David Steel's The Art of 8ailmak.ivg & HMS Victory's Fore Topsail by Louie Bartos Sailmaking, as an historical subject, has not been the topic of much inquiry-shy of a handful of graduate theses or a paragraph or two in a larger compendium of sailing ship histories. Texts chat have dealt most extensively with sailmaking include the collection of treatises and trade manuals that were published in the lace eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Of these treatises, David Steel's The Art ofSail-Making was printed at least a half a dozen times over a half century and became a valuable resource, providing an historical overview of sails and ships from ancient times to the late eighteenth century, definitions, explanations, and a detailed how-to. Fitted our with mathematical cables and figures, the treatise could walk che sailmaker or knowledgeable mariner through the steps of constructing a sail for any Royal Naval ship. One might assume that, with the wide range of vessel types, dimensions, rigs, etc., individual sails could not be subsumed under a general "how-to." Scee! noted that he did not include tables for the merchant service because the masting and corresponding sails often depended "upon the fancy of the builder or owner." Yet, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, all square topsails on British naval vessels, for example, would follow the same guidelines for design and construction. The Admiralty required the same placement of grommets, reefs, belly bands, bundines, and mast cloths according to their dimensions. With tables provided for gore allowances, length and number of canvas panels, a sailmaker could make a sail without lofting it in its entirety on the floor or deck. These cables could provide the know-how for any square sail, fore-and-aft sail, and most small boat sails used at that time. -DO'R man of education and an Adm i(scaling, ere.), it does represent the existralty agent for charcs, David Scee! ing sail quite well considering that the sail was, unfortu nately, not a person was, for the most part, neglected for over trained in the trade about which he wrote. 100 years before the present conservators He cons ul ted "actual workmen in each rook charge of it. art" and employed artists ro draw what In Nelson's time, the dimensions of seamen could "describe, but not del inthe foo t and head of a square sail were eate." He also stared that co ntemporary co nve ntionally described in terms of publications were "few and incorrect." "cloths," the number of standardOther well-read treatises were later width sailcloths sewn together published by Darcy Lever (1808) edge-co-edge to make up the sail. and Robert Kipping (1847), bur The depth, or hoist, of the sail was Steel's was the only one publ ished described in yards. The Royal during the age of Nelson. Navy maintained strict guideThere has always been lines for sailcloth manufacso me question as to the accu rature and sail construction. Lt. W J L. Wharton's 1871 sketch o/Vicrory' sfore topsail. cy of the statements in Steel's work, In 1995, museum staff surveyed however, the re was no way ro prove or dis- entity. We are fortu nate ro have a surviving the sail and measured 51 feet on the head, prove any of his observations and/or state- exam ple of sai lmaking during this exact 75 feet on the foot, a leech length of 51.2 ments. The only way ro rest Steel's treatise time period-a fo re topsai l of Lord Nel- fee t, and a calcu lated dep th of 53 feet. (Ir on sailmaking would be to have an actual so n's 100-gun shi p HMS Victory, a sail that should be noted that these measurements working sai l that was made by one of rhe is rep uted ro have been onboard during the were made when the sail was loosely laid Royal Navy dockyard sail lofts or similar Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. This massive on rhe floor and the sail was not pull ed sail wo uld have ta ut because of its fragility.) Victory's fo re The sail discovered in the HMS Nelson gymnasium, 1962. been the second ro psail has 29 cloths at the head and 43 largest in Victory's at the foot. Based on a 24-inch width of suit of sails. cloth and its 1-3/4 inch seam allowance, Th e earliest the original lengths of the head and foot plan of the actual wo uld have been approximately 54 feet fo re topsail was and 80 feet, respectively. Steel wrote that drawn by a Lr. the fore ropsail of a 100-gun ship would W. J. L. W h ar- measure 26.5 cloths at the head, 43 cloths to n, RN in 187 1. at the foot, and 19 yards (57 feet) in depth. Though nothing The weight of the sai l wo uld have been in is known as ro the range of 950- 1000 pounds when new. Acco rd ing ro Peter Goodwin , curahow the drawing was made to r of H M S Victory, "Ir rook 20 men 83
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SEA HLSTORY 11 l , SUMM ER 2005