Posted by Alan Gardner on August 15, 2003 at 05:45:37 from 81.131.19.179 user AlanGardner.
More the 'ish' part of appropriate-ish, I'm afraid, but this is the sort of thing that a fellow-TAR is likely to know!
What exactly was the mechanism for furling a large square sail, please?
I believe that, in Nelsonian times, a large group of seamen went out on the yard, leant over it on their stomachs in a long row (with some kind of ratline for a foot support) and then gathered the sail in.
Did they just grab handfuls to pull it up? Seems a difficult task for a heavy sail, even with a lot of men.
Were there some sort of halyards which were attached to the bottom of the sail to ease this task, which could be pulled up by the seamen strung along the yard? There could be several of these spaced at intervals along the sail? Or some arrangement similar to the modern 'lazy-jack reefing', where a loop of cord would run from the top of the sail, down one side, underneath, and then up the other side to the top again, so that the folds of the sail would be gathered in if this loop were hauled up from the yard? (They'd have to be very slack for normal sailing, in order not to interfere with the billow of the sail.)
I assume that, once the sail had been pulled up (I envisage the sail would be held by the arms against one's knees), some kind of tie would be used to give the famous furled effect.
I'd be interested to hear if anyone has specific details.