Mainmast

“ If we attempt it, Sir, we shall lose them, for a man aloft can do nothing; besides their being down would ease the ship very little; the mainmast is a sprung mast; I wish it was overboard without carrying any thing else along with it; but that can soon be done, the gale cannot last for ever ”

“ Drawing near, I saw this for the mainmast of some noble ship but lately wrecked, wherefore I hasted along the beach and out upon the reef to see if haply any other wreckage had come ashore, but found nothing to reward my search. Returning to the mast I saw to my joy that this cordage was all new and sound, though woefully tangled. Howbeit I had soon unravelled some fifty yards of good stout twine, and abundance of more yet to hand together with the heavier ropes such as shrouds and back-stays. ”

“ Few if any need to be informed that the mizzen mast is the hindmost of the three masts of a ship. The mizzen mast of the Golden Fleece is a solid stick, but the foremast and mainmast are built. In this section of the country it is not always easy to find trees large, tall, straight enough for the foremast and mainmast of a large ship. A smaller one will answer for a mizzen mast. The foremast and mainmast are specimens of ingenious mechanical work, eight or nine pieces in each of them making a circumference of sixty-two inches. ”

“ We agreed that the straightest course open to us was to cut away the mainmast, and this we promptly set about doing. There are few sadder sights in the world than to see stout fellows striving with all their strength to hew down the mainmast of a goodly ship. ”

“ Our crow’s nest on our pole-foremast is the highest they can attain to on the St Ebba. The aftermast—or mainmast, I suppose I should call it, as we are schooner rigged—is of hollow iron cut short above the top (this is technical, not a bull) ; this forms the exhaust from the engine. You see only a little vapour, still, it does seem a trifle odd even to see faint smoke coming out of a mast! We will rig up topmasts in the South Seas, and have topsails in fine winds and the Trades, when we do not need the motor, and will then look quite conventional. ”

“ That afternoon I sent down the topsail-yard and topmast, unbent the mainsail, main-topsail, and gaff—sent down the topmast and running-rigging on deck—cast loose the lanyards of the lower rigging, and quite dismantled the mainmast, so as to make it appear as if we were about to haul to the wharf and take it out. ”

“ The roaring of the gale and thunder of the seas, combined with the darkness and the hurtling spray, rendered it impossible for the men in the life-boat to distinguish anything clearly, until close to the wreck. Then it was seen that the whole crew had taken to the rigging of the mainmast—the topmast of which had been carried away by the fall of the foremast and mizzen. ”

“ The mainmast holds up a top mast also with its yards and sails, a top-gallant mast with yards and sails, the royal, and sometimes a sky sail. Then the foremast also, which bears the same burden and is also a manufactured thing; as you think of it, a hundred feet ahead of you, pioneering your way and taking the first brunt of the sea, you cannot help regarding it as the most heroic of the three masts. Inspiring as the sight of these always is, I cannot withhold from the mizzen mast peculiar attachment. As already stated, one end of the hammock is fastened to it, the other end to the rail ”

“ The mainmast is placed about 5 feet abaft the end of straight keel; it is 92 feet long, housing 8 feet: the diameter in the partners is 32 inches, tapering off to 23 inches at the hounds. The mast is made of white pine, the centre of it is bored out, for the lowest twenty feet about 12 inches diameter—the next 20 feet, 10 inches diameter—the next 20 feet, 8 inches, and the remainder 7 inches. This was done to make the mast lighter, and, by the circulation of air, enable it to season itself.
The main boom is 95 feet long [F] and made like a cask. ”

“ About twenty minutes after she struck the mainmast fell over the side towards a rock, which we could distinguish rising above the water, followed by the foremast and mizen-mast. Hoping that the rock would afford us more security than the ship herself, I, with others, made my way towards it, though at no little risk of being carried off by the seas. On reaching it we shouted to the rest to come on, as at any moment the ship might go to pieces. The whole crew followed our example. Many parts of the rock itself were scarcely above water. ”

