Topmast

“ Another curiosity of rigging possessed by these solidly built, beautifully carved vessels (no such exterior decoration has been seen since as adorned the ships of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries) was the quaint little spritsail-topmast. By this time the single heavy pole-mast had been superseded by the three built-up masts and topmasts, braced by stays, made accessible by rope ladders (shrouds) , and carrying several tiers of topsails instead of only one. A bowsprit had been added, also, and this became almost a fourth mast, so loaded were it and its stays with various small sails. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Round the lower mastheads are platforms called tops; and round the topmast-heads are skeleton platforms called crosstrees. These platforms are required not only to take the lower ends of the topmast and topgallant rigging, but also to enable the crew to strike and get up the masts and yards and work the sails. The crosstrees are fitted with outriggers pointing outward aft to enable the topgallant-backstays to give a better support to the topgallantmast than they otherwise would do. ”

“ My great anxiety now was for the fore-topmast, which was sustaining the weight of the broken mast and yard, in addition to the top-gallant yard, still standing, and the heavy pulling of the fore-topmast staysail.
Dreading the consequences that might follow the loss of this sail, I called to the52 steward at the top of my voice, and on his thrusting his head up the companion, I bade him rouse up Cornish and the boatswain, and send them on deck. ”

“ 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 tops, as some landsmen may not know, are not exactly at the top of things, but they are the platforms about a fourth of the distance up the masts where the heel of the topmast rests on the trestle trees of the lower mast. ”

“ 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 Hecla, sending down all her upper masts except the main topmast, and the Griper, housing her fore and main topmasts, used the spars to support a roof which completely enclosed their upper decks and made them both snug for the winter, which did not seem so long owing to the efforts of the officers to keep every one amused and on the move. ”

“ Snatching an interval when I thought both mate and master were asleep, I had gone up to the maintop.
Every one who has looked upon a full-rigged ship must have noticed some distance up the main-mast a frame-wood or platform, like a little scaffold. A similar construction may be observed on the fore and mizen-mast, if the ship be a large one. This platform is called the “top,” and its principal object is to extend the ladder-like ropes, called “shrouds,” that reach from its outer edge to the head of the mast next above, which latter is the topmast. ”

“ Our main difficulty was that the dream ship was too heavily sparred. The boom was the size of an average mast for a vessel of her tonnage, and the gaff little smaller in proportion.
Next time, we shall have smaller spars, and a top-mast instead of a pole mast. Aboard the dream ship our topsail yard was twenty-three feet long, and many were the anxious moments in lowering it when taking in the topsail during a squall. The topmast does away with any necessity for a yard, and can be lowered to the deck in foul weather, thus also eliminating considerable top-hamper. ”

“ But happily these were exceptional seas; smaller waves succeeded, and the struggling, straining ship showed herself alive still.
Alive, but maimed. That tremendous swoop had carried away the jibboom, and the fore top-gallant mast—the one close against the bowsprit head, the other a few inches above the top-gallant yard. The mast, with the royal yard upon it, hung all in a heap against the fore-topmast, but fortunately kept steady, owing to the yard-51arm having jammed itself into the fore-topmast rigging. ”

“ As I looked round me, in the vain hope of discovering further survivors, a few more spars floated up to the surface—a spare topmast, a studding-sail boom or two, the fore-topgallant-mast, with royal-mast, yards, and sails attached ”

“ The principal intention of the top is to extend the topmast-shrouds, so as to form a greater angle with the mast, and thereby give it additional support. It is sustained by certain timbers bolted fore-and-aft on the bibbs or shoulders of the mast, and called the trestle-trees; athwart these are the cross-trees. In ships of war it is used as a kind of redoubt, and is fortified accordingly. It is also very convenient for containing the materials for setting the small sails, fixing and repairing the rigging, &c. ”

“ The flying jib-boom should be rigged fully out before the fore topgallant mast is swayed on end.
To cross a Topgallant Yard.—Seize on the parral and quarter-blocks; reeve the yard-rope through the sheave-hole of the topgallant mast, make it fast to the slings of the yard, and stop it out to the upper end. Sway away, and when the upper yard-arm has reached the topmast-head, put on the upper lift and brace; sway away again, put on the lower lift and brace, cast off all the stops, settle the yard down square by lifts and braces, and pass the parral lashing. ”

“ The starboard forward shroud goes on first; then the larboard; and so on. The fore stay and spring stay go over the shrouds; and the head stays always go over the backstays.
Cutting and fitting Topmast Rigging.—For the forward shroud, measure from the hounds of the topmast down to the after part of the lower trestle-trees, and add to that length half the circumference of the mast-head at the hounds. The eye is once and a quarter the circumference of the mast-head. The topmast rigging in size should be three fifths of the lower rigging. ”

