Raising the Main.

Raising the Main.

The mainsail on Zodiac is big. It is big and heavy and it is slung between 2 telephone pole sized wood booms. All together there is 4 tons of gear that need to be hoisted 100 feet into the air. And we do it all with passenger-crew power.

My sailing station is topping lifts on the mainsail. More on those later, but since I am back there running the topping lifts anyway, when it comes time to rig for sailing, I am also on the crew that rigs the main halyards to raise the mainsail. On a gaff-rigged sail, to raise the sail you must raise the gaff-boom. This is a hefty pine pole that slides up the main mast with the mainsail slung beneath it.

Some shots of the boom and Gaff boom when the sail is furled. Note relative sizes.

That is the Gaff-boom Way up THere. And we hoisted it there.

Here is a good perspective of how large the Boom is.

Our halyards (the lines on a ship that raise and lower a sail) attach to both ends of the gaff-boom. The port halyard goes to the end away from the mast (the peak) and the starboard halyard goes to the end at the mast (the throat). They have to go up at approximately the same speed , trying to keep the gaff-boom horizontal as the sail rises.

So, first rig the halyards. This is around 50 pounds of half-inch <check the numbers> line that goes through a downhaul block, out to a snatch block and then stretches aft down the deck giving plenty of room for 8 to 10 people to line up and haul-away. That is 10 people on each halyard. I wish I had good pictures of some of this, but we were all hauling.

So all hands are called aft to raise the main. This means the first mate yells something like “All hands Aft to Raise the Main”. We all grab a line. The Mate stands by and gives commands while keeping an eye on the status of the gaff-boom.

“Ready on the Peak? You guys here are the peak. Ready?”

“Ready on the throat?” she is looking at us, “You are the throat”.

We answer that we are ready.

“Haul away, Peak and Throat.”

And we do. There is one or two intrepid people who are pulling down on the halyards right at the mast. They are down-hauling. They stand up as far as they can grab the halyard and haul down. At the same time, those of us on the deck haul with her through the blocks. One young crewman is especially energetic. She actually leaps into the air a few inches and grabs the halyard bringing her full (though small) weight to bear. Her enthusiasm would be something to watch, but we are all busy pulling on our lines in time to her exertions.

The sail is heavy. We can't lift it without some mechanical advantage. So we have a 6:1 block (pulley) system leading up the mast. So for every 6 pulls we make, we get 1 pull of height on the mast. Figure about 3 feet of line a pull. So one pull raises the sail around 6 inches. We have to raise the Throat (which is where I am pulling) around, oh, 70 feet? So, 140 good everything you got pulls? At around 1 pull a second. Man, I wish I had done the math BEFORE I picked up that line !!

I was going to say that it takes 3 to 5 minutes to raise the sail. The math bears that out, especially considering that we take a rest at about the halfway mark.

That is the Mainsail Throat Halyard laying there. 

Our 6:1 mechanical advantage on the Main.

We watched a movie last night about the last sailing vessel to round the horn (the southern tip of south america). This is the most stormy dangerous sailing place in the world. The movie is all clips shot by the sailor who is narrating the piece  <here on amazon>. It is pretty fascinating. Anyway, one of the things this old sailor talks about is how to haul on a line. He says, “Notice that these guys are not pulling on the line. They are Jerking on the line. Everything is done in jerks. That is how you get the work done. It isn't the force you bring but how fast you can bring it. Think of hammer and a nail, if you just use the hammer to push on the nail, nothing happens. You need that blow, that Jerk of the hammer. That sudden strike. That is what gets the job done.”

So I am trying that out today. I Jerk my pull as much as I can. Wow. It really works. I actually had the lady behind me comment, “wow Jon, you are pulling today”. So, last time is the charm, I say. Jerk, and Jerk, and Jerk, and Jerk, and Jerk. Only 80 more times.

The Peak goes up a lot faster than the throat (not sure why), but it has further to go, so the Mate will often call “Peak, Hold”. She doesn't ever say “Throat, Hold”, even though I am starting to feel like holding someone by the throat. Jerk, and Jerk, and Jerk. When will this Stop??? I can't feel my arms. “Just a little more”, she says. “Just a few more pulls”. When will the lies end?

Pull, and Pull, and Pull.

This is the stack of halyard we have to pull for the Peak. Oh, and that is the ball we rescued during
our man overboard drill on the second day of sailing.

“Throat, Hold. …. Stopper Knot on”.

At last. The stopper (a line that wraps around the halyard at the downhaul block and keeps the line from going backward) goes on. Our crew chief says to us, “On the count of three drop the line. Just Drop it. Don't step on it. 1 …. 2... 3... DROP”. And we do. I usually stumble a little at this point because I forget I was leaning back into the line.

“Ok,” says the Mate, “Nice shipmates will come over here and help the Peak now. Haul Away, Peak!”

Dammit. I so want to be a nice shipmate. I step into the peak line. Usually a few people are stepping away and sitting down at this point. On the first day, halfway through this second lift I got a little dizzy and had to sit down. Today, I am Jerking, god dammit. Jerk, and Jerk, and Pull, and Pull.

Does it seem like this part of the story is just going ON and ON and ON. I was trying to put you into the scene.

“Hold Peak. Stopper Knot On. On the count of 3 drop your line. 1 2 3, Drop !!”.

So, at last. We are done.

“All hands to raise the Foresail”

Oh, right. More sails. This one is much smaller, though, and it goes up a lot easier. The Staysail and Jib are handled by the foredeck crew, so I can go back and work the main.

You know what is coming now? Tacking.