“ Slung from a block at the mainmast head was a small triangular stage, made of three battens, on which sat a very dirty individual with a pot of slush before him and a tarring-brush in his hand, with which he was polishing off his morning’s work on the shining mast. ”

“ Her length was about thirty meters, and her width somewhere between seven or eight. She was rigged with three masts. Of these, the after two, the mainmast and the mizzen-mast, carried only fore and aft sails, whereas the foremast had two square sails. The ship was originally intended to be manned by a crew of five, besides the captain. There were now fifty of us aboard her. Provision for berthing the crew had been made in a special crew’s cabin in the extreme forward part of the ship. But here there was room for only six men at the most; the rest of my crew had to sleep in the hold. ”

“ Let us step on board and tread her single deck at the waist between the foremast and main. As we examine the gear we shall find it rough but strong. The cordage is of hemp, the masts are serviceable, but only rudely finished. The mainmast measures 21⁄2 feet in diameter, whilst the yards—like the yard of the lateen-rigged craft—follow the historic custom of the Mediterranean of being made of two pieces lashed together at the centre. Aloft flies the admiral’s flag of Columbus, and this he always carried in his hand when going ashore to take possession of newly discovered territory. ”

“ The “Naval Chronicle” for 1807 contained an account of a full-rigged ship of only thirty-six tons’ burden, which for one hundred and thirty years previous to that date had been cruising about the English coast, and may be doing so yet, for aught I know.
A FIJI ISLAND OUT-RIGGED CANOE, APPROACHING A FULL-RIGGED SHIP HOVE-TO.
Masts have their proper names: the tallest is in the middle of the vessel, and is called the mainmast; the next tallest stands in front of it, and is the foremast; and the third is in the stern, and is named mizzenmast, because it carries the mizzen (sail) . ”

“ Copper may be shown by a copper-red just at the bow and stern along the water, but all black will do very well. The streak containing the ports should be painted white, the outside of the ports black, and the inside red.
The rigging will now have attention. The masts may be made in only two pieces; the topmasts, topgallant masts, and royals being all in one. The lower masts should be rather stout, and can be made of common deal; they must be firmly stepped in blocks secured below for their reception, and the mainmast must be so placed as not to unduly interfere with the hold being got at. ”

“ At present masts are only used by warships for signalling and military purposes. In sailing merchant ships, the masts are more lofty than they were about a century ago. A merchant ship of 1300 tons, in 1830, had a mainmast 179 ft. in height; a vessel of the same size would have a mast of 198 ft. to-day.
A “jury mast” is a temporary mast put up by the crew when the spars have been carried away in a storm or in action, or have been cut away to relieve pressure in a storm. The word has been supposed without any foundation to be short for “injury” mast ”

“ The breast-backstays are turned in upon blocks instead of dead-eyes, and set up with a luff purchase. The fore topmast stay sets up on the starboard, and the spring stay on the larboard side of the bowsprit.
All the fore-and-aft stays are now set up on their ends, and should be leathered in their nips, as well as in their eyes.
The main topmast stay goes through a heart or thimble at the foremast-head, or through a hole in the cap, and sets up on deck or in the top; and the mizzen topmast stay sets up at the mainmast-head, above the rigging. ”

“ On each mast the lower yard, lower topsail-yard, and lower topgallantsail-yard do not hoist up and down; the others do. The "lifts" by which the yard is hung and "topped" run from the yardarms—the ends of the yards—to the head of the mast which the yard crosses.
From the yardarms also come the "braces," by means of which the yards are swung so as to set the sails at the proper angle. These braces come down to the ship's sides, or to the heads of the masts fore and aft of those on which the yard is swung; all the mizzen-braces working on the mainmast ”

“ The iron yards and lower masts were freshly painted, the wooden top-masts and top-gallant masts had been scraped, sand-papered and oiled, the rigging tarred down, the life-boats and deck-houses cleaned and painted, and the decks holystoned and oiled up to the top notch.
Now each man in the crew was working as only desperate men can, to heave overboard every inflammable article about the ship. Buckets of tar and paint; cans of benzine and linseed oil; spare spars and planks; empty barrels; old sails; oakum and sennit;—all covered the placid surface of the ocean. ”

