Nomenclature of Schooner Rigging

         

                                  Last Sailing Ships on Lake Ontario

                                  By Richard Palmer

    The transition was slow and not helped along by old sailors who had little use for these vessels that belched between ports, occasionally exploding enroute. But steam pushed out most canvas by the turn of During most of the 19th Century, practically every cove of Lake Ontario that claimed itself a port had a small shipyard. Lumber was plentiful and so were carpenters.

    Sailing ships ranged from 20 to 350 tons, generally oak or an equally sturdy hardwood. Anything larger than 350 tons was unusual for this lake. In their waning years, schooners were manned by small crews consisting of three to eight men and a female cook. In many cases, it was a family venture; but in earlier years large fleets of schooners were owned by a consortium of local businessmen while individual ships were owned by two or three individuals, or even the captain himself.

    Sailing ships ranged from 20 to 350 tons, generally oak or an equally sturdy hardwood. Anything larger than 350 tons was unusual for this lake. In their waning years, schooners were manned by small crews consisting of three to eight men and a female cook. In many cases, it was a family venture; but in earlier years large fleets of schooners were owned by a consortium of local businessmen while individual ships were owned by two or three individuals, or even the captain himself. Prolific shipbuilders on the American side of Lake Ontario were George Goble and Andrew Miller of Oswego, Asa Wilcox of Three Mile Bay and Lewis Goler of Cape Vincent.

                                         The Rigging

    The earliest vessels on Lake Ontario that could be classified as ships were square riggers. Many consider the early 1800s the most romantic period of navigation on the lake. When a captain set sail he did not know what adventure was ahead. Before he again dropped anchor at his home port, he would skirt coasts without lights or fog signals and seek storm shelter behind uncharted islands.

    The old time sailing master had to stem fierce currents and depend on dead reckoning for courses sometimes more than 100 miles long over stormy seas. In the days before steam tugs the brig or bark was towed into the harbor on a long hawser by a yoke of oxen. By the 1860s the gaff-rigged schooner had almost completely replaced the archaic square rigger with its square foretopsails and topgallants.

    Eventually the rigging of Great Lakes ships differed sharply from salt water vessels. Lakes-born seamen cared nothing for tradition. The first schooner to evolve was the regular fore-and-after, with no yards whatsoever across the two masts. Later, a mizzen was added. The advantage of a gaff rigged ship was the fact she could be handled by a much smaller crew. In the early days, horses or mules working a windlass raised and lowered the sails. By the 1890s animals were being replaced by steam donkey engines.

    Another distinct feature of the Great Lakes schooner was a triangular foretopsail called the raffee. It was very useful in box-hauling and saved a lot of labor in a head wind. Often a huge square sail was spread below the raffee yard for scudding. The raffee also prevented a vessel from turning too sharply when the yard was braced aback. It was hoisted on the topmast and the clews or outer corners were extended by the yard crossing the mast. Sometimes the lower part of it dropped to a point or points below the yard. It was then referred to as a diamond raffee. A single raffee was right-angled triangle, on half of the yard. The double raffee was a piece of canvas occupying both halves of the yard or yardarms. Two single raffees set above a square topsail, on either yardarm, were known as bat wings.

    Lake schooners were generally two and three masted. A few, mostly intended as tow barges, had four masts. In lake three-‘n-afters, the mizzen mast was a little spar, usually shooting up through the cabin and always placed near the stern. Consequently the mizzen gaff and boom were short, so as not to project unduly behind the vessel, although this was not always the case.

    Unlike sea-going ships, a laker’s jibboom might be 60 feet long, while on salt water these nosepoles were much shorter and the mizzen mast was stepped well forward of the cabin. The salt water rig, with the largest sail aft, was better for working windward. It could be compared with a fast flying insect with its smaller wings in front. The lake rig, with the largest sail inboard, was quicker to handle. A small mizzen could be guyed out to either side to turn her around quickly.

    The mizzen could be carried in conjunction with the foresail with the mainsail safely stowed. Many mizzens were made without reef points. Also, on the lakes, the small mizzen was more serviceable running before the wind. It did not blanket the other sails as much or as quickly as the big mizzen or spanker did on salt water, and it was much easier to jibe over. Lake schooners could thus be easily distinguished from their salt water cousins by the placement of the masts.

                            The Navigation

    Lakers navigated channels and confined waters that would drive a deep sea captain to anchor until a pilot and tug came to the rescue. They were shallow draught tub-like affairs. When overloaded they were cumbersome and top-heavy. When running light in ballast they bounced around like a rubber duck, often capsizing. Some had centerboards to stabilize them in deep water, particularly during weather.

