by David Wheatley
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As its name implies, it was a development of the sprit sail similar to that used on Thames barges to this day.
This was the earliest form of gaff sail developed in this country (GB). The running rigging was slightly different with a more complicated peak halyard and the throat halyard further along the gaff than those of today.
Vangs were also fitted, and again, Thames barges still retain these, or Wangs as some bargees will call them.
It is probable that the half-sprit was adopted to lessen the risk of a vang parting. A sprit sail out of control could be disastrous. Often this advantage was lost, as the seventeenth century smack invariably carried a square topsail sheeted to the half-sprit, thus imparting extra strain.
Thames barge
Peter boats originated as double-ended rowing boats which evolved a sprit main and staysail. By the 1840's they had grown to 28 feet. Then the name changed to to bawley, which probably meant a peter boat that carried a shrimp boiler, they were now fitted with a transom stern and often 32 feet overall.
Hatch boats
Another early rig that sadly disappeared sometime in the middle of the twentieth century was that of the working barges of Langston harbour. Except for their standing gaff mainsails they differed only slightly from barges of the Thames estuary. Their demise was inevitable as it appears they were slow and somewhat unseaworthy craft, usually keeping within the shelter of the Isle of Wight. Despite this, they were typical of the transition between sprit and gaff.
The word gaff was now being used widely instead of sprit. It is from the Dutch word 'gaffel', meaning fork. A white pitchfork on a blue field is the symbol of The Old Gaffer's Association.
Bawley 'Helen & Violet'
The short gaffed Dutch sail has survived almost unchanged, except for its curve, since the seventeenth century. We find in contemporary paintings of this time two distinct forms of gaff mainsail; the Dutch with tiny gaff, boom and no vangs, and the English long standing half-sprit with vangs and no boom.
The
gaff rig of today is a hybrid of these two forms. The gaff is longer
than the Dutch version, but retains the hoisting and lowering action.
The
Dutch love their traditional craft and thanks to this they have retained
many lovely craft with unpronounceable names like; Schuit, Tjalks, Boejers
and Tjotters. Their rigs are basically similar, it's the shape and size
of hulls that denotes the name.
Tjalk
The heel of the mast, fitted with up to two tons of iron counterbalance, swung below the deck. The single halyard, used to hoist the very long and low peaked gaff, was fitted in such a manner that the first effect of letting go was for the peak to drop, then the gaff came down almost horizontal. During hoisting and lowering a line was used to control the gaff, a descendant of the vang, perhaps. The blackness of the large sail was achieved with heavy dressings of a tar and herring oil mixture.
The wherries of the river Bure were distinguished by a white half circle wrapped around the bows. This made them more visible at night, as they tended to sail without lights despite the bylaws. At the mast head flew a long pennant with an ornamental metal vane, an interesting collection of these can be seen in Norwich Craft Museum.
Wherry 'Albion'
In the eighteenth century they traded further down river and into the estuary, at that time with fore and aft rig and transom stern. By the middle of the nineteenth century they were in both ketch and sloop versions.
The other main type of sailing barge on the west coast was the Mersey Flat. In the eighteenth century these also went through the change from square to sloop rig. They had a flat bottom, hence the name, and massively built with a huge rudder, and chain and wire rigging. The high peaked sail was tanned with oak bark and seal oil. They were similar to the Langston harbour barge in that they carried neither bowsprit nor topmast. As flats increased in size some became ketch rigged and were known as 'Jigger Flats'. Fitted with auxiliary motors they continued until the Second World War, working from the mines and quarries of Wales into the Mersey.
By the end of the nineteenth century 'cutter' denoted a vessel rigged with a gaff mainsail, a stay foresail and a jib set flying on a running bowsprit which lay nearly horizontal. It was not always so. In the eighteenth century a vessel as described would be called indifferently a cutter or sloop. In Falconer's 'Marine Dictionary' of 1769 he gives the same description for both. Steel in his 'Seamanship' of 1794 does not mention a difference either, but simply describes the sloop as rigged like a cutter 'though much lighter'.
It is possible that for a time the word 'cutter' implied a clinker built hull.
The first documented definitions appeared in J.J.Moore's 'Marine Dictionary' of 1801, a running bowsprit denoted a cutter and a standing bowsprit a sloop.
Later the Americans added to the confusion by calling both forms sloops. When a standing bowsprit was fitted to American sloops, the forestay was fitted to the bowsprit end and not the stem as it was here. This enabled them to set one large headsail that fitted the space normally occupied by flying jib and forestaysail. So, when a rig with a single headsail and no bowsprit became common, it was called a sloop, despite the fact it was really a truncated cutter. Finally, even with a fixed bowsprit, two foresails defined a cutter.
