Components of a museum-quality model

Staysails, spritsails, furled sails   Staysails         Staysails were already known on small ships and boats from the 15th century. On large ships they were not introduced until about 1660. The staysails are made up like all the other sails. Reef points were often carried on the fore topmast staysail, and occasionally on the inner jib also. There was a different arrangement of the cloths on th stays ails from about 1830, and this is shown on the drawing on the righ This sail should also be made from two pieces with a central seam if your model is to be accurate.The staysails were bent with a lacing or grommets until about 1820, afte which time metal hanks seized to the sail were used.   Spritsails       The sprit sail also has two special features: from the middle of the 17th century there were two holes on the extreme right and left of th bottom part, and from the first half of the 18th century there was often a third hole in the middle. These holes were sewn all round or enclosed with narrow bolt ropes. Their purpose was to allow any water which collected in the sail to run off as easily as possible as this sail was set very low down, this could happen easily. The reef bands arranged diagonally served the same purpose, and they were found as standard on the sprit sail after 1680. With their help the sail could be tied up at an angle, i.e. shortened on the lee side so that it did not drag in the water .   Furled sails In the I6th and I7th centuries gaskets on Continental ships were secured to the spars with double ring bolts       If you wish to show your ship with sails futled on the yards, then the sails are made up in exactly the same way as described, but the following additional points should be noted.      The cloth dressing, as already stated, must be washed out very thoroughly. The cloth seams should not be folded and sewn up ( and certainly not glued), but just indicated by two parallel seams on the sewing machine. The same goes for the linings, reef bands and reef points can be omitted. The sail, and in particular the foot, must be made up in exactly the same way as usual, but it is advisable to shorten the length of the sail by at least one third. The point of all these measures is to reduce the amount of material, and keep the sail as supple as possible, to avoid the finished furled sail looking like a fat, unruly ball of fabric. At the other extreme there should not be such a small amount of cloth that the furled sail looks like a skinny little sausage. The sail is bent to the yard, but is allowed to hang down temporarily do not roll it up straightaway. It is rigged in the normal way with clew lines, leech lines, sheets, etc. Only when all the running rigging is in place would it be furled (see the chapter RUNNING RIGGING).      If you want to show the sails furled very tightly to the yards, you can in certain circumstances use paper handkerchiefs, provided the plies are separated very neatly. Details of this method are given in the chapter RUNNING RIGGING .The sails were furled with gaskets, 6 to 8 ropes of about 1/3 of the sail's depth in length, which were spaced out at regular intervals along the yard. They were always carried on the fore side of the sail. Before 1815 they were usually spliced round the yard. After 1815 the gaskets were attached to the jackstay, and hung in coils on the fore side of the sail.   Gaff jackstay, 19th century: Left: older form with rope;  Right: later type with metal rod