Rigging an English Cutter - need help

**Leif Ohlsson** · #1 11-02-2020, 09:59 AM

Hello, Glen & other ship-building friends. Now I need your help.

I recently got stewardship of a fine old model, not paper, real wood. It once belonged to a fisherman ancestor of my partner. She has roots on her paternal side from Gullholmen, a small fishing island & village on the Swedish West Coast. This is a model of his original English Cutter "Regalia", LL183. The registration means that it belongs to the area around Lysekil, in the middle of Bohuslän.

Now, this is a model I greatly admire and respect. Since there are a few loose rigging details, I'd like to repair it as correctly as I can. I really need help with the two loose rigging thread ends on the bowsprit:

Where should I attach these two loose ends? It seems that when I tension the forward one, the whole forward rigging gets properly tensioned. But where does the end attach?

Likewise, it seems the rear fastening of the bowsprit has gone missing:

It seems to me there should be a metal thread fastening. But what should it be attached to? The green-topped structure seems to be as water pump. I don't know if it is logical to attach the bowsprit to it, but it would fit pretty well there.

Grateful for all help. I really wish to do this right.

Greeting to you all, Leif

**Vermin_King** · #2 11-02-2020, 10:12 AM

Puzzles like this intrigue me. I hope you get the right answers

**Don Boose** · #3 11-02-2020, 10:31 AM

Leif -

I have no expertise in this matter, but I am very happy to see you posting in the Forum.

There is a wealth of knowledge about such matters here, so I am sure that the issue will soon be resolved. I look forward to learning and seeing more of you and this model.

Best wishes,

Don

**Dane** · #4 11-02-2020, 11:35 AM

If I have not confused anything, then it can attach the ends like this.

Leif, she is very nice! I love her and I would develop her with great pleasure in paper 1:48 scale.

**Leif Ohlsson** · #5 11-02-2020, 12:38 PM

Thank you, Dane! That is exactly the kind of help I was wishing, hoping - and even expecting - from you ship-builders. Great sketches, great help. Now I can get to work!

Leif

**Dane** · #6 11-02-2020, 12:52 PM

I was glad to help. You are right I was an engineer shipbuilder. Good luck with repair of your "beauty".

**John Wagenseil** · #7 11-02-2020, 02:56 PM

This link might be useful source of reference books.

https://www.amazon.com/Rigging-Perio.../dp/159114227X
Your model looks like it has a "traveler" on its jib.
The pictures Dane posted and the Petersson book show how a traveler is set up.
Wikipedia has this to say about cutter rigged ships:
" Cutters carry a staysail directly in front of the mast, set from the forestay. A traditional vessel would also normally have a bowsprit to carry one or more jibs from its end via jibstay(s) on travelers (to preserve the ability to reef the bowsprit). In modern vessels the jib may be set from a permanent stay fixed to the end of a fixed (non-reeving) bowsprit, or directly to the stem fitting of the bow itself. In these cases, that may be referred to as the forestay, and the inner one, which will be less permanent in terms of keeping the mast up, may be called the stays'l stay. A sloop carries only one head sail, called either the foresail or jib"
Since your model is a two masted sailing ship with a traveling jib stay it is a cutter rigged schooner.

The bowspirit seems to be held in place by a pin, allowing it to be retracted or reefed. At one time this was called an "illegal bowsprit", as only HMS naval and customs cutters were allowed to have them.
A 19th civilian craft with a retractable rather than fixed bowsprit would be assumed to be fitted out for smuggling.

**John Wagenseil** · #8 11-02-2020, 03:07 PM

Eighteen Century Rigs and Rigging, Karl Heinz Marquardt, Phoenix Publications
https://books.google.com/books/about...s_Rigging.html
This book will take you through to the mid 19th c. when steel rigging was introduced.

"This lavishly illustrated volume is the first truly comprehensive study of eighteenth-century rigging from the English First Rate to the Fuchow pole junk. Covering all the warships and merchant vessels of Northern Europe, the Mediterranean, the Middle East, and Asia, noted author Karl Heinz Marquardt draws on contemporary sources as well as recent authoritative studies to provide well-documented commentary on the development and significant features of each rig and detailed descriptions of lines, blocks, and sails, along with belaying plans of knots, hitches, and ropework. More than 1,200 line drawings, extensive tables of rigging dimensions, and indexes with a full listing of rigging terms in French, German, and English complete this indispensable reference on a complex yet fascinating subject. "

**Leif Ohlsson** · #9 11-02-2020, 04:02 PM

Hello John! This will take some reading up. And I'll try to do it.

The "traveller" seems spot on. Which means that it is a cutter rigged schooner. Very good to know. Will remember the difference!

Intriguing fact that the "Regalia" was rigged like a smuggler. She was bought in Hull, England by the Swedish West Coast fishermen who were my partner's relatives, at a period when the herring no longer could support them. They took a steamer across to England and bought the cutters, which by then were going out and being replaced by steam fishing boats.

So, in this case, they seem to have bought a smuggler's ship. Fascinating!

Thanks for all the material! - Leif

**Leif Ohlsson** · #10 11-02-2020, 04:34 PM

John, before turning in, I must ask you more about the smuggling angle, "A 19th civilian craft with a retractable rather than fixed bowsprit would be assumed to be fitted out for smuggling."

My partner is just aching to know more about this, and so am I. How would a retractable bowsprit make a cutter-rigged schooner better suited for smuggling?

So many things to learn...