Sails for Centre-Board Boats

In Fig. B, the upper sheave above

h is used for the foresail halyards ; one end of the halyard is stopped by a wall knot after being rove through the hole above f; the other end is then passed through a block hooked to the head of the foresail, and then over the sheave above h.

The sheave

below h is used for topping lifts; one end of the topping lift is stopped at the hole below f ; the other is passed through a thimble seized on the under side of the main boom and is then carried up over the sheave below h. The large sheave hole at g, Fig. B, is used for spinnaker or square sail halyards. Mast hoops are not often seen. The sail is kept into the mast thus : Diagram D is a section of the mast ; o o are two brass plates screwed to the lips of a channel cut on the aft side of the mast. p is a traveller about two inches deep which works in the channel formed by o o ; the traveller has an eye to which one of the eyelet holes or cringles in the luff of the mainsail is seized. Generally as many of these travellers are used as there would be hoops if hoops were used.

Another arrangement is shown by E : g is a T-shaped bar of iron screwed to mast (or sometimes instead of a T-iron a plate of simple bar-iron is screwed over a fillet of wood, as shown by 8, for lightness) ; t is the small traveller about two inches square which is shipped over g ; i is the eye for seizing the Tuff cringles of the mainsail x.

If either of these travellers is used, the iron mast-traveller for the yard is dispensed with. A traveller (made with a socket to take a goose neck on end of the yard) is inserted in the channel o o (see D.) or over the guide q (see E).

One end of the main sheet is fast to the boom end ; it from there leads through a double block on deck, through a single block on the boom, back through the double block on deck again, then through another single block on the boom and belay.

The bobstay is made of wire rope ; one end has an eye in it, and eye encircles the bowsprit at v (see large sketch) ; it then passes through a block on the stem at the water-line, through another block on the bowsprit end ; a tackle is hooked to this end of the bobstay (at bowsprit end) to set it up.

The foresheets are very well arranged for handiness. In diagram H. a represents the line of the foot of the foresail, c being the cringle in the clew of the foresail. To this mingle two short pieces of rope are spliced with thimble eye at d d as well. The foresheet is fast on the deck to an eyebolt at 8; it then passes outside the channels k through the thimble d and through the coamings of the well at x and is then belayed. It will be observed that in the diagram the foresail is represented hauled amidships.

The sails that we saw were exceedingly well cut and tabled, and were made of cotton duck.

A very similarly worked mainsail is used in America for the " cat boats " of Rhode Island. An illustration of this rig has been given me by Mr. R. B. Forbes, of Milton, Mass., and is shown by Figs. 70 and 71. a is a boom laced to the sail and used for reefing. r is a tackle for hauling the reef down. The halyard c comes down to and belays to a cleat on the heel of the yard at d, close to the traveller t. By simply slacking the halyard e, and hauling on r the sail is reefed (see Fig. 71).