RIGGING A SCHOONER - PART 1 - THE MAST.

Post date: 14-May-2020 23:44:54

Robin Hicks.

The mast that I had at the Perth Working With Wood Show last year was one of two masts that were built for the schooner "Willie" in my work-shop between July and September of 2019.

Built in 1984 for Tony Larrard, Willie was of round bilge steel construction and was the last sailing vessel to be built for the Broome Pearl Fishery. Her design was based on a 1900 pearling master’s vessel, schooner rigged, 50 tonnes and 68'0" long on deck.

I did work on all of Tony's vessels from the early '70's, until he passed away several years ago. Willie was the only one that I did not work on, my father and I were both heavily tied up on the STS Leeuwin's rigging at the time and that followed on with Eye Of The Wind and Endeavour over the next few years. I've had to wait for 35 years to pass to be able to get a second chance at her.

Willie was found by her current owner, Jim Stevenson, of Stevenson Logistics, slowly dying in a bay in Langkawi, Malasia, in November of 2018, electronics, mechanical, hydraulics, plumbing and rigging all shot to pieces. She spent the next six months at the Northern Shipyard, Langkawi being re worked and repaired before sailing down to Broome in July / August of last year. The old rig had to be re fitted as found, with a plan to renew it all over the next few months.

The new masts were built in my workshop, largely by Christina Klomp and Jett Stevenson. My own contribution was restricted to helping out with the bigger glue jobs and the heavier machining. Chris is actually a very highly qualified Mechatronics Engineer and has been with me on and off for the last several years. Jett is Jim's son and it made sense to get him involved with the job. Aged 19, he was on a gap year between school and Uni, kicking his heels and had no fixed commitments.

The two masts were 12.0 and 14.0 metres long, x 240 and 265 mm in diameter and were of laminated construction. Due to the restriction on the size of the Oregon Pine boards available today, the main mast was made up from 150 mm x 50 mm dry sawn Oregon, longest boards were 5.6 metres long. Chris and Jett machined the boards to a "best recovery " of about 140 mm x 45 mm, scarf jointed both ends of pretty much all of the boards needed with a 600 mm long bevel scarf and kept jointing, board after board, gluing up daily, and cutting to the required lengths the next day.

Clamping the Scarf joints Closeup of Scarf joint.

Once we had got enough lengths, we then edge jointed to make up the finished widths, and then started to laminate up these wide boards to start building the mast. The two masts were 12.0 and 14.0 metres long, x 240 and 265 mm in diameter and were of laminated construction. This was due to the restriction on the size of the Oregon Pine boards .

Selecting the Oregon boards. Jett and Chris gluing up. 200 -250 clamps used to hold the boards til the glue dries.

We used International Epiglue, epoxy glue. As this work was carried out through the winter months, we were careful to make sure that we glued up first thing in the morn-ings, the glue has a short working time even in the winter. All this glue work was done on trestles set at waist height running through the middle of the workshop, this allowed easy access for the clamps, and once they were all screwed home, we covered the boards with two layers of heavy clear plastic down to the floor, and then set a small fan heater at each end. This brought the temperature up inside the tunnel and helped to cure off the glue by the end of the day. It was not uncommon to have 200-250 clamps out on these joints, we did what we could under the constraints of glue time and available workshop floor space. While Chris and Jett were doing this job, I still needed space myself to deal with the run of the mill offshore work that was still coming in.

Mainmast near completion, now for the foremast.

Once the timber was glued up we effectively had two square structural beams. These were then tapered from the bottom to the top, the heels being left square for the first 1.0 metre, and the top 1.8 metres was also left square. The 9-11 metres in between was marked out for 8 equally spaced sides. It must be remembered that these masts are tapered, and it is not a straight taper either, it's rather like a Greek column, so the 8 sides is a moving target when you mark it out, it's changing as you go along the mast. Once the 8 sides have been shaved off, and also faired into the square ends, the whole process starts again, this time marking out for 16 sides, and then 32 sides, all equally spaced, neat and even. It is very important to keep to these marks and not lose the geometry of the job. At this stage, we were working with facets of 10-15 mm wide, from here, we took it down to 64 side, just by eye, and then finished it up to the round with the hollow bottomed wooden planes set to a fine cut. Quite surprisingly, if you've done things right, this last bit will only take an hour or so on a mast of this size, at 64 sides, it is very nearly round anyway.

More clamping as work on the foremast continues. Dressing the boards. Mainmast loaded and heading for the Perth Wood Show.

Jett and I did spend the better part of a day sanding each mast from here, our sanding blocks, better known as Torture Boards, 600 mm long, 140 mm wide and hollow bottomed to approximately suit the mast radius, and fairing into the square ends. This represented the finished mast, it was varnished from here and would be visible for all to see.

Robin shaping the mast at the 2019 Perth Wood Show. Visitors were able to get close to the action. Ably assisted (?) by fellow HTPSWA members.

My request for the Wood Show was to be able to take in one of the masts and work on it. I wanted the general public to be able to see how a mast is made, to be able to get along side of it, to be able to ask questions, and most importantly, to be able to touch it. as well. So much work these days is done either behind barriers, or in closed work-shops. From my own point of view, I hit those targets, we spoke to a lot of people, and just about everyone that came by did touch the mast, or ask a question, however, not much work was done in the three days. I hope that the club was happy with it.

“WILLIE” - Metal Construction and Erection

Part 1 showed how the masts were made for the Pearling Lugger Willie.

Part 2 shows how they were stepped.

