How to rig the boom guy ropes on a Puffer?

[BanjomanParticipant @banjoman]

Hello,

This is my first posting to this forum, and as the thread title says, I would very much like to put a question to the assembled expertise on some the finer details of rigging boom guy ropes on a smaller merchant vessel, a Clyde Puffer in casu.

I am currently building such a vessel, the "Eilean Mòr", based on the wellknown Mountfleet Models "Highlander" kit, and have now gotten to the relatively advanced stage of rigging the mast-and-boom derrick. I attach a recent photo of my build as it more or less is at the moment.

The kit does not include any instructions for the boom guy ropes, nor does the prototype model shown on the Mountfleet Model website feature any. I woukl nevertheless like to add them to my model.

Having done some (fairly extensive) research online and in the various books I have on Puffers, I have come to the conclusion that a very common form of guy rope rigging involves pendant blocks suspended to port and to starbord from the end-of-the-boom ring [blocks (a) on my sketch, below]. Through these pendant locks were then rove ropes with another block [block (b)] at one end. So far, so good: this configuration I have spotted on a number of photos and also on various real life derrick set-up drawings that I have found through Google image search.

My problem is that neither photos nor drawings are very clear on what happens to the guy ropes below the bulwarks of the ship! More specifically, I haven't been able to dig out any information on how the standing ends are set up.

Off the top of my head I can think of two possible set-ups that would tally with what one sees in photos etc. from the higher parts of the guy rope rigging, and I have made the following sketch to illustrate them.

This sketch shows the boom seen from above, with a variant set-up of the guy ropes on either side.

In Variant 1, above the boom in the sketch (or to starboard, if one prefers to look at it that way), there is in fact only one rope involved, other than the initial pendant. This rope has block (b) attached to one end, is then rove through block (a) and from there to a third block (c) which is made fast (by e.g. a rigging hook) to the deck, the inside of the bulwark or maybe to a samson post. From block (c) the running end then goes on to be rove through block (b) and then on to whatever power source (a crew member for example) is used to work the guy rope.

In variant 2, below to the boom (i.e. to port in the sketch), there are two ropes other than the pendant involved. The first rope has block (b) attached to one end, is rove through block (a) and then made fast somewhere below the bulwarks. The second rope has its standing end made fast somewhere close to the first rope's standing end, and its running end rove through block (b) whence it again goes to whatever power source is working the guy rope.

My question thus is whether anyone here knows if either, both or neither of these variants are correct, or would have been more or less common when rigging the derrick boom guy ropes on a small merchant vessel like a Clyde Puffer? I would be truly grateful for any help or suggestions, and even more so if they were backed up documentation in some form.

Warmest thanks in advance for your kind help!

[BanjomanParticipant @banjoman]

[LooverlijnParticipant @looverlijn]

I'm afraid I know nothing about rigging booms but I would like to congratulate you on a beautiful looking model and the khazi at the bows looks great – is it operational?

[BanjomanParticipant @banjoman]

Thank you very much for your kind comments! And yes, I think one might actually claim that the thunder box is functional … or almost. Here's a closeup from the construction stage:

As you can see, there is a bucket under the seat, which, as shown in the next image, is hinged and lifts up.

In other words, a person of +/- 1:24 scale size could go in, do his or her business, lift the lid, take the bucket out and empty it over the side of the ship (although I would prefer them to wait until the ship were on the pond rather than in my workshop). The only snags they might come across in this scenario would be the blob of glue securing the bucket to the floor, and the fact that the loo roll (although made out of actual toilet paper) has been suffused with sufficient amounts of thin CA glue to make it quite solid and un-unrollable …

Edited By Banjoman on 13/10/2014 14:24:41

[LooverlijnParticipant @looverlijn]

I can only see one snag (and here I'm being really picky) but it looks like the amount of "knee" room means you would have to do the "necessary" with the door open. Not a pretty sight

[BanjomanParticipant @banjoman]

Well spotted! It is indeed a tight fit in there, and one would either have to spread one's knees in a fairly uncomfortable fashion, or keep the door at least ajar.

If built as foreseen in the kit, the outhouse would actually have been slightly smaller yet by a couple of millimetres in each direction. However, when I got around to constructing my version of it, I was already bound by the framing pattern I'd built into the deck planking and which I had based on the kit screenprinted parts measurements, and so had a choice between too shallow a seat or a tight knee fit, and thus opted for the latter.

So yes: I plead guilty to a certain lack of construction forethought here, although I would add to my further defence that nothing much larger would have fitted in the general space available on the foredeck either.

Edited By Banjoman on 13/10/2014 15:38:01

Edited By Banjoman on 13/10/2014 15:38:18

[Colin BishopModerator @colinbishop34627]

Sort of 'cut off at the knees when taking your ease' then?

