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Post by fredhocker on Jan 7, 2014 8:42:53 GMT
The spritsail yard was usually suspended on a sling rather than a parrel, and it could have a line leading forward, essentially a halliard to haul the yard out on the bowsprit, but this was not usually necessary. Once the optimum location for the yard had been determined, it was fixed there by cleats or something similar. In use, it was not necessary to move the yard on the bowsprit, since the sail was loose-footed with very long sheets leading aft. Bracing the yard tended to pull the ends up as much as aft, and so the yard moved side to side a little, and the lifts could be used to keep it from sagging away from the bowsprit.
Fred
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Post by fredhocker on Jan 7, 2014 8:38:45 GMT
The lateen of this period usually had a pair of tacks at the heel of the yard, which were attached with hooks to a pair of eyes or loops at the heel of the yard. These led to the sides and had to be removable in order to tack the yard around the mast. Downward pull on the heel was not used to keep the yard peaked, as it only increases the load on the halliard. Instead, it was more common to rig a topping lift from the peak up to the mizzen topmast. This assisted in peaking the yard when tacking as well as carrying some of the weight at that end of the sail. Vangs were a later addition, since the side-to-side movement of the yard was controlled by the tacks and the mizzen sheet.
Fred
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Post by fredhocker on Jan 7, 2014 8:34:57 GMT
Looking good! Fred
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Post by fredhocker on Jan 7, 2014 8:33:49 GMT
The lower end of the main topmast stay is a bit of a mystery, since none of the iron hardware at deck level survived and the plank it should have passed through in the fore top does not survive. Clayton's reconstruction make use of the data we have, which is a bolt in the deck which could have been a ringbolt, as well as a certain amount of logic. We have adopted this solution in our reconstruction.
Fred
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Post by fredhocker on Jan 7, 2014 8:23:09 GMT
There has been a long discussion of this, but the short answer is that there is no evidence on the ship that there was ever a railing at the forward edge of the quarterdeck or steerage roof, and all of the relevant structure in this area, including the light fiferails, survives. If there had been a railing there, we would know it. There are no unaccounted for fastener holes, empty mortises or ghosts from missing timbers. After spending the last ten years crawling around the ship and recording every timber in detail, I am pretty sure that I can tell when stuff is missing. For example, we can reconstruct the missing railing at the forward edge of the upper deck pretty accurately, since the missing knees which atached it to the fiferails left clear traces and empty nail holes.
The argument that the ship was not yet finished and one would be fitted later does not hold up either, since there is no substructure to which one could attach a railing, and the forward edge of the deck is finished with a carved moulding and scuppers. The images of ships like Saint Louis and models make it clear that some ships in this period and later had railings across the forward edge of the sterncastle decks, but the archaeology makes it equally clear that Vasa was not one of them. This is a common problem in archaeology, that it presents real-world data that disagrees with the "rules" written down in treatises and the conventions shown in pictures. It also shows on a regular basis that people do not always make logical decisions. Just because something should be there, or that it would be a good idea if it was there, does not mean that it was.
In practice, the absence of a railing is probably not an extreme safety hazard once you have your sea legs. On the quarterdedck, the mizzenmast makes a pretty good barrier at the forward edge. There is a relatively narrow gap between the mast and the ladders either side, and the drop to the steerage roof is less than 60 cm. The drop at the forward edge of the steerage roof is much more serious, as is the drop from the poop to the quarterdeck. On the poop, the deck is so narrow (maximum breadth 3.5 meters), that one can hold on to the railings at the sides while standing on almost half of it.
Fred Hocker
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Post by fredhocker on Jan 7, 2014 7:30:58 GMT
The main mast is made of eleven pieces of wood, plus some iron bars and strapping. I do not think a lathe will help you, as it is only round for about a third of the total length. I have a drawing I can send if you drop me an email at fred.hocker@maritima.se.
Fred
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Post by fredhocker on Jan 7, 2014 7:29:23 GMT
No bobstay in the first half of the seventeenth century, since it would interfere with the lead of the fore tacks. Once the tacks were moved up into the head rather than leading under it, then a bobstay was possible. Downward force on the bowsprit was provided only by the gammonings and the weight of the spar, which was a few tons outboard of the stem head.
