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ltwilliammowett · 1 month ago

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The Mast

One of the most important elements of a ship are the masts, because this is where the sails are attached that serve to propel the ship.

History

The oldest evidence for the use of one solid masts comes from the Ubaid site H3 in Kuwait, which dates back to the second half of the sixth millennium BC. There, a clay disc was recovered from a sherd that appears to depict a reed boat with two masts.

A painted clay disc with a diameter of 6.5 cm from site H3 with a design reminiscent of a boat with two masts, second half of the sixth millennium BC

In the West, the concept of a vessel with more than one mast to increase speed under sail and improve sailing characteristics developed in the northern waters of the Mediterranean: the earliest foremast was identified on an Etruscan pyxis from Caere (Italy) from the middle of the 7th century BC: A warship with a furled mainsail attacks an enemy ship and sets a foresail. An Etruscan tomb painting from the period between 475 and 450 BC depicts a two-masted merchant ship with a large foresail on a slightly inclined foremast.

Tomb of the Ship, mid-5th century BC

An artemon (Greek for foresail), which is almost as large as the main sail of the galley, is found on a Corinthian krater as early as the late 6th century BC; otherwise, Greek longships are uniformly depicted without this sail until the 4th century BC. In the East, ancient Indian kingdoms such as the Kalinga are thought to have been built in the 2nd century BC. One of the earliest documented evidence of Indian sail construction is the mural of a three-masted ship in the caves of Ajanta, which is dated to 400-500 AD.

This Ajanta mural depicts an ancient Indian ship with high stem and stern and three oblong sails attached to three masts. Steering-oars can also be seen. Location: Cave No. 2, Ajanta Caves, Aurangabad District, Maharashtra state, India, 400-500 AD

The foremast was used quite frequently on Roman galleys, where, tilted at a 45° angle, it was more like a bowsprit, and the scaled-down foresail attached to it was apparently used as a steering aid rather than for propulsion. While most ancient evidence is iconographic in nature, the existence of foremasts can also be inferred archaeologically from slots in the foremast feet, which were too close to the bow for a mainsail.

Fragment of mosaic depicting "navis tesseraria", a messenger and police boat of the African fleet, 2nd century AD

The artemon, together with the mainsail and the topsail, developed into the standard rigging of seagoing vessels in the Imperial period, which was supplemented by a mizzen on the largest cargo ships. The first recorded three-masters were the huge Syracusia, a prestigious object commissioned by King Hiero II of Syracuse and developed by the polymath Archimedes around 240 BC, as well as other Syracusan merchant ships of the time. The imperial grain freighters that travelled on the routes between Alexandria and Rome also included three-masted ships. A mosaic in Ostia (around 200 AD) shows a freighter with a three-masted rig entering the harbour of Rome. Specialised ships could carry many more masts: Theophrastus (Hist. Plant. 5.8.2) reports that the Romans brought in Corsican timber on a huge raft propelled by up to fifty masts and sails.

Throughout antiquity, both the foresail and the mizzen were secondary in terms of sail size, although they were large enough to require full rigging. In late antiquity, the foremast lost most of its tilt and stood almost upright on some ships.

By the beginning of the early Middle Ages, rigging in Mediterranean shipping had changed fundamentally: The spars, which had long since developed on smaller Greco-Roman ships, replaced the square sail, the most important type of sail in antiquity, which had virtually disappeared from the records by the fourteenth century (while remaining predominant in northern Europe). The dromon, the rowed bireme of the Byzantine fleet, almost certainly had two masts, a larger foremast and one amidships. Their length is estimated at 12 metres and 8 metres respectively, somewhat less than that of the Sicilian war galleys of the time.

Multi-masted sailing ships were reintroduced to the Mediterranean in the late Middle Ages. Large ships became more common and the need for additional masts to steer these ships appropriately grew with the increase in tonnage. Unlike in antiquity, the mizzen mast was introduced on medieval two-masted ships earlier than the foremast, a process that can be traced back to the mid-14th century based on visual material from Venice and Barcelona. To equalise the sail plan, the next obvious step was the addition of a mast in front of the main mast, which first appears in a Catalan ink drawing from 1409. With the establishment of the three-masted ship, propelled by square sails and battens and steered by the pivot-and-piston rudder, all the advanced ship technology required for the great transoceanic voyages was in place by the early 15th century.

In the 16th century, the cross-section of the masts was made up of several pieces of wood and held together with ropes and iron rings.

