflower II, one that has a bare minimal amount of necessary running gear but, oddly enough, was the sail that in 1957 seemed to perplex Captain Villiers and his experienced Cape Horn officers the most; until they got used to experiment setting this sail it seemed very awkward to them. In actuality, it likely wasn’t the sail or its gear that was most confusing, but just how to trim the spritsail yard to make the most effective use of this sail.

The yard has a lot of confusing gear which controls it – lifts led out to the end of the bowsprit and braces originating from and leading back and forth to the forestay – and all these lines need to be handled in a relatively small, confined space in the beakhead where they are led and made fast to a pin rail just aft of the inboard bowsprit gammoning. As for bending the sail itself, the first step is usually to roll the sail up from its bottom to the top, leaving the bolt rope along the head (top edge) exposed.

Once rolled up, the sail can be temporarily tied up like this in roll along its length by twine. At this time (or prior) robands have been attached to cringles along the head of the sail. The robands are short, braided lines which will tie the sail securely to the yard. It is much easier to bend (attach) the spritsail when its yard has been lowered down into the beakhead, where the ends of the yards can be more easily reached. It can be done with the yard hauled out to its usual location beneath the forestay collar, but why not more easily bend the sail in the beak instead of having to walk out the sprit and have to work over the water having the various lines fed up and down by gantline?

Once the rolled-up sail and yard are in the beak it is a fairly simple matter to tie the precise centerline of the sail to the precise centerline of the yard. This method of bending sails to yards is pretty much the same for all of Mayflower’s sails. Once the center of the sail is secured to the yard, the ends (top corners) of the sail can be pulled out as far as possible to the ends of the yards. Lines called earrings are passed through a seized loop at the top corners of the sail and passed back and forth through holes in the ends of the yards.

Before making up the earrings permanently, the head bolt rope of the sail should be pulled taut along the yard using a small handy-billy or come-along, thus insuring there’ll be no sag between the roband cringles; the head of the sail should be pulled taut, no sag, and all the robands can be tied, well securing sail to yard, and the earrings can be made fast at the yard’s ends, port and starboard. From a practical standpoint the running rigging attached to the sprits’l is fairly simple. The lines can be considered in two categories – those that draw the sail up to the yard when it is to be furled and those lines used to draw the sail out and away from the yard when it is to be set.

The rigging plan for the vessel shows the sprits’l rigged with only one (centerline) buntline which is led over the forward side of the sail and draws the bottom of the sail up to the yard. There are also clewlines which originate on the yard, are led through a fairlead block at the clews of the sail, then up to other lead blocks tied to the yard, thence to the forward pinrail on the forecastle deck; the clewlines draw the two lower corners of the sail up to the yard.

Even though not shown on the rigging plan, when we rigged the sprits’l in 1990 for Mayflower’s first sail in 26 years we also added two leechlines to draw the leeches (vertical side edges) up to the yard, working in tandem with the single buntline. In order to set the sail all the clewlines, buntlines and leechlines are slacked away and the sail pretty much un-furls itself. To draw the sail fully out, there are lines attached to the clews called “sheets” - These are led aft from the lower corners of the sprits’l thru bullseye fairleads attached near the deadeyes of the after-most fore shrouds and then the sheets are made fast on the main deck abaft the forecastle bulkhead.

Once again, as mentioned in the opening paragraph above, the sprits’l and its gear really is not too complicated but, rather, it is the sprityard’s awkward gear – braces, lifts and halyard – which made setting the sail difficult when we first tried to master it back in 1990. But, after studying photos of the ship taken in 1957 and reading a few of Captain Villiers detailed accounts of handling the ship, it wasn’t long before we were able to efficiently set the sail for any wind conditions.

Here is the mizzen partner in all its glory. During this past winters Coast Guard inspection, it was noted we should (must?) replace the mizzen mast partner. Well, we are now, and of course it is a big job.

