I’ve always been fascinated by the running rigging on a tall ship. A passing glance may reveal nothing more than a tangle of lines crisscrossing back and forth to the unfamiliar casual observer. But in reality, the precision of the lines used to adjust, manipulate, and steer the ship is nothing less than an engineering masterpiece in most cases. Unlike the standing rigging, the running rigging constantly shifts and moves – which is why it is not tarred like the standing rigging. This is why it appears in it’s natural light tan color.
My intention for this version of the HMS Pegasus is to present her as though she has just left the shipyard after being built. Therefore, she will not have sails – and the additional running rigging associated with those sails. She will however have all the running rigging attached to the yards and crosstrees that allows sailors to adjust them. I’ll start from front and move my way both aft and upward as I go along. Thus my running rigging journey begins with the spritsail yard which suspends from the bowsprit and holds the foremost sail on the ship.
I will say preemptively that I am taking a couple of (what some might consider) shortcuts primarily due to the scale. I’m replacing some of the “eyes” and thimbles with single blocks. For example, the jib guys. I simply cannot find a material or way to make thimbles that small and they end up looking sloppy. Similarly, these as well as the clueline blocks are supposed to be stropped with served line and a eye on each end that are lashed together. At this scale, trying to use eyes lashed together looks like a clumpy mess, so instead I’m just strapping them to the yard, as (in my opinion) the cleaner appearance is a fine tradeoff of the bit of lost accuracy. But I wanted to note those changes for those who may be working off this build looking for accuracy. I did try to maintain as much accuracy as possible throughout the rest of the spritsail however.
Fitting out the yard
I started fitting out the Spritsail yard with the halliard which resides in the center of the yard and will ultimately play a role in attaching the yard to the bowsprit. Here I did keep the served line eye (no thimble) using .30 mm line. I started by looping the eye, measuring out the length of the strop then two more eyes that are lashed together.
The spritsail yard is fitted with four pair of blocks in different sections. Clue line blocks are attached to the yard just outside the cleats and jib guys are attached on the outer third. Two sets of “pendants” are attached as well, these are simply blocks that are tied to longer strops. The standing lifts are snug against the jib guys and the yard lifts are outboard of the others. Worth nothing here that I started with blocks for the standing lifts but switched to deadeyes later (which I will explain). As I mentioned above, the clueline blocks and strops as well as the jib guy pendant blocks (all shown in place below) are all strapped to the yard without using eyes. The clue line blocks are 3.5mm blocks and the jib guy blocks are 3mm. From there I hung the stirrups which are 2″ tarred lines that scale out to .25mm. They stirrups are wrapped around the yard 3 times with an eye at the bottom and hang down stiffly to hold the horses. Once again, I’m using an eye but no thimble. Once the stirrups are hung, I coated them with diluted white glue and let them hang to dry and stiffen a bit.
Meanwhile, the horses are added – 2.5″ lines which translate to .30mm – using an eye splice at each end that slips over the ends of the yard braced on the stop cleats. The inside of the horses are wrapped agains the inside stirrup. I measured everything using one of my crew members as a guide.
Rigging the Spritsail Yard
Rigging the Spritsail yard begins with the sling. The sling is about an18′ length of 3.5 inch served line, which translates at 1:64 to a .45mm diameter line and I used about 70mm for the full length. In this case it is important for authenticity to keep the eyes and wraps as they are imminently visible on the ship. I started with the eye on one end, looped the length under the yard inside the two sling cleats, over the bowsprit, down under the yard on the opposite side (once again staying inside the cleats, then back over the bowsprit to pass through the eye and seize to itself.
Both ends are again seized together to tighten the grip on the yard. Also, obviously important to orient the spritsail yard with the halliard eye facing forward. The yard is still pretty loose at this point, which is necessary to allow for movement during the rest of the rigging process.
The next step is the rigging the sling with the halliard blocks and strops. The two blocks are 7″ (3mm) of which one contains an eye and both contain hooks. One end attaches to the eyebolt under the bowsprit cap and the other to the halliard on the yard. The standard rigging setup attaches the blocks then reaches back to the first starboard timber head.
From here, I rigged the spritsail yard fully then went back to and took images of each of the steps in the process.
The spritsail standing lifts are 2.5″ (3 mm scaled) lines that run from about the third quarter of the yard to the bowsprit cap. According to the Fully Framed Model, the majority of the time these are attached to the cap with two sets of eyes/thimbles that are strapped together with a laniard providing flexibility. However, because of my issues with thimbles, I’m using an alternate method and instead pulling them together with small deadeyes. There is some evidence of this method in Lees’ The Masting and Rigging of English Ships of War on page 100, so I don’t feel as though I’m completely abandoning accuracy altogether.
Note here (as with all the rest of this rigging) that I’m leaving all of the lashings and ends loose until later when I’ll properly situate the yard, tighten all the rigging, and tie off all the loose ends. The yard lifts are 2″ (.25 mm scaled) lines that begin with eye splices that are looped over the end of the yard to the horses then run forward through the thimbles at the end of the jib boom and back down aft and belay to the bollard timber heads.
The brace pendants are long strops that are eye spliced around the yards at the stop cleats then fitted with 9″ blocks (3.5 mm at scale) at their ends. The pendants help secure the yard braces which are quite long and run up the fore mast and back down to the ship and help control the turning of the yard. The center of the braces hitch around the fore stay just below the most. Each end runs down through the pendant, then back up through the inner sheeves of the outer most double block just under the fore top. They then travel down toward the deck and belay at the timber head near the belfry.
The Jib Guy Falls start with two 8″ blocks (I’m sticking with 3.5 mm here because they’re easier to manipulate) on of which is hooked into an eyebolt on the cathead. The 1.5″ (.15 mm) fall line is belayed to a timberhead at the fo’csle and runs through the two blocks in the usual way securing them. Another .25 mm line then runs from the outer block up through the jib guy (remember I’m using single block instead of a thimble) to loop around the end of the jib boom then back down the other side of the ship mirroring the blocks and fall line on the other side.
Finally, the jib traveler outhaul is spliced to the ring of the jib traveler and runs up into the sheeve at the end of the jib boom just under the triple block (or triple thimble if you rigged that) and down back aft to belay to a suitable timberhead on the starboard side. It’s worth noting here than when I installed the jib traveler, I put the dang ring on the inside of the jib stay and hook, so I had to remove it, realign it, and re-rig the jib boom. Something to avoid for others.
And with that, the Spritsail Yard is rigged to the Pegasus. As I mentioned, all the ends are still loose so they can be adjusted. This will also come in handy if I need to make any adjustments when the fore main yards go in and I need to avoid any potential fouling of lines.
The Lehman Shipyard 