Severn trow 'Arabella'
wrecked at Ilfracombe
The Humber Sloop, now extinct, had a very simple rig consisting of a foresail and main fitted with a short boom. The gaff was about two-thirds the length of the boom, and no bowsprit. The hull was basically the same as the Humber Keel. This rig enabled them to frequent the lower reaches of the Humber more so than the keels. Keels, by the way, had one large square sail These forms were the ancestors of the Norfolk wherries.
Great Yarmouth Shrimpers were half-decked, clinker-built with transom sterns. They were about 21 feet stem to stern with a beam a little over 8 feet. The rig was a large foresail set upon a long, fixed, un-stayed bowsprit. The loose footed main had an unusual boom in that it extended forward of the mast. A rope passed over a groove in the end of the boom for attachment to the mast. It was positioned considerably higher than the foot of the mainsail, so making this spar a kind of sprit.
Yarmouth shrimpers were known locally as 'dandies'. A dandy is, of course, a two masted vessel, so it is possible that they once carried two masts. The fitting of the boom has a makeshift look about it, as if the main had, in the past, been loose footed. This would have left room that a small mizzen might have occupied.
The name 'dandy' was applied to cutters originally that fitted a small mizzen or jigger mast. The extra mast on a vessel, in those days, was thought to give it 'airs', like an overdressed West End dandy.
The classification of the smaller two-masted vessels was, if anything, more confusing than those of one mast. The reason usually was that the name denoted a boat's occupation rather than its rig. Thus, a Lowestoft trawler at one and the same time could be called: a dandy, locally a smack and if converted to a yacht she would be a ketch.
These days the ketch rig essentially consists of two masts; main and mizzen. What makes the ketch is that the mizzen mast is stepped before the rudder head. Back in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries a ketch was rigged like a ship or barque, but with no foremast.
A yacht that sets a main and a little mizzen abaft the rudder head is called a yawl. Again, the name has remained, but the meaning has changed. At one time it was the presence of a bumpkin to which the mizzen was sheeted, that made it a yawl, the position or size of the mizzen mast was irrelevant.
Itchen ferry
A ketch fitted with a tall mizzen topmast can be confused with a schooner, which has the smaller mast as the fore mast with the main abaft.
In
British waters the schooner has been a comparatively rare sight. However,
topsail schooners were the dominant rig of small west coast cargo carriers
of the 1820's. With a square fore topsail and fore and aft foresail and
main, they were more efficient than the square rigged snows.
It
was the Americans who embraced this beautiful rig and they built them
bigger and better than anyone else. The most famous racing schooner ever
must be 'America'. She sailed to England in 1851 to take part in a race.
The Royal Yacht Squadron offered a cup valued at 100 guineas as a prize
for the winner of a scratch race around the Isle of Wight. The other seventeen
yachts ranged from 47 to 392 tons, but 'America' left them all in her
wake. The cup went to the USA, there it remained until 1983, it still
retains the name of it's first victor.
A
very successful schooner that raced in British waters was 'Westward',
built in America and launched in 1910. She raced during the heyday of
the big yachts, in company with the likes of 'Britannia', 'Astra', 'Cambra',
'Candida', 'Lulworth', 'Shamrock IV' and 'White Heather'.
The
arch rival of 'Westward' was the royal cutter 'Britannia'. At 122 feet
she was built for the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII). She won a record
number of prizes in her 43 year racing life. In 625 starts she managed
231 firsts. Upon the death of George V she was scuttled off St Catherine's.
The culmination of the great yacht's era was the highly developed 'J' class. Among there number were 'Shamrock V', 'Endeavour', 'Velsheda' and 'Yankee'. Because of the connection with royalty and their sheer size, for a time, yacht racing became a popular spectator sport.
During the First World War sailing ships had fallen as easy prey to U-boats, and by the end of it sail driven trading craft had all but ceased to exist.
Up until the 1920's and 30's gaff had been the universal rig, then came what was to be almost a death blow: the leg of mutton sail, or Bermuda rig. 'Britannia' was re-rigged with it, and the 'J' class yachts 'Shamrock V' and 'Enterprise' sailed with it in the 1930 America's Cup.
After the Second World War few small craft were being built and it was not until the 1950's that sailing for pleasure became increasingly popular. The Bermuda rig went from strength to strength.
In recent years, thankfully, we have been going through an extended gaff revival. Not only in the renovation of old boats, but in the building of new gaffers for family cruising. The Old Gaffers Association also seems to be thriving. It means we can still see that distinctive gaff sail in the distance, bringing with it a little of the old romance of sail.
Lowestoft trawler
Brixham trawler
'America' model.
Click to see my painting
of 'America'.
'Britannia'
George V at the wheel
of 'Britannia'