That's the kind of advice you get when you're a novice, and you only find out how useless it is when you're standing in a chandler's, bewildered by the choice of rope on offer and trying not to look embarrassed in front of a friendly, but knowledgeable, sales assistant.
My introduction to buying rope came about when I learned the hard way that my mooring lines (the ropes that tie the boat to the wharf or pontoon) were too short. It's not a nice feeling trying to stop the boat wandering off on its own, when you're on tiptoes, teetering on the edge of dry land with the last two inches of rope in one hand, the other extended behind you as a counter-balance. Or, you need to swing the stern around to line up the boat on the trailer, only to find that the only way to do it is waist deep down the ramp, standing on the slippery algae that populates concrete ramps at a depth corresponding to your waist-height below water.
So, I bought some more mooring lines. Going from a rule-of-thumb that says your mooring lines should be about the length of the boat, I got three lines at 6 metres and one at 10 metres (to swing the stern from a drier, firmer position on the boat ramp). However, I got bamboozled by the figure-of-eight knots needed to tie the lines to the cleats on the boat, which consumed a good metre of line each.
So, I tried again, but forgot to take note of the rope diameter, and unintentionally upsized from 10mm to 12mm. You might think that this change might be insignificant or even desirable, but the fatter rope needed yet more length for the knots, and it became almost too big to push through the cleats. I'm beginning to appreciate the necessity of measuring things before heading off to the shops.
You might be forgiven for thinking that my boat now has plenty of ropes, but you'd be mistaken.
A trick question that I ask kids when sailing with them with Sails at Bayside, or on my own boat is how many ropes are there on this boat? Some make a guess, others get industrious by counting them, but the only ones who get it right are those who heed my warning of it being a trick question. The answer is, in fact, none. There would be one if I had a ship's bell, which would be rung by the only thing called a rope on board - the bell rope.
A mysterious metamorphosis between the chandlery and the boat changes the ropes into something else - something more nautical-sounding. Thus, a boat will have stays, shrouds, sheets, halyards, lines, hauls, but never a rope (without the bell). The most probable explanation is that the "rope" ceases to be purposeless commodity and takes on the name of what it has been assigned to do. Nautical language, however, pre-dates modern English, and you sometimes have to slip back a few centuries to make the connection between name and function.
Stays are probably the easiest. In a Bermuda-rig like mine, the single mast will have a forestay and a backstay, and they keep the mast staying upright. They also belong to the class of rigging known as standing rigging, possibly because without it, the mast will succumb to gravity and fall down. Also, its not generally adjustable when underway but, in one of those ironies that get in the way whenever you think life is just about to get simple, backstays on fractional rigs are adjustable. They are used to flatten the mainsail for better efficiency in stronger winds. A fractional rig has the forestay connected to the mast 7/8 or 3/4 up the mast (hence the name). The offset between the connection to the forestay and the backstay allows the sailor to bend the mast by tightening the backstay, which flattens the sail. When I first heard of this I thought it was the other way round - the more bend in the mast, the more "baggy" the sail. I had not appreciated that sails are not flat pieces of material like a bedsheet, but are constructed with a belly in them, which becomes more pronounced when the leading edge (the luff) is bent by the mast.
Boats, especially sailing boats, are complicated machines. I liken sailing to flying with a vertical wing, and its one of the reasons I find it so fascinating. However, learning to sail comes with learning an entirely new language.
Anyhow, my boat is a mast-head rig which, as you might infer from the name, means that everything runs up to the top of the mast. This gives me a bigger foresail than a fractional rig, but less capability to adjust the shape of the mainsail. My backstay is more about anchoring the mast in position, than bending it. Indeed, my boat also has a baby-stay, which runs from the foredeck to the spreaders, and is intended to support the mast rigidly from being bent. The result is that the Austral 20 is very stiff, and that makes it an excellent learner boat.
The word "shroud" is actually related to our word for burial clothing (e.g. The Turin Shroud), according to my Chambers Dictionary of Etymology;
The meaning of the shroud, usually shrouds, any of the ropes supporting the mast or masts of a ship, is sometimes treated as a separate term in standard dictionaries, but the development of this meaning seems a natural extension of the idea of clothe as supported by the use of the nautical phrase clothe the mast with shrouds and the application of the word naked to a mast or spar without its rigging ... The same sense of development appears in Old Icelandic ... Probably before 1350 schruden to dress, clothe; later to cover, veil ... from the noun.
Later, I'll get to the running rigging named, or so I think, after what you do around on deck as you try to get your boat heading in the right direction.
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| Austral 20 Standing Rigging |
PS The picture this week was produced from my first attempt at producing sketches using Gimp. I'm rather pleased with it, though the result is rather crayon-ish. Tomorrow, I intend to rival Michelangelo's frescos in the Sistine Chapel with my new-found skill. How difficult could it be?
PPS After posting this, some smart person pointed out that the boat might have a bolt rope. Technically, my boat does not have one, but the catamarans I sail for Sails at Bayside do. I'd call that a draw.
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