Colin

[BanjomanParticipant @banjoman]

Ayuh, Colin — something of the sort, I dare say

Anyway, after some further head scratching, I recalled that when putting together the fore deck winch on Eilean Mòr a few monnths ago, I had found some rather interesting information on the intricacies of steam deck winches at the website of the Historic Naval Ships Association in Smithfield, VA (**LINK**), where they have published an OCR scanned version of the 1944 United States Maritime Service Training Manual, Engineering Branch Training (**LINK**).

I therefore thought that a further visit to this very interesting website might be fruitful, and lo and behold: I found there both the 1891 USN Textbook Of Seamanship and also the 1943 USMSTM, Deck Branch Training manual. Based on these sources, in particular pp. 72 ff (**LINK** of the former and pp. 22 ff (**LINK** of the latter as well as visual evidence from various period Clyde Puffer photos, I now strongly suspect that the boom guys in those Puffers are rigged using a variation on the single Spanish burton tackle (although if I rightly understand yet another interesting source of information on sailing smack tackles [http://www.smackdock.co.uk/tackles.htm)], it should perhaps rather be called a whip-on-whip tackle).

The exact nomenclature is of course less important, but in any case I conclude that what I described as Variant 2 in my original post seems the configuration most likely to be correct, albeit with the small alteration of having both standing ends made fast to the same point. I will in fact probably attach them both to one and the same rigging hook, which will then be hooked into a ringbolt or similar somewhere in the vicinity of the chains.

[BanjomanParticipant @banjoman]

After some further thought, I've decided to set up the tackle as follows:

1. Two wire pendants from boom head ring with single blocks (a) at the ends.
2. Single blocks (b) attached to one end of each a rope.
3. These ropes rove through blocks (a).
4. A loop of each rope then drawn through the eye of a rigging hook and secured around the shank of the hook (cf. Plate 33, fig. 261 on p. 72 of The Textbook of Seamanship **LINK**). The loops may be further secured by whipping a few rounds of small stuff around them just above the hooks.
5. The rigging hooks hooked into suitable ringbolts.
6. The ropes finally rove through blocks (b) and the running ends made fast to convenient cleats or sampson posts (I might actually have a member of the crew hauling on one such running end, although that remains to be seen).

By using rigging hooks attached in the manner described above, it will be possible to represent the guy ropes as allowing the relative positions of blocks (a) and (b) to be adjusted and the guy rope purchase points as easily moveable around the deck and/or a quay, to handle a particular loading/unloading situation.

Edited By Banjoman on 16/10/2014 12:20:03

Edited By Banjoman on 16/10/2014 12:20:36

[BanjomanParticipant @banjoman]

Well, I have now carried out in practice on the model what I preached in theory in my previous post, and this is how it turned out …

First, here's a picture of the starboard wire pendant with block (a) shackled into it:

Next, here is block (b), shackled into the standing end of the fall, with the running end rove through …

… that is to say, rove through after a bight had been taken through the eye and around the shank of a rigging hook (which I've temporarily hooked onto a shroud turnbuckle shackle):

Finally, here are two overview pictures of the single Spanish burton-rigged boom guy ropes in situ:

I am delighted to say that they work really well: if one were small enough to get one's kneecaps crushed by the lavatory door, one could also stand on deck of the ship (or on an adjacent quay) and swing the boom back and forth with ease and impunity

At a later stage, I might yet replace the fall with one made from some extremely nice, handmade 0,8 mm flax rope that I picked up last summer from Firma Eskader AB in Stockholm (http://www.eskader.se/en/model-ships/283-rigging-thread-rope-natural-handmade.html) but before I do so, I want to be sure that I have enough to make up all the running rigging. Unfortunately, the people at Eskader told me that the chap who used to make this rigging rope for them passed away last year, and that the 4,8 metres I bought were the very last of their stock.

One of these days I intend to try build my own miniature ropewalk, and see if there's any chance I might actually learn how to make miniature rope as good as that, but that is a project for later …

 

Edited By Banjoman on 18/10/2014 17:01:25

[Colin BishopModerator @colinbishop34627]

Looking really good with all those little fittings. It is a very nice model.

Colin

[BanjomanParticipant @banjoman]

Thank you very much, Colin, for your kind words!

If there's any interest on the forum, I'd be more than happy to write up a separate thread on the build so far …

Again, warmest thanks!

/Mattias

[BanjomanParticipant @banjoman]

I'm afraid I've been a bit of a klutz, and, while editing the underlying photo album, managed to erase all the images I'd included in this thread.

Not that this a very valuable or interesting thread, but to repair the error and more specifically to keep the thread at least somewhat comprehensible, I'm reposting below (in their original order of appearance) the images referred to in my previous posts …

/Mattias

 

Edited By Banjoman on 23/10/2014 08:51:39

Edited By Banjoman on 23/10/2014 08:52:06

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