A lower mast with sections from 1773 to 1800

In order to achieve a greater height, the lower mast is extended, so that a total length of up to 60 metres can be achieved, measured from the keel. From lowest to highest, these were called: lower, top, topgallant, and royal masts. Giving the lower sections sufficient thickness necessitated building them up from separate pieces of wood. Such a section was known as a made mast, as opposed to sections formed from single pieces of timber, which were known as pole masts.

This is a section of HMS Victory's main mast

The forces of the sails on the mast construction are transferred to the hull construction by standing and running rigging, forwards and aft (stern) by stays, and laterally by shrouds or guys. In order to enable sailors to climb up into the rigging, which is particularly necessary for the operation of square riggers, rat lines are knotted into the shrouds like rungs of a ladder. The upper end of a ship's mast is called the masthead.

Mounting

The mast either stands in the mast track on the keel and is passed through the deck or it stands directly on deck. In the first case, the opening must be neatly sealed with a mast collar, otherwise water will penetrate into the living quarters. If the mast is on deck, it must be supported from below on the keel so that the loads do not bend the deck. Practically every sailing ship therefore has a more or less visible vertical support through the cabin.

Masts are usually supported by the standing rigging. The shrouds pull the mast downwards with several times its own weight and thus prevent it from tipping over.

Traditionally, when a sailing ship is built, one or more coins are placed under the mast as a lucky charm (according to my theory, the coins were also used as money to pay Charon the ferryman in the underworld if the ship sank); this custom is still practised today. Just as a horseshoe was nailed to the mast to bring good luck.

Mast types

For square-sail carrying ships, masts in their standard names in bow to stern (front to back) order, are:

Sprit topmast: a small mast set on the end of the bowsprit (discontinued after the early 18th century); not usually counted as a mast, however, when identifying a ship as "two-masted" or "three-masted"

Fore-mast: the mast nearest the bow, or the mast forward of the main-mast. As it is the furthest afore, it may be rigged to the bowsprit. Sections: fore-mast lower, fore topmast, fore topgallant mast

Main-mast: the tallest mast, usually located near the center of the ship Sections: main-mast lower, main topmast, main topgallant mast, royal mast (if fitted)

Mizzen-mast: the aft-most mast. Typically shorter than the fore-mast. Sections: mizzen-mast lower, mizzen topmast, mizzen topgallant mast

Some names given to masts in ships carrying other types of rig (where the naming is less standardised) are:

Bonaventure mizzen: the fourth mast on larger 16th-century galleons, typically lateen-rigged and shorter than the main mizzen.

Jigger-mast: typically, where it is the shortest, the aftmost mast on vessels with more than three masts. Sections: jigger-mast lower, jigger topmast, jigger topgallant mast

When a vessel has two masts, as a general rule, the main mast is the one setting the largest sail. Therefore, in a brig, the forward mast is the foremast and the after mast is the mainmast. In a schooner with two masts, even if the masts are of the same height, the after one usually carries a larger sail (because a longer boom can be used), so the after mast is the mainmast. This contrasts with a ketch or a yawl, where the after mast, and its principal sail, is clearly the smaller of the two, so the terminology is (from forward) mainmast and mizzen. (In a yawl, the term "jigger" is occasionally used for the aftermast.)

Some two-masted luggers have a fore-mast and a mizzen-mast – there is no main-mast. This is because these traditional types used to have three masts, but it was found convenient to dispense with the main-mast and carry larger sails on the remaining masts. This gave more working room, particularly on fishing vessels.

Cock, John. A treatise on mast-making , 1840.

Fincham, John. A Treatise on Masting Ships and Mast Making , 1854. Kipping, Robert. Rudimentary treatise on masting, mast-making, and rigging of ships , 1864.

Steel, David The Elements and Practice of Rigging, Seamanship, and Naval Tactics, Including Sail Making, Mast Making, and Gunnery , 1821.

Steel, David. Steel's Elements Of Mast-making, Sail-making and Rigging , 1794.

Layton, Cyril Walter Thomas, Peter Clissold, and A. G. W. Miller. Dictionary of nautical words and terms. Brown, Son & Ferguson, 1973.

Harland, John. Seamanship in the Age of Sail,1992

Marquardt, Karl Heinz, Bemastung und Takelung von Schiffen des 18. Jahrhunderts, 1986

#naval history #mast #parts of a ship #very long post #sorry #ancient seafaring #medieval seafarinh #age of discovery #age of sail #age of steam

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