“ From the deck to the truck of the maintopmast is something over a hundred feet, while the foremast with its topmast is eight or ten feet shorter. I am giving these details so that the size of this little floating world which holds twenty-two men may be appreciated. It is a very little world, a mote, a speck, and I marvel that men should dare to venture the sea on a contrivance so small and fragile.
Wolf Larsen has, also, a reputation for reckless carrying on of sail. I overheard Henderson and another of the hunters, Standish, a Californian, talking about it. ”

“ Presently back it came to the mast, and darted out to the lee yardarm. It had not yet finished its journey. Once more gliding back, it ascended the mast, when it made its way by the main-topmast stay, on to the foremast and there went gliding backwards and forwards along the yard.
“I wish it would come down on deck, and then we might have a chance of catching it,” said Tom. “I have read somewhere that a man going aloft with a bucket, clapped it over the light, and brought it down a prisoner. It is a sort of gas which is driven about through the air until it finds something to rest on. ”

“ The mast is twenty-one inches from deck, where it is half an inch in diameter, to cap, where it is a quarter of an inch square, and the topmast is eleven inches long, projecting eight inches above the lower mast. ”

“ 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 bowsprit is subdivided like other masts. The bowsprit proper corresponds to the lower fore-, main- or mizzen-mast. The jib-boom, which is movable and projects beyond the bowsprit, corresponds to a topmast; the flying jib-boom, which also is movable and projects beyond the jib-boom, answers to a topgallant mast. The whole body of ropes by which the yards, booms and sails are manipulated constitute the “running rigging,” since they are “in constant use, to trim yards, and make or shorten sail” (Admiral Smyth, op. cit.) ”

“ The size of masts naturally varies very much. In a 110–gun ship of 2164 tons the proportions of the mainmast were: for the lower mast, length 117 ft., diameter 3 ft. 3 in.; topmast, 70 ft., and 203/4 in.; topgallant mast, 35 ft., and 115/8 in., 222 ft. in all. At the other end of the scale, a cutter of 200 tons had a lower mast of 88 ft., of 22 in. diameter, and a topgallant mast (there was no topmast between them) of 44 ft., of 93/4 in. in diameter, 132 ft. in all; topgallant mast of 44 ft., and 93/4 in. in diameter. ”

“ Blowing great guns, and dismasted; under double reefs, storm spanker, and foretopmast staysail at daylight; blew away the staysail; set jib; that went too and took jibboom; cut away the wreck; she came up to the wind, caught aback, and away went the mizzenmast at the deck; cut that away, paid off in the trough of the sea, and rolled the fore and mainmast out; cleared away everything, rigged out a sea anchor, and now were riding it out comfortable—that is, for us; women are all sick. ”

“ A gale seldom lasts long after he has come. Look at him, he is rather playful to-night.” He was indeed. Sometimes the light would ascend and then descend the masts, then run along the yards, and waiting a little at each yard-arm, would be back again and slip down one of the stays to the fore-mast, and mount up in a second to the fore-topmast head. Sometimes, when the ship rolled very much, the mast-head would leave it floating in the air, but as she rolled back again it would quickly re-attach itself. ”

“ If they were to go into a warm climate, they would all die of the scurvy.
The vessel was no better than the crew. Everything was in the oldest and most inconvenient fashion possible; running trusses on the yards, and large hawser cables, coiled all over the decks, and served and parcelled in all directions. The topmasts, top-gallant masts and studding-sail booms were nearly black for want of scraping, and the decks would have turned the stomach of a man-of-war’s-man. ”

“ 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. ”

“ During the afternoon she was towed under the shears at the Navy Yard to receive her masts, yards, and rigging, and the work of fitting them was done under the supervision of Lauchlan McKay, her captain. As no vessel before or since ever had such enormous spars, their dimensions are interesting enough to be given in full:
The spankermast, nowadays called the jigger, was 26 inches in diameter, 110 feet long, including 14 feet head, and the topmast was 40 feet long divided at 15 and 10 feet above the cap, for the gaff-topsail and gaff-topgallantsail. ”

“ Life at Monterey The next day being Sunday, which is the liberty-day among merchantmen, when is it usual to let a part of the crew go ashore, the sailors had depended upon a day on land, and were already disputing who should ask to go, when, upon being called in the morning, we were turned-to upon the rigging, and found that the topmast, which had been sprung, was to come down, and a new one to go up, and top-gallant and royal-masts, and the rigging to be set up. ”

“ Next day, the mast-steps clear and everything in readiness, we started to get the two topmasts aboard. The maintopmast was over thirty feet in length, the foretopmast nearly thirty, and it was of these that I intended making the shears. It was puzzling work. Fastening one end of a heavy tackle to the windlass, and with the other end fast to the butt of the foretopmast, I began to heave. Maud held the turn on the windlass and coiled down the slack.
We were astonished at the ease with which the spar was lifted. It was an improved crank windlass, and the purchase it gave was enormous. ”

“ The mast will rise into place, where it is made fast. [105] A collar of leather, or a knob of some kind, placed on the topmast just below the ring, will act as a fulcrum when the halyards are hauled taut and keep the mast from working to and fro.
Fig. ”