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Hi All

Are there any close up pictures/diagrams available of the Main/fore/mizzen tops. I'm (trying !!) to build the Billing Vasa and can't seem to find any details.
Mainly, three areas of confusion/uncertainty:
1) How are the dead-eyes for the topmast fixed to the main top - just tied?
2) The Billing diagram seems to show the top mast butting up closely to the front of the main mast - but in this case, I don't understand how the main mast shrouds can fit as low down as needed at the top of the main mast (ie between the top of the main mast and the bottom of the top mast)
3) how is the bottom of the top mast fixed to the top of the main mast in real life - tied with ropes?, bolted? clamped? and is there some sort of stop below it to provide a bit more vertical support? I know there's a clamp to the head of the main mast, but surely in real life there would need to be something lower down as well?

Apologies if I'm not using the correct terms, but we landlubbers........
Hopefully you can understand what I mean.

many thanks

Terry

Hi Fred

Very many thanks - efficient as ever. By the way, did you get my message regarding potential use of DropBox for the plans?

Terry

Hi Terry,

As Fred says, the topmast rests on the trestle trees via a fid.
If the fid was to be suddenly removed(-you really can't due to the load it's under, you need to lift the mast with the toprope), the topmast will come down through it's hole.
The topmasts are meant to be movable parts of the rigging.
For example, the topmasts might be struck at sea in a severe storm.
(Here's a picture of the HMS Victory with struck topmasts: upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/73/The_Royal_Navy_during_the_Second_World_War_A14557.jpg )

Here is a picture of the Vasa main top replica in the museum.
The topmast is to the left.
The fid is the small square peg at the bottom.
www.modelships.de/Museums_and_replicas/Vasa-Museet-Stockholm/Vasa-ship/kgIMG_6498.jpg

Also, at 1:14 in this video, this area can be seen quite clearly:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=1irt6yqG_cw&feature=channel_page

Hope this helps,

Cheers,
Peter

No worries,
Glad to be of assistance.

I decided to rig the topropes on my model to show how they work.
There's an eyebolt under the cap on each side. The toprope's end is on the starboard side eyebolt, runs through the trestle tree and then through a sheave in the heel of the topmast, then up to the cap on the port side where a block is attached.
Through this and down to a sheave on the knights head aft of the mast.

The main toprope is unfortunately a bit tricky here, as the relevant sheave is two decks down and requires some pre-planning before the hull is too closed up.
Omitting the topropes entirely would be perfectly reasonable though, as they would most likely have been taken down once the topmast was set.
(Belaying them at the bitts would probably be ok. However, that will probably result in quite a bit of rope to gather up and put somewhere...I think that's what Clayton did on his model?)

While striking the topmasts would be one of the last things to do to lower top weight of the rigging in a storm and the ship may very well be at anchor, it is actually possible to set sail in this configuration.
Here's a picture of a 74 clawing out from a lee shore with struck topmasts:
collections.rmg.co.uk/mediaLib/682/media-682162/large.jpg


Cheers,
Peter

In the sevententh century, topropes were left rigged, since they were part of the running rigging and frequently used. English logbooks of the 1660s, for example, indicate that lowering the topmasts was a normal part of heavy-weather sailing, rather than a last resort, and that the topmasts might be set and doused several times in a day. In some cases, striking topmasts was a normal part of the anchoring or mooring process. By the 18th century, topmasts were more commonly left set and only struck in extremely heavy weather, so topropes were by then not often left rigged. As Peter points out, there is a lot of rope to coil and hang (in Vasa's case, over 25 m of rope over 50 mm in diameter), but this is not on the upper deck.

The fall of the toprope passes down through the hatch in the upper deck abaft the mast, along with the main halliard, and then continues through a round hole in the upper gundeck in front of the halliard knight, to a sheave in the knight on the lower gundeck (See illustration). This allows the fall to be taken to the main capstan, which lies farther aft.

In practice, the toprope only needs to be belayed when the mast is struck, since it does not carry a load when the topmast is set. When being set or struck, it is wrapped around the capstan. Stoppers might be clapped onto the toprope for the brief time it takes to ready the mast for striking after the fid has been removed or just before it is inserted, and stoppers could also be rigged once the mast was struck. When set, the excess line can be coiled up and hung on the knight (there is a small crossbar or cleat in it for this purpose), on the level of the lower gundeck and thus out of the way. Just as well, since it is a big coil!

Peter's picture of the replica is as good an image of how the masts overlap as you can find.

The topmast shrouds were tensioned in the same way as the lower shrouds, with lanyards rove through the deadeyes (see illustration). In practice, once the working tension was established, the topmast could be set and struck without having to touch the lanyards (we do this regularly on Kalmar Nyckel, a 17th-century replica I sail on). In setting, the toprope is used to lift the topmast until the fid hole is just slightly above the trestletrees so that the fid can be driven in, then let down onto the fid. There is just enough give in the shrouds and stays to allow this.

Some topmasts on Dutch ships of the 17th century had a knob or lug on the heel (bottom end) which prevented the mast from being raised too high when setting.

Fred

Jan,
Yes, when the mast is struck, the shrouds are left alone, so that they hang down in big loops. We usually trice them up to keep them from flapping about. The heel of the topmast is also lashed to the lower mast.

Fred

Fred

I find the diagrams you put up really helpful, as I'm sure many do. Is there any way of putting up a fuller set (obviously not, I guess, if they are previews of Vasa II), possibly using the Dropbox mechanism I've set up experimentally?

Many thanks

Terry