Traditional Rigging: Thoughts on a WoodenBoat Article

The Wind Wagon post of an hour ago, I wrote for Henry, a four year old interested in pirates. I decided to write that post for/to him in keeping with his interests and the contents in the seconded posted video regarding designing and building the wind wagon was a bit like kids building a box car. Do why not write it with a kid in mind? This post, however, is geared more toward us adults, even though we are all kids at heart.

By the way, I didn't mention this in the earlier post, but the wind wagon friends have all worked on big square rigged ship projects before. So this is their way of playing, I suppose.

Sandrine Pierrefeu's "A Conversation with Jens Langert Rigger, Making the case for historic techniques and materials" appears in WoodenBoat No. 252 (Sept/Oct 2016) and was translated from the French by Tom Jackson.

I have long wondered what knowledge we as a culture or a society, or even as individuals, have lost in the "progress" of time. For instance, because we don't have to forage for our own foods, most of us don't recognize etible pants, though we might walk right past them on our way to the grocery store. I also think every time period tends to look at those which have gone before as "backwards." We forget that they were experts in their own fields.

That in essence is the tack of this article. To quote:

[Langert argues] "The hardest thing, when starting these projects of historic ship reconstructions on such a grand scale using natural-fiber rigging, is to successfully follow the specifications found in references from the period. One is always tempted to reinterpret, to 'improve' or to 'strengthen' - here a shroud, there a yard, here the diameter of a line. With our clever calculations, our modern learning, our ultra-precise measuring devices, and our computer simulations, we believe we are smarter and better than our predecessors of former times. There is always someone, in this kind of project, to put forward a 'better solutions' that those shown in old treatises on navel architecture and early professional reference books, forgetting that the engineers and technicians who wrote these works were not novices but specialists of a very high level." Jens has made a specialty of period rigging that is dependent on such historical research, which has deepened his appreciation for the old masters.
     "At the time in which these books were written, they constituted the proven knowledge in the most advanced sector of the technological world. Ship construction in the 18th century was at the point of the spear of the era's existing technology, like the aerospace industry of our own times. It brought together the best engineers, in the workshops with colossal budgets that had the most cutting-edge experts of the times flocking to them. The ships were built with the best materials of the highest quality, the latest generation. All the world's commerce moved by sea, and the penalty, for any technological choice that was inappropriate, was immediate: The masts broke or the hulls ruptured; men, ships, and cargo were lost to the deep." *

Part of the problem comes in understanding what one is reading. For instance, because most of the artisans were illiterate, measurements are given as empirical rules and relational portions. Jens gives an example of how this works, and the challenge of understanding, by referencing an 18th century Swedish manual. The directions for shaping the hounds "so that the fighting top would be horizontal despite the take of the mast ... involved a few nails and a piece of string."

"I read this text, written in ancient Swedish, several times without understanding, so I decided to scrupulously follow them. The result was the exact angle. Workout instruments. By following a rule handed down by oral tradition, it didn't matter whether an apprentice could read or write. If it had been written as '3 degrees,' I would have understood right away, but the craftsmen at the times had to do this without knowledge of trigonometry. For me this was a kind of revelation - once I had the key to their way of thinking, it was much easier to understand the text. " **

It is also interesting that while you or I might understand what 3 degrees is, how to get the hounds built to that is probably easier with the "nails and string" method.

Back to the Wind Wagon:
When Zeb Thomas gathered his passengers and investors for the inaugural voyage back in 1853, it ended in disaster. That first wagon's crash brought a total loss to the Prairie Clipper Company. So if this original wind wagon was a bust how come ASTRAKAN was such a success? (Especially considering she was built in a damp cold Swedish winter to be sailed in a hot dry desert). They think because they used lashings to hold everything together. In essence, natural-fiber all around (save the metal frame - but even everything is lashed to this). Sails of flax, cordage of manila, spars and decking of wood. (Would smother terrain have also helped?) But in essence, a rigger and crew steeped in the "old ways" naturally understand how to rig a ship (for water or land) that will meet the stress imposed.

Something to ponder.

In the meantime, I'm grateful for the old masters who thought to write their ways of doing things down, and for those who experiment and play to learn their ways.

Blessed be,
Joel


Quotes from: Pierrefeu, Sandrine. "A Conversation with Jens Langert Rigger, Making the case for historic techniques and materials." trans, Tom Jackson.WoodenBoat No. 252 (Sept/Oct 2016).
*Page 82-3.
** Page 84.