We made the decision early on to replace the mast head bands with new work, four bands on the main mast, plus the radar tower, and three bands on the fore mast. The old rig also had metal gaff saddles and wooden boom jaws on both masts. The old gaff saddles were tired, replaced and redesigned, the wooden boom jaws were scrapped and new goosenecks were designed and fitted. Between Jim and myself, we had had a bit of banter about these jaws, Jim wanting to retain them for traditional reasons, and myself wanting to replace them with goosenecks for practical and safety reasons. By the time Jim had sailed her down to Fremantle in October of last year, he was starting to lean in my direction and we fitted the goosenecks which were needed.

We had both worked with Larry Jackson, of Sound Metal Fabrications in O'Connor over a number of years and it was an easy decision to get him to deal with all the metal work for the rig. In addition to the mast head work, it was also required that we could get Willie up under the bridges and on to the Swan River. As the original masts were stepped in a collar welded on to the deck, this whole arrangement had to be changed, tabernacles had to be designed, deck plating and compression posts had to be checked, an A frame, had to be worked out, numbers had to be crunched by a Naval Architect to prove out that they would all stand the strain of raising and lowering the masts.

Masts back at Robins workshop.

Larry Jackson checking the fit of the tabernacles against the masts.

The clearance under the bridges is about six metres, with the triangulation of trying to clear the coach house roof aft, height of the axis pins, also being able to nest both masts together with out fouling each other, clearing the radar tower on the main mast with the foremast when it was lowered, clearing the drinks bar set up on the forward deckhouse ( this was part of her charter boat rig for day tripping in Broome ). We also fitted new topmasts to both lower masts, which in turn increased the overall length, and these also increased the height of the masts when lowered. Larry did a wonderful job, everything fitted as it should. As is often the case with these fittings, we worked out what we wanted, set the size, and when it was all welded up and sitting on the bench, it looked enormous. However, once on board, it looked exactly as it should have done, perfectly in line with what was needed.

The tabernacles were fabricated and tack welded in Larry's workshop, then brought over to Orange Grove and checked against the masts. We took this opportunity to drill the axis pin holes on both masts, easier at this stage and it also allowed me to get plenty of wood preservative and varnish into these holes before they went on board. The pins were 1.1/4" diameter stainless steel, getting them lined up and bored clean from one side to the other was a ticklish job that took a couple of hours for three of us, one drilling, two sighting for level and square. We had also fitted a 4" wide x 1/2" thick stainless steel stirrup under the heel of each mast, this was let into the wood and came up the sides several inches above the axis pins. The tabernacle base plates had several slots cut into them for pocket welding to the deck, along with full welding around the perimeter.

On the river.

The masts were trucked out of my workshop early on the 19th of November and transported to Northport Marine, we had one of Myaree cranes lift them on board horizontally, the mainmast first, the hinge pin fitted and then the top end lowered into wooden sheerlegs to support the mast head, the same then applied to the fore mast. We had retained some of the old wire standing rigging for temporary staying of the new mast. These were shackled on, the steel A frame was then set up on the foredeck and raised, its feet anchored to welded hinge fittings on port and starboard sides close to the bulwarks and roughly lined up with the foremast tabernacle. A forestay attached from the fore masthead to the top of the A frame, a set of triple blocks rigged from the top of the A frame down to the stem head and the end run aft. I had always planned this to be a manual lift, no winches to be used, three guys hauling, and one walking the deck to check that nothing was fouling as the fore mast went up. It really only took a few minutes to get the mast up and vertical, and an hour or so to get it secured, checked for correct angle of rake aft when viewed for broadside and vertical when looking from forward.

The mainmast was raised using the throat halyard purchase fixed ten metres up on the foremast, this being run out to the lower band on the mainmast, just under the radar tower. The hauling end of this was run down the fore-mast to a bollard on the rail, the main mast being raised the same way as before, three hauling and one checking that things were running ok.

These things are always a little bit of a worry, we was a long time planning this job, walking through it from all the angles, running it by the owner, getting the boilermaker to get his head around it all as well, he’s a motor boat man and not familiar with sails. A few years ago, it was quite a common job before we had the luxury of outside Marina’s that we have now, all the larger sailing vessels lowered as a regular occurrence.

Getting the masts up on the 19th November at Northport was the trial run, the real test was just prior to Christmas when we moved Willie up into the river. By this stage, we had the booms and gaffs fitted, sails dressed on the spars and the full set of standing and running rigging to contend with as well. The order of the day was to disconnect the booms and gaffs, complete with the attached sails and securing them off to one side on the coach house roofs, disconnection of the triatic stays set up between the mastheads, setting up the A frame and the mast head cradles for each mast and then lowering away. Securing the masts in their lowered positions so that they did not take charge during the run out of Northport, up through the main harbour, under the bridges and then on to Royal Freshwater Bay Yacht Club, where the whole process was reversed to make everything ship shape again.

I am very pleased with what was done by everyone concerned, it has all worked out very well and does all of the things that it is supposed to do. Willie was due to sail back to Broome this coming Sunday the 29th March for the coming charter season. However, due to the current Corona Virus situation, on the 25th, Jim was forced to lay up the vessel here in Fremantle for the foreseeable future.

Fully rigged.

Christina and Jetts names stamped in-to the mast heels, 1919 pennies let in-to the bottom of the masts, traditionally placed under the heel, this was a sailors superstition, the penny paid the ferryman for the crews passage through the heavens in the unfortunate eventuality that the vessel was lost at sea. We put it here purely because of the story, of which few people know about, including modern day sailors.

Robin Hicks. Sailmaker.