“ Hardly had I noted this when a cry of terror escaped from the lips of the whole crew. A terrific wind, accompanied by a quick succession of mountainous waves, had carried away at one sweep the jib-boom, fore-top-mast, gallant-mast, and royal-mast, leaving them still clinging to the ship by the stays, so impeding her progress that she rolled in the deep troughs of the sea as if every moment she would plunge in to rise no more. ”

“ The foretopgallant-mast was broken off at the head of the topmast and hung with its two yards supported by its gear, but giving a strange wrecked look to the whole of the fabric up there as it swung to the headlong movements of the hull, making the spars, down to the solid foot of the foremast, tremble with the spearing blows it dealt. ”

“ So, as soon as we had got all snug, we wore round and stood off again, and had the pleasant prospect of beating up to Monterey, a distance of an hundred miles, against a violent head wind. Before night it began to rain; and we had five days of rainy, stormy weather, under close sail all the time, and were blown several hundred miles off the coast. In the midst of this, we discovered that our fore topmast was sprung, (which no doubt happened in the squall,) and were obliged to send down the fore top-gallant-mast and carry as little sail as possible forward. ”

“ The foremast of the ship was broken off about fifteen feet from the level of the deck, and I went to work to splice on a jury-mast. It was slow and pretty hard work. I had to arrange the blocks and tackles in the most scientific manner, in order to lift the heavy timber to its place; and it required a great deal of strength to bring the ropes around the fore and jury-mast, so as to bind them securely together. I then [Pg 121] managed to rig a yard to the mast, and, in the course of another day, had quite a respectable sail set. ”

“ If the aftermost mast is not square-rigged, the order is foremast, main, mizzen and jigger. In some four-masters the masts are named fore, first-main, second-main and mizzen.
Should the vessel be three-masted, and have yards only on the two front masts, she is a "bark;" and, by-the-way, the spanker of a bark is her "mizzen." Should she have yards only, as the foremast, she is a "barkentine;" should she be a two-master, and have yards on both, she is a "brig;" should she have yards on the foremast only, she is a "brigantine." ”

“ As the 15th century advanced the growth of the ship made it difficult, or even impossible, to find spars large enough to make a mast. The practice of dividing it into lower, and upper or topmast, was introduced. At first the two were fastened firmly, and the topmast could not be lowered. In the 16th century the topmast became movable. No date can be given for the change, which was gradual, and was not simultaneously adopted. When the masting of sailing ships was fully developed, the division was into lower or standing mast, topmast, topgallant mast, and topgallant royal. ”

“ A stock of masts was kept at each dockyard in a vat of pickle known as a mast-pond. For great ships, and indeed for nearly all the rates in the navy, the lower masts were “built,” or “made,” of two or more pieces of fir strongly hooped together with iron hoops. When a ship came alongside a sheer-hulk her lower masts and bowsprit were hoisted into her and stepped. The fore-mast was stepped at a distance of one-ninth the length of the lower gun-deck from the stem of the ship. The main-mast was stepped in the centre of the ship, or a little abaft the centre. ”

“ The ships were rigged much as they were rigged two centuries later. The chief differences were in the rigging of the bowsprit and of the two after masts. Forward the ships had bowsprits, on which each set a spritsail, from a spritsail yard. The foremast was stepped well forward, almost over the spring of the cutwater. Generally, but not always, it was made of a single tree (pine or fir) . If it was what was known as "a made mast," it was built up of two, or three, or four, different trees, judiciously sawn, well seasoned, and then hooped together. ”

“ The length of the main-mast in a large, first-rate ship, is about one hundred and eighty feet from the keel to the top; the main-top-mast is sixty feet; above it the main-top-gallant-mast, forty-four feet, being altogether about two hundred and sixty feet, from which, if we deduct fifty-two feet, the depth of the hull, we have left two hundred and eight feet, the height of the main-mast above the deck. In light winds, royal and sky-sail-masts are set, which will add from thirty to forty feet to its height.
Large men-of-war, such as the one I have described, will carry a great number of hands ”