Fred Hocker
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Post by fredhocker on Jan 7, 2014 7:27:12 GMT
There is not much specific information about flags. The regulations of the 1620s indicate that a ship of Vasa's size should carry five flags and three streamers, but would not fly all of them at once in most circumstances (you got to put it all up if the king was on board). We believe that the streamers were blue and yellow, and that at least one of the flags was very similar to the modern naval ensign, three-tailed with a yellow cross on a blue field, but not the same shade blue used today. Otherwise, there are a lot of possibilities, including the earlier national flag (blue and yellow horizontal stripes), heraldic flags representing important people on board, etc. We have some information about the relative sizes of flags, based on an inventory for another ship. If the relationship between flag size and ship size is about the same, then the five flags and three streamers for Vasa would have the following lengths (sorry about the table tabs not tranlsating): Item Tre Kronor Vasa estimated Spritsail topmast flag 8 aln (4.75 m) 10 aln (5.94 m) Foremast flag 12 aln (7.13 m) 14 or 15 aln (8.32 or 8.91 m) Mainmast flag 13 aln (7.72 m) 16 aln (9.50 m) Mizzen flag 12 aln (7.13 m) 14 or 15 aln (8.32 or 8.91 m) Ensign 20 aln (11.88 m) 24 aln (14.26 m) Foremast streamer 20 fathoms (35.64 m) 24 fathoms (42.77 m) Mainmast streamer 25 fathoms (44.55 m) 30 fathoms (53.46 m) Mizzen streamer 15 fathoms (26.73 m) 18 fathoms (32.08 m)
Fred Hocker
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Post by fredhocker on Dec 11, 2013 8:20:22 GMT
The cannon is now at the museum, arrived Monday, and Tom Ward has been working on the exterior. We still have to build a 17th-century boring mill to bring the bore to the final diameter.
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Post by fredhocker on Dec 11, 2013 8:17:18 GMT
Jan, Send me an email and I can send you the file as a PDF. My email is fred.hocker@maritima.se.
Fred
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Post by fredhocker on Nov 29, 2013 8:02:10 GMT
The gun was successfully removed from the mould yesterday, no voids or flaws, and the alloy matches the original very closely. We will spend a few days cutting off the gate and gunhead, cleaning up flash and mould dross, etc., then the gun will come to the museum next Wednesday for chasing and boring.
Fred
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Post by fredhocker on Nov 25, 2013 8:11:34 GMT
The gun was successfully cast this past Friday at Tierps Järnbruk. We started heating about 2.4 tons of bronze around 8 am and poured at about 11. No difficulties, and we expect to take it out of the mould late this week (it takes about a week to cool down). Pictures should be posted on Tom Ward's blog today or tomorrow (http://www.vasamuseet.se/creating-the-cannon). Fred
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Post by fredhocker on Nov 20, 2013 8:06:38 GMT
Just to amplify what Clayton has written, we know that the topgallant sails were not set at the time of the sinking (they were found in the sail room). The topgallants were usually sent aloft on their yards in this period, so that means that the topgallant yards were not rigged either. In order to reduce top hamper, it was also a common practice to rig the topgallant masts only if the topgallant sails were going to be needed. One source talks about the topgallantsails being needed if sailing in warmer climates (the Mediterranean), and there are no images from Northern Europe in this period which show topgallants or the mizzen topsail set. So it is a reasonable conclusion that Vasa did not have the topgallantmasts set up in August 1628, and that they were stored on deck or in the chains, along with the topgallant yards. Fred
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Post by fredhocker on Nov 19, 2013 9:45:53 GMT
We will cast the bronze gun this Friday, at 10 AM, in Tierp (north of Stockholm). I was there yesterday helping with the final cleanup and preparation of the mould. There should be some press coverage, as well as a full account in Tom Ward's blog. The iron gun last week was a test of the mould and foundry logistics. The plan is for a full series of ballistic trials on an instrumented proving range to assess range, accuracy and effect. Some of the rounds will be fired at a replica section of the side of the ship, to evaluate both how effective the gun is and how Vasa might have stood up to cannon fire. Test firing is currently planned for next summer, but that may change depending on range schedules and funding (it will cost about 1 million kronor/150,000 USD to do the trials). There will be film taken, both conventional and high speed, as well sound, doppler radar, pressure monitoring. Think an order of magnitude above a Mythbusters project.
Fred
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Post by fredhocker on Nov 19, 2013 9:39:00 GMT
Matti, We have some images of the 1:10 model on the museum website, but probably not enough to be really useful. I will talk to the web people and see if we cannot create a page with a bigger gallery. Fred
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