Since lake sailors depended on the wind to propel their ships they became experienced weather forecasters. This became a necessity. Salties caught in a storm hove to and rode it out. But lakers, usually a short distance from dangerous shoals and lee shores, would try to make a run for refuge. The sailors therefore developed their own system of surprisingly accurate weather observations. These were based on cloud formations, hues of the sun, clearness of the air and other natural phenomena. These old-time weather prophets reduced their science to a handful of rules of thumb.   

                         Sailors’ Weather Sampler

Clouds that cast shadows on the water foretell rain.

Softer the clouds, less the wind.

Anvil-shaped clouds mean a gale may develop.

Evening red and morning gray will send the sailor on his way.

When the clouds appear like rocks and towers, you may expect light wind and showers.

Rain before wind, take your topsails in. Wind before rain, hoist ‘em up again.

                         The Poetry

    A ship under a full spread of canvas was a thing of beauty with a will of its own. Ships were named for people and places, mythological characters, animals and even planets in the solar system. They were often painted in gaudy colors with pin striping and a press of canvas that distinguished them from each other. Fleets of schooners often had their own colors and banners.      

Steamboats eventually drove the sailing ships off the lakes, although a few survived into the early 1930s. The disappearance of the lake schooner was no more evident than at Oswego. By World War I, not a single tug was assigned to this port and the occasional schooner either carefully tacked in or was towed in by a steamer. By this time, most schooners had been reduced to tow barges.

                         The Crews

    In the waning days of sail, wages of schooner men were double those of steamer deck-hands during the summer. In the fall, if contracts were good, any man who claimed ability to work sails, load and steer was very much in demand. He might be paid five or six times as much as the best steamer hand on the lakes. Consequently the seasoned lake sailor in need of a job was wont to approach the old man or mate of a schooner with a casual query as to the “chances for a site,” or whether he “had all his crowd.” Other forms of requests for berths in schooners were regarded as indication of a lack of experience or at least unfamiliarity with likewise usages. Frequently a lake schooner mate was forced to make a tedious canvass of waterfront saloons to fill out his vessel’s complement. Sometimes he “recruited” a member or two of his crew from the local jail by special arrangement with the police or magistrate. In earlier times this was called impressment.

    Until about 1900, the majority of wheelsmen and watchmen employed on steamers were veterans of the sheets. They reluctantly kept up with the times although schooner men held nothing but contempt for steamboats. One marine historian once wrote schooner men “were prone to regard steamer deckhands and firemen with the same contempt that for ages has been common to sailors in their contacts with lobsters.”

    Schooner masters endeavored to modernize their vessels as men still young enough to man them grew scarcer with each passing year. A common practice was to install a donkey steam engine on deck to raise and lower the gaffs. Some were equipped with conveyor belts and booms to load and unload cargoes, although shoveling coal, grain or other commodities remained a part of life on a schooner until the end.

                   The Sail Handling

    A deckhand’s job on a lake schooner called for much skill and experience, especially shifting the foregafftopsail sheet. This had to be done every time the vessel tacked under full sail. Square riggers had no such troubles, but it was required on a gaff-rigged vessel. The successful shifting and resetting of a sail of heavy canvas, as stiff and large as a church carpet, depended on one man working 100 feet up in the air on a swaying perch. With the exception of the helmsman, the whole watch on deck would run forward, cast off the topsail sheet and clew in the sail to the masthead. A sheet was a rope or a chain, not a piece of canvas.

    The sheet was what drew the clew out to the end of the gaff. Then they would raise the tack, or inner corner, the clew being the outer. Next, the nimblest man would run up the rigging to the cross-trees and up the Jacob’s Ladder to the top of the lower mast, where the sail was gathered in. At the right moment, he would capsize the toggle or wooden pinch attached to the topsail sheet and dip the end of the sheet over or under what was called the triatic stay.

    The stay was a stout piece of wire connecting the two mastheads. It prevented the topsail from swinging over with the lower sail as the vessel filled on a new tack, unless the sheet was shifted. Also handled aloft was the tack, a long rope hauling the inner corner of the topsail down. When the man aloft hollered “Trite up!” the crew below would haul on a trip-line, which would raise the tack of the topsail to the level of the triatic stay. The hand aloft then hauled up the freed tack line, coiling it as it came up. Then shouting “Tack on deck!” he would toss the coil over the triatic stay and let the long rope drop down to the waiting crewmen below, on the other side of the mast. They would run the fall or loose end through a thimble, or lizard, to get a purchase, and haul the tack down and belay it on the weather side of the bits, or fife-rail.

    When the sheet had been shifted the masthead man hailed “Sheet home!” The sheet was let down from the clew through blocks or sheaves on the gaff, to the deck. After casting off the clew line the crew below took their end of the sheet to the capstan. Walking around it they heaved the clew of the topsail out to the gaff end. Then the lad who had gone aloft to shift the sheet, disdaining the ladder-like ratlins by which he had ascended, slid down a halliard or topmast shroud to the deck below.

