THE MASTING AND RIGGING OF ENGLISH SHIPS OF WAR 1625-1860 By James Lees

Check out Lauck Street Shipyard, Robert Hunt has a practicum on the Victory.
I purchased the "College of model ship building set #1-which features the victory" from him last October. That CD set has so much good, well explained information on, I think 9 different ships. Well put together with hours of instruction. Well worth the cost AND you have what you need, info wise, at your finger tips!!
Check it out!!
Merry Christmas to all...
Steve
 
I have these two PETERSON books. They are really very well done with very clear diagrams without text.
 
A very informative video. It will help me a lot as I’ve just started out. Does anyone know of a video that shows the detail of how to tie blocks , pullies etc and how you connect the lines at the mast or around the masts that secure the masts in place ?
 
Y.T. said:
I purchased this book hoping it would reveal for me the enigma of how to rig my Victory model. I was disappointed to find that it will not help. This book is great to have as a history manuscript describing in pretty good detail with nice drawings how they built the masts, spars, yards, sails, some rigging auxiliaries and so on in the period 1625-1860. Book is written using nautical terms I do not know and hardly anyone knows these days. When they say a "'mast head" I want to know what part of the mast they referring to. When they say here you belay a "topsail clueline" I have no idea what they are referring to. On my model I am at the point to understand the belaying plans so I can provide enough rings, cleats and so on before I glue in the masts permanently. What would be a book reference where they have a drawing showing the ship rigging parts (lines, rope names, yards, masts, blocks) with arrows pointing at them and using nautical terms from all the books? I would appreciate some help here.
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Y.T. said:
I purchased this book hoping it would reveal for me the enigma of how to rig my Victory model. I was disappointed to find that it will not help. This book is great to have as a history manuscript describing in pretty good detail with nice drawings how they built the masts, spars, yards, sails, some rigging auxiliaries and so on in the period 1625-1860. Book is written using nautical terms I do not know and hardly anyone knows these days. When they say a "'mast head" I want to know what part of the mast they referring to. When they say here you belay a "topsail clueline" I have no idea what they are referring to. On my model I am at the point to understand the belaying plans so I can provide enough rings, cleats and so on before I glue in the masts permanently. What would be a book reference where they have a drawing showing the ship rigging parts (lines, rope names, yards, masts, blocks) with arrows pointing at them and using nautical terms from all the books? I would appreciate some help here.
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Hi YT,
Have you looked at The Anatomy of Nelsons Ships By C Nepean Longridge? I expect it is out of print now but possibly second hand book sites like Abe books may have one for sale. It is the book centered completely on building a model of the Victory. It has many photographs of the inside of the ship and numerouse drawings and explanations of the rigging. Elavation of standing rigging and of running rigging of a large fold out size plus details of specific parts of the rigging attached to the mast and its direction. My copy was bought in 1977 and cost £10.50 perhaps you could trace a view on youtube to see if it is what you need.
Best of luck.
Geoff
 
Y.T. said:
I purchased this book hoping it would reveal for me the enigma of how to rig my Victory model. I was disappointed to find that it will not help. This book is great to have as a history manuscript describing in pretty good detail with nice drawings how they built the masts, spars, yards, sails, some rigging auxiliaries and so on in the period 1625-1860. Book is written using nautical terms I do not know and hardly anyone knows these days. When they say a "'mast head" I want to know what part of the mast they referring to. When they say here you belay a "topsail clueline" I have no idea what they are referring to. On my model I am at the point to understand the belaying plans so I can provide enough rings, cleats and so on before I glue in the masts permanently. What would be a book reference where they have a drawing showing the ship rigging parts (lines, rope names, yards, masts, blocks) with arrows pointing at them and using nautical terms from all the books? I would appreciate some help here.
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1. CALL SEAWATCH BOOKS. TELL HIM YOUR PROBLEM AND WRITE DOWN THE REPLY,
2. IF HE SELLS THE BOOK(S), BUY THEM FROM HIM. IF HE DOES NOT PUBLISH/SELL THE BOOK(S) YOU NEED BUY IT/THEM SOMEWHERE ELSE. YOU NEED TO DEVELOP A FEW RESEARCH SKILLS TO DEAL WITH SHIP PROBLEMS
3. NOONE KNOWS THE ANSWER TO ALL YOUR QUESTIONS OFF THE TOP OF HIS HEAD (IF HE SAYS HE DOES, HE IS LYING).
4. IN THIS BUSINESS, THE BIGGEST EXPERT IS THE GUY/GAL WITH THE BIGGEST REFERENCE LIBRARY IN HIS WORKSHOP. I HAVE BEEN COLLECTING BOOKS ON SHIPS SINCE 1959 AND STILL DO NOT KNOW ALL THE ANSWERS.
- BILL
 
