Just What Is - - -???

[Oswego John]

Hi all,

Tonight, two old geezers and a pretty lady were having a discussion on the subject of sails. Just what is a "fisherman" type of sail?

There is a new schooner out in western Lake Ontario with this type of sail.

It drew a blank from me. What say you?

Waiting with bated breath in
Utopia on the Lake

O J

[RayDewick]

The Fisherman staysail is a rectangular (kind of) sail that is raised between the masts and above the foresail. The top of it goes from the top of the fore mast to the top of the main mast so the top of the sail is angled.

[Oswego John]

Ray,

Bingo. That's exactly the way it was described to me. In all these years, I've never heard of it called that name but have seen pictures of it many times.

It just proves that *YOU CAN* teach an old dog new tricks.

Thanks,
O J

[s.v. LaVida]

OJ,

You put out a line and once in awhile you'll hook an ole sea dog!

Sea u this weekend!

Rit

[Oswego John]

Hi all,

FWIW, if anyone is interested in seeing what a Fisherman sail looks like, there is a picture of one and a brief history of the schooner Ellida on page 152 of the A.S.T.A. (Amer. Sail Training Ass'n.) book, Sail Tall Ships.

Ellida 's homeport is Rockland, Maine. Maybe those who live in the area or who are cruising in midcoast Maine waters might be able to check her out personally.

Take a kid sailing this year.
O J

[Oswego John]

Hi Again,

After I finished writing my last post earlier this evening, it occured to me that there might be some of the readers who might be interested in seeing pictures and learning more about these beautiful ships.

You will find much info about the tall ships, many of which sail and participate in races on the Great Lakes.
Click on

http://www.schoonerman.com/

There is a part of the web page that I thought was very interesting. At the very top on the right side, click on "Schooners and Sailing Terms. This will bring you to a page with colorful semaphore flags representing letters of the alphabet. Click on any letter to learn and enjoy.

If you see the four masted schooners Windy and Windy II who are homeported in Chicago, they are the ones I sailed on. My old watch captain, Andy, put in about 1,000 hours building the Dennis Sullivan up in Milwaukee. She's the flagship for the state of Wisconsin. Their pictures are in there somewhere. Poke around.

Enjoy,
O J

[Woody]

Okay John, now what is a gollywobbler sail? Not quite sure of the spelling but that is the pronunciation.
Woody

[ray b]

http://www.seadercraft.com/sailboats.html

scroll down to the gollywobber

btw I had a 16 foot baldhead Schooner rig dink 16 ft
with that rig, it pointed very well

[Oswego John]

Hi Woody,

Sheesh! I'm having trouble saying it, never mind knowing what one is.

However, not one to be daunted by personal ignorance, I swung into action and drew up a plan to investigate the question at hand.

My first thoght, obviously, was to see if any of the readers could help us out.

If that proved fruitless, I would seek input from our resident sail analyst, Ray Dewick and hope he could come through again.

Since we're running low on courses of action, I plan on asking the astute CDSOA members who will be attending the Great Lakes Sail-In this weekend. Lets see if any of these grizzled, gnarly, wizened, waterlogged, barnacle encrusted sailors can come up with any semblance of an answer.

And now, to borrow a phrase from my hero, Paul Harvey, "And now for the rest of the story".

Whoa nelly. Stop the presses. Avast. Do something.

On a hunch, I thought I would look up the word "gollywobble" in a dictionary near my desk, which is The Random House Dictionary Of The English Language. It is truly a landlubber's compilation of short stories.

Ta dah! There it was, under the letter "G".

"Gollywobbler", n. naut. A very large, quadrilateral staysail set between the foremast and mainmast of a schooner.

Woody, I have honestly never heard of these nautically exotic names for sails, but I'm learning. I bet that there are other equally colorful names for sails that the average sailor has never heard before. Okay, say gollywobbler three times quickly.

Keep 'em coming,
O J

[Scott MacCready]

I came across this picture today and remembered the conversation here from a couple weeks ago.
[img]http://www.carib1500.com/c1500/images/IMG_0036.JPG[/img]

[ray b]

nice gaff foresail marconi main schooner
but NOT a gollywobber
because the foresail is not sheeted to the top of the main mast
and it uses a spar [gaff]
and the bottom does not overlap the mainsail like a genny

[Scott MacCready]

Once again, I'll show my ignorance....
So, on a schooner, the aft most sail is the main as opposed to a mizzen on my ketch. The middle sail is the foresail, where my main is. And how about the sails most forward? Are they still jib and staysail and not foresails? A little confusing.

[Oswego John]

Hi Scott,

There's more names floating around (no pun intended) than you can shake a stick at. (Maybe a pun intended). We'll see.

I suppose that you could get away with calling a ship's part anything that others would know what you're talking about.

Hmmmmm, this is going to get deep, maybe. On a two masted schooner, some people refer to it as having two "sticks". The shorter of the two, the one toward the bow they call the foremast. The taller, toward the stern they call the mainmast.

On a gaff rigged schooner, the four sided large sail aft of the foremast they call the foremainsail. The same type of sail aft of the mainmast they call the mainmains'l. Sometimes, this sail is called a "spanker".

Any sail(s), usually triangular in shape, that are between the foremast and the stem, they call fores'ls with various prefixes and other strange sounding monickers.

Official disclaimer:
These are some of the terms that I have heard others say. In order to converse with them in a sort of quasi-nautical way, I try my best to speak their language. If any of the above terms are in error or debatable, keep in mind that I am only the messenger. Please, don't anyone shoot the messenger.

O J

[Mike Raehl]

While working the Tall Ships Chicago Festival, I made a point of asking the crews of the two-masted schooners what they called their two masts. All agreed that they had a fore mast and a main mast. The 'missing' mast versus a three-masted schooner was the mizzen mast.

[Parfait's Provider]

According to John Vigor's The Practical Mariner's Book of Knowledge the third mast is the Spanker and the fourth is the Mizzen; add a Jigger for five and a driver for six. Seventh is a pusher.

Left as an extra credit exercise for the curious is to put them in order. See page 147 of the aforementioned book if you must. From the bow, the first two are always the Foremast and Mainmast.