About the mainsail, topsail and large staysail.

The gaff is lifted by the uphaul (Pic 1) with the halyard being tied off on a mast cleat (Pic 2) Note this is not how the real thing would be done, but is my method that works on a model.

There are a number of cleats attached to the foot of the mast. These are glued and attached using long screw eyes ( see earlier blog)

Pic 3 shows the gaff 'spreader' (my term) the halyard passing through various pulleys before travelling down the mast to a cleat (Pic4) More about pulleys in the next Blog.

The following photos show the principle sails and how they are attached. I have made a number of other sails not shown here, including a smaller main sail and topsail, a smaller staysail, a jib and a flying jib. These can be set to suit different wind strengths.

The mainsail (pic 5 ) is an old cotton sheet stained with tea. I have sewn reinforcement patches into the places that will come under stress or tension, and bias binding onto all edges. Metal eyes or hooks are then sewn into the clew (Pic 6), the tack (Pic 7), the throat (Pics 8 and 9), and the peak (Pic 10 ). Pic 11 just shows how the bias binding is used to finish the sail edges.

Attachment points are shown in the next few pictures. Pic 12 the tack eye, Pic 13 the throat eye, Pic 14 the peak uphaul and Pic 15 the clew outhaul. Pic 16 shows the main sheet emerging onto the deck, passing through an eye on the travel horse and heading for the main boom.

The topsail is shown in Pic 17, already stained with Colron dye, corners reinforced and bias binding sewn on. The following five pictures show the topsail foot, clew and peak in detail.

Pic 23 is the large staysail, with the tack, clew and head shown in the final pictures.

None of the methods used for attaching these sails is authentic. My aim is to be able to sail the boat and enjoy seeing it on the water. I therefore need to be able to attach or detach the sails quickly at the pondside. I use a variety of attachments, principally eyes and hooks. I try to make these as neat as possible, and not detract from the appearance.

We often talk about 'passing the ten foot test', meaning if it looks OK when ten feet away, then it is OK. However, viewing these photos I can see just how poorly I have finished off sewing in the sail corners. There are too many ragged edges and untidy hand sewing. In future I must remind myself of this and do better. (Sounds like my school reports - 'must do better !')