Sails and the sailmaker
From this month's Bosun's Chronicle (the email newletter of author Julian Stockwin). Subscribe at the author's website here.
SEA TRADES
The Sailmaker
To this day, a sailmaker is familiarly known as "Sails". In Kydd's time sails were made from flax woven into long canvas strips known as bolts (38 yards long, two feet wide). Most of the canvas supplied to the Royal Navy was manufactured in mills in places such as Dundee, Scotland and Dorset. The bolts were sent to the royal dockyards to be made into sails.
The Navy sourced its flax overseas, from countries such as Russia. When supplies were threatened because of changing global alliances Norfolk Island in far Australia was settled chiefly because it would be a reliable source of flax.
Canvas for sail-making came in different grades - for example, for heavy weather sails "no. 1" it weighed 44 lb per bolt and for light weather "no. 6", it was 29 lb. per bolt.
Sails were made in the sail lofts of the royal dockyards, which had a sufficiently large floor area to lay out a complete sail pattern.
Strips of canvas were sewn together with about 1.5 inch overlap. A special hem known as tabling was sewn around the whole sail, and round that rope. Loops were added in the corners of sails for attaching rigging lines. Some sails had double thickness of canvas at certain points.
For a ship such as "Victory" it took 28 men 83 days to make a suit of sails. The maximum number of sails that could be set was 37 - this gave a maximum sail area a third as big again as a football pitch. Ships also carried a number of spare sails.
Naval sails were identified by weaving a thin blue wavy line down the centre of each bolt. In the sail rooms aboard ship, sails were labelled with a marked wooden tally, easily identifiable by seamen who couldn't read.
One sailmaker was appointed by warrant to each ship. Aboard the larger ships the sailmaker had a mate to assist his work. (Sailmakers and their mates were idlers, they did not stand watch.)
The seagoing sailmaker reported to the bosun. He took charge of the sails as they came on board. He inspected them, repaired them as necessary and kept them dry and free from mould.
You can see "Victory"'s battle-scarred fore topsail from Trafalgar in Portsmouth Historic dockyard. Covering an area of 3,618 ft, it was the second largest sail on board the ship and would have been one of the main targets for French and Spanish guns as she approached the enemy line.
Flax sails were on all the great explorers' ships, as well as those of Nelson and Captain Cook, but by the time the sailing ship reached its technological apex in the mid nineteenth century most sails were made of cotton.
SEA TRADES
The Sailmaker
To this day, a sailmaker is familiarly known as "Sails". In Kydd's time sails were made from flax woven into long canvas strips known as bolts (38 yards long, two feet wide). Most of the canvas supplied to the Royal Navy was manufactured in mills in places such as Dundee, Scotland and Dorset. The bolts were sent to the royal dockyards to be made into sails.
The Navy sourced its flax overseas, from countries such as Russia. When supplies were threatened because of changing global alliances Norfolk Island in far Australia was settled chiefly because it would be a reliable source of flax.
Canvas for sail-making came in different grades - for example, for heavy weather sails "no. 1" it weighed 44 lb per bolt and for light weather "no. 6", it was 29 lb. per bolt.
Sails were made in the sail lofts of the royal dockyards, which had a sufficiently large floor area to lay out a complete sail pattern.
Strips of canvas were sewn together with about 1.5 inch overlap. A special hem known as tabling was sewn around the whole sail, and round that rope. Loops were added in the corners of sails for attaching rigging lines. Some sails had double thickness of canvas at certain points.
For a ship such as "Victory" it took 28 men 83 days to make a suit of sails. The maximum number of sails that could be set was 37 - this gave a maximum sail area a third as big again as a football pitch. Ships also carried a number of spare sails.
Naval sails were identified by weaving a thin blue wavy line down the centre of each bolt. In the sail rooms aboard ship, sails were labelled with a marked wooden tally, easily identifiable by seamen who couldn't read.
One sailmaker was appointed by warrant to each ship. Aboard the larger ships the sailmaker had a mate to assist his work. (Sailmakers and their mates were idlers, they did not stand watch.)
The seagoing sailmaker reported to the bosun. He took charge of the sails as they came on board. He inspected them, repaired them as necessary and kept them dry and free from mould.
You can see "Victory"'s battle-scarred fore topsail from Trafalgar in Portsmouth Historic dockyard. Covering an area of 3,618 ft, it was the second largest sail on board the ship and would have been one of the main targets for French and Spanish guns as she approached the enemy line.
Flax sails were on all the great explorers' ships, as well as those of Nelson and Captain Cook, but by the time the sailing ship reached its technological apex in the mid nineteenth century most sails were made of cotton.