"Question about studding sails" Topic

Another question for our ship-rigging experts:

Looking through paintings and photos showing ships under studding sail, sometimes the stud sails seem to be rigged in front of the 'normal' set of sails sails, and sometimes behind. (i.e. if viewed from the front, sometimes the 'normal' sails overlap the studding sails, but sometimes it's vice versa.)

Is there any rhyme or reason dictating this positioning?

Also, is there a proper term for what I'm calling the 'normal' sail set?

Thanks in advance!

is there a proper term for what I'm calling the 'normal' sail set?

All plain sail.

As for the studding sails, I suspect the positioning of the booms was purely arbitrary, depending on the individual ship's designer. Much of 18th and 19th Century naval architecture was "rule of thumb".

My understanding is stud sails were slung in front of the plain sail. Most of the drawings I have seen, especially the ones in Chapelle's books show the boom rigged for fore slinging. It would involve a great deal of re-rigging to rotate them to the behind position, and there the stud sail would interfere with and prevent the reefing process of the plain sail, as well as with other rigging.

Alternatively (don't you just love this period), Jean Boudriot advises in his books on the 74 gun ship that the booms are rigged abaft the mast to prevent eddies of wind coming off the stunsails and cause the principal sails to shiver. Overlapped to the rear, it presents the wind with a single surface to press against.

… and the majority of Geoff Hunt's paintings show them that way as well.

Very little was actually arbritary, although there were distinct national variation on practice. A ship designer would generally design the hull but rely on the 'Establishment' sizes for the masts and spars. These needed to standardised for logistical reasons.

An individual captain could complain and depending on amount of 'pull' could get something done (Pellew and the cut-down Indefatigable for example), but even there it was the standard sizes for another class of ship that he wanted, and got.

Mark Barker
The Inshore Squadron

Steel's contemporary reference book, 1794 edition is online.
link

It shows them rigged forward on British vessels. The description on rigging them up does not clearly state this was the case though. However, for English vessels of the period this is a good standard.

… and Falconer's Dictionary shows a starboard side view of the masts with them rigged to the rear.

Lennarth Petersson's "Rigging Period Ship Models", which is taken from a contemporary model of a British frigate where the rigging is believed to have survived in original condition just as clearly shows the starboard side rigged forward – what on earth is going on.

Off to the bible on these matters – John Harland's "Seamanship in the Age of Sail".

"A most important consideration was that the studdingsails should not interfere with the corresponding principal sail, and 'backwind' it, as a modern yachtsman would say. Thus the weather topmast and topgallant studdingsails were set abaft the weather leech of the topmast and topgallant sail. If set forward, the wind spilling out of the topmast studdingsail would strike the forward part of the topsail causing the leech to shake and the sail to work less well aerodynamically. In turn, if the lee studdingsails were to do any good at all, the were set ahead of the leeches of the respective principal sails.

He has a nice sketch of the proper set for studdingsails on the wind, with the weather sail set abaft and the lee sail set ahead of the topsail.

So the answer to the original question is "both" it depends on the direction of the wind !

For those that find the normal rigging plans and descriptions baffling it is hard to recommend Petersson's book too strongly. It has 1 page of text, the rest is simple, straightforward diagrams of each section of rigging in turn as you go through the rigging of a model.

For a modeller trying to get the look right in any scale it is simply invaluable – I use Rod and Carol's book on Painting and Rigging as the basis to work with and use Petersson to check when I'm unsure.

Mark Barker
The Inshore Squadron

Wow, thank you for the detailed answers. You are a treasure trove for this sort of thing

I second Mark's recommendation of Petersson's book. About as good as it gets for rigging. And if you're interested in the way things were done in this period, John Harland's "Seamanship in the Age of Sail" is, as Mark put it, the bible.

I was looking at getting Harland's book. It is to be reprinted shortly by USNI Press this fall. I guess it's a must have now.