I’m working on this project. Jack is working on replacing some stanchions at the end of the half-deck. John Reed is working on rigging.  There’s a lot to see…..

A new contributor to the Captain’s Blog am I. A few brief words of introduction are necessary and then we’ll be clipping along smartly discussing Mayflower II.

I’m George Cushman, 40-something, a serious amateur photographer and self-professed Mayfloweraholic. I’ve been interested in the ship since my early childhood and my photographic endeavors have taken me to the ship hundreds of times to record her on film. I was a founding member of the “Friends of Mayflower II” group in 1989 and I was a crew-member on the ship when she was sailed in 1990, 1991 and 1992. Then, unfortunately, a pretty significant back injury sidelined my participation working on the ship and in the Marine shop as a volunteer. But since then, I’ve remained interested in the ship and what has been going with her and I have had the chance to extensively photograph her on many of her subsequent sailings.

I’ve known many members of the Marine Department over the past 30+ years and try to stay in touch with them the best that I can as my time allows, which isn’t as often as I’d really like to connect with them. I’ve known Peter for a bit over 20 years back to the days when he was commanding Plymouth-to-Provincetown whale watching vessels and the Plymouth Harbor tour boats American Eagle and Pilgrim Explorer. Now he has the responsibility of caring for Mayflower II and he and his fellow Maritime Artisans have been doing a fine job of it for at least 15 years now.

I am grateful to Peter for making available to me the opportunity to occasionally write about the ship as part of this blog. Over the past several weeks he has been giving an inside view of how the topmasts and yards are “shipped,” i.e. moved from the dock and put in place in their proper places in the rigging. His entries have been made while the actual process of re-rigging Mayflower II has been on-going for the coming 2008 season.

In the coming weeks, my entries will deal with the rigging pertaining to the ship’s sails – how they are bent, the lines which control them, and some of the differences in their rigging from Mr. Baker’s sail plan to the way they were set up for the 1957 crossing and the way they are rigged today. I hope that readers will find the entries informative and interesting; I’ll begin by discussing the forward-most sail, the spritsail, in my next entry. And please feel free to post any comments or questions if you have any. I will try to reply to and all questions if and when they come.

The previous post is courtesy Jack Pitney. He is a shipwright and boat builder in our department. One third of our workforce. He will be making blog postings off and on as well. Here’s a swell picture of him working this morning. We stepped the shallop mast and set up its rigging.

As we ride the wave of the future it’s fun to make fun of the past. They were so dumb back then. This is my favorite time of year, the visitors are returning and all the “jokes” are fresh and welcome, as daffodils, it is just another sign of Spring’s approach.

One of the best things about my job is that no matter what I’m doing on the Ship, if a friendly visitor interrupts my work, not only can I stop what I’m doing and take a break, I am obligated to do so. I get paid to slow down and talk about what I’m doing. I am not an interpreter of the 17th century, and although I wear a beard, I also have on a baseball cap and often sunglasses. In fact an observant person will see that of all the staff on board I am one of three people who’s job it is to maintain this 51 year-old vessel.

Like I said, I love to stop and talk. I am the type of self absorbed personality that wants to explain what I’m occupied by. I don’t however want to lift my head from my supremely important task for another self absorbed personality who thinks they’re god’s gift to comedy, but I get this a lot: “I didn’t know they had power tools back then.” I’m not one of “them.”I need to use power tools, this ship was built in the nineteen-fifties, and yes, power tools existed then.

Other than electricity however, the technology for working wood has changed very little. It’s all about the incline plane. Electricity gives me that much more advantage and speed to keep MII’s age from showing.

This is just a brief post because I wanted to share this photo of Mayflower II is Washington DC. the ship was there in the spring of 1958 just before she came back to Plymouth. The photo was sent to me by George Cushman. He lives nearby and is an avid collector of Mayflower II photographs. He is the person who last year sent me the photo of Mayflower II on the state pier in Plymouth in 1957 with the Mayflower Van lines trucks in the foreground.