The gaff is the aftmost yard on the ship which extends from the mizzen mast toward the keel. This spar holds the rear sail. Similar to the Spritsail yard, there is a disparity between the Chris Watton’s plans that come with the kit, and the plans in the Fully Framed Model book by David Antscherl. Watton shows both a driver gaff (the upper spar) and a driver boom (the lower spar), whereas the FFM only shows the upper gaff. As with the spritsail, I’ll be following the FFM guidance.
Before raising the gaff it has to be adorned with blocks just like the other yards. In this case there are 11 total. Despite the slight difference in sizes (4″, 5″ & 6″), I’m choosing to use 2.5 mm for all the blocks except the throat halliard block – which is 7″ (3.5mm) and should be noticeably larger. The difference between the smaller blocks is a half mm or less at this scale (not easily differentiated by the naked eye). Aside from the throat halliard block, there are three pair of brail blocks spaced along the gaff, a pair of mizzen topsail brace blocks near the end, a peak halliard block facing up in the middle, and an ensign halliard block attached to an eye bolt on the very end.
The gaff is raised using a combination of a parrel that wraps around the mast and a throat halliard that raises and lowers the spar. It’s then held in place with a peak halliard, a line that runs through the blocks on the upper part of the gaff similar to the yard lifts on the other yards.
The parrel is constructed with a .30mm line and very small oblong beads of a proper color acquired from a local craft store. One end of the parrel is knotted through a hole in the jaws, the beads are added, and the line is wrapped around the mizzen and fed back through a hole in the other side of the jaws to secure.
The throat halliard is a version of the jeers used with the lower yards with a 3.5mm single block stropped to a hook. This hooks to the eyebolt on top of the gaff. A second 3.5mm block is stropped to a line with an eye on one end that wraps up through the masthead over the trestle trees and back down to seize to itself through the eye. The fall runs through these two single blocks then down the port side of the mast to belay on one of the mizzen cleats.
The peak halliard on the top of the gaff starts spliced at the aft end of the gaff then runs up through a double block stropped to a hook at the mizzen mast cap. From there it runs back down through the single peak halliard block, back up to the double block, then down through the port side of the lubber’s hole to a cleat at the mizzen. The above photo shows both the peak and throat halliard falls on cleats. It’s worth noting that I attached a temporary line and clipped it to the rudder to serve as a vang while I rigged the halliards.
Finally, the “vangs” are a set of lines rigged to the end of the gaff that not only hold the gaff in place, but control it’s port to starboard movement. There is a 3″ (.40mm) pendant on each side of the gaff peak that ends in a 6″ (3mm) block. The entire pendant is 42′ (about 200mm at scale) and attaches to the gaff via a clove hitch creating two evenly lengthened 20 foot pendants.
The falls of the vangs are 1.5″ (.15mm) line that end in a single block stropped with a hook attached to an eyebolt on the quarter piece. The falls run from that block, up to the pendant, back down through the single block, and then through a sheave at the aft of the rail before belaying. As you’ll see – I don’t have a sheave at the end of my rail because there simply wasn’t enough room to put one there earlier in the build based on the plans. So instead, I simply belayed the fall on a nearby timberhead.
The Lehman Shipyard 