There is another book that may be what you are looking for. What's more, as a pdf it's free to download right from Ships of Scale. Just type in Patterson's Illustrated Nautical Dictionary into the search box.

marine-cafe.com

Patterson's Illustrated Nautical Dictionary, Unabridged - Marine Café Blog

This dictionary written by American maritime author and educator Captain Howard Patterson (1856-1916) can be rightly called a gem of nautical literature. First published in 1891, it contains at least 5,000 nautical terms and hundreds of engravings. (21.6 MiB, PDF, 391 pages) Facebook Twitter...
marine-cafe.com marine-cafe.com
 
Walt Zimmerman said:
The book "Anatomy of Nelson's Ships" by C N Longridge should provide the info you need.
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Hi, Walt, I have this book. The rigging is described by a wording narrative with no drawings as in this page example below. Sorry, I cannot understand most of this due to my lack of knowledge of naval terms. Even deciphering the naval terms will not help as I do not know where and how to start this line, which blocks it is going through, where on the ship it ends and so on. I am looking for a drawing with rigging lines, there names, how they start and how they end and through what blocks they go. Probably the best literature on this is a book "100 gun ship Victory" by John McKay. I have it. My problem is the drawings are too small and bill of materials is way too small, in part is unreadable, sometimes I do not understand it.

page.jpg
 
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MartinJel said:
There is another book that may be what you are looking for. What's more, as a pdf it's free to download right from Ships of Scale. Just type in Patterson's Illustrated Nautical Dictionary into the search box.
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Thanks, Martin, I just got this book in mail. It will be very helpful. It helps to decipher the other books on the subject.
 
About the two Lennarth Petersonbooks on rigging: Rigging Period Ship Models illustrates rigging a three-masted square rigged ship, the other, RiggingPeriod Fore-and-Aft Craft covers a single-masted cutter, a three-masted yawl, and a two-masted top-sail schooner. It may be that the former can be downloaded for free if you make a Google search.
 
George Biddlecombe's The Art of Rigging also has definitions of terms and some illustrations. The book is a Dover soft cover and mine cost $11.This book, along with the others mentioned above, may be used to cross-reference any terms. I found having two or three different definitions can clarify the subject, although sometimes it confuses instead.
 
Y.T. said:
Hi, Walt, I have this book. The rigging is described by a wording narrative with no drawings as in this page example below. Sorry, I cannot understand most of this due to my lack of knowledge of naval terms. Even deciphering the naval terms will not help as I do not know where and how to start this line, which blocks it is going through, where on the ship it ends and so on. I am looking for a drawing with rigging lines, there names, how they start and how they end and through what blocks they go. Probably the best literature on this is a book "100 gun ship Victory" by John McKay. I have it. My problem is the drawings are too small and bill of materials is way too small, in part is unreadable, sometimes I do not understand it.

View attachment 416300
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Look further towards the back of Bugler's book. There are diagrams of the belaying pins and other anchors (i.e., bits, davits, other lines, etc.) on and about page 267. The pages around 267 are running rigging and some of the preceding pages, the standing rigging. McCall's book a bit helpful in listing the vast umber of lines but it is rather confusing in listing the number of lines. If you don't have a copy (very expensive last time I looked on Amazon) or have access to one, I can post page 267, 271 & 272 for the main mast area. Those were the only pages I needed for my Corel Cross-section model. Corel has done a poor job of presenting a proper, reasonably accurate rigging scheme. Hope this helps.
 
Geoff Leggett said:
Hi YT,
Have you looked at The Anatomy of Nelsons Ships By C Nepean Longridge? I expect it is out of print now but possibly second hand book sites like Abe books may have one for sale. It is the book centered completely on building a model of the Victory. It has many photographs of the inside of the ship and numerouse drawings and explanations of the rigging. Elavation of standing rigging and of running rigging of a large fold out size plus details of specific parts of the rigging attached to the mast and its direction. My copy was bought in 1977 and cost £10.50 perhaps you could trace a view on youtube to see if it is what you need.
Best of luck.
Geoff
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On Dec 27 2023 Amazon has used copies starting at $22
 
Already lots of good suggestions here, but adding this as I didnt see it: A Young Sea Officer's Sheet Anchor. You can find this in reprints (Lee Valley for example sells them), but here is a PDF
 

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