    In good weather this was a complicated procedure requiring real teamwork. It became even more complicated in freezing weather when ice snarled lines and sheets into a hopeless tangle on a nasty night. The mate below set the darkness afire with threats of what he was going to do if he personally had to go aloft to do the young hand’s work for him.

    Blocks and halliards became coated with ice. When crews tried to furl the mainsail, they would often have to chop the halliards above the pinracks before they could get the canvas down. Then there was the problem of stowing it. The lower part would freeze to the lifts and lazy jacks, and was like so much corrugated steel.

   The wind would increase, and even if the mainsail was stowed, the vessel might become unmanageable. All hands were needed for close reefing the foresail. One man would be left at the wheel, although she really required two to keep her straight. The one who could be spared let the foresail jibe during the reefing operations since the foreboom and foregaff, the spars which spread that sail, might break.

More than once the booms would thrash so wildly they would rent the frozen foresail and staysail to tatters. A vessel would become so coated with ice forward it would become impossible to re-bend this last sail. The schooner would head down the lake with only the flying jib - more often than not right to her doom into Mexico Bay or some other dangerous quarter of Lake Ontario.

                    ‘The Golden Age Of The Big Birds’

    The age of the schooner was the most interesting era on the Great Lakes. Skippers told of seeing 40 to 50 sailing ships outside Oswego Harbor waiting to be towed in. Their white sails dotted the lake and the harbor was often filled with them. It was an inspiring sight. “They kept them up like dolls,” an old tugman recalled. “When they came out they were the pride and wonder of marine men. Their sails would be new and white, their masts scraped, their decks scoured as they went past. Those were the days when a captain was a captain, for he generally owned the ship and sailed her as he willed. ”

In the spring there might be a grand free-for-all race to see who would be the first ship in the harbor from the upper lakes. There was close sailing, and, as they used to say, “a great carrying on of canvas.” Old photos show Oswego Harbor a sea of masts against a myriad of grain elevators and docks piled high with lumber, railroad iron and other commodities.

    By the mid 1920s, most of the remaining schooners on Lake Ontario were in the coal trade. They were all of Canadian registry - many at one time American ships, and owned by individuals and not large shipping companies.                          Some Old-time Schooner Jargon 

(From "Schooner Days" articles in the Toronto Telegram by

                          C. H. J. Snider)

The job in a lake schooner calling for most skill and experience was shifting the fore gafftopsail sheet, and this had to be done every time the vessel tacked under full sail. Square riggers had no such troubles.

  The successful shifting and resetting of a sail of heavy canvas, as stiff and large as a moderate church carpet, depended on one man working a hundred feet up in the air on a swaying perch. With the exception of the man at the wheel, the whole watch on deck would run  forward, and cast off  the topsail sheet (a rope or a chain, but never a piece of canvas) and clew in the sail to the masthead. The sheet was what drew the clew out to the end of the gaff. Then they would raise the tack, one the inner corner, the clew being the outer. Next, the nimblest would run up the rigging to the crosstree and up the jacob’s ladder to the head of the lower mast, where the sail was gathered in. He would, at the right moment, capsize the a toggle   or wooden pin which attached the topsail sheet to the clew cringle, and dip the end of the sheet over or under what was called   the  triatic   stay,  a stout piece of wire connecting the two mastheads. Its presence prevented the topsail swinging over with the lower sail as the vessel filled on the new tack, unless the sheet was  shifted.

     There was another piece of gear which had to be handled by the  man aloft. This was the tack, a long  rope hauling the inner corner of the topsail down. When he called “Trice up!” the crew below would haul on a tripline, which would raise the tack of the topsail to the level of the triatic stay. The hand aloft would then haul up the freed tack line, coiling it as it came, and with a hail of “Tack on deck!” would toss the coil over the triatic stay and let the long rope drop down to the waiting ones below on the other side of the mast. They would run the fall or loose end through a thimble, or lizard, to get a purchase, and haul the tack" down and belay on the weather side of the bitts or fiferail.

     When the sheet had been shifted the masthead man would hail, “Sheet home!” The sheet led down from the clew through blocks or sheaves on the gaff to the deck. After casting off the clewline the crew below would take their end of the sheet to the capstan, and walk her around, heaving the clew of the topsail out to the gaff end. Then the lad who had gone aloft to shift the sheet, disdaining the ladderlike ratlins by which he had ascended, would slide down a halliard or a topmast shroud and resume his place at the wheel or on lookout. It was. a complicated job at best, and not' made any better by freezing rain snarling tack, trip-line, clewline and topsail sheet in a hopeless tangle on a dirty night, with a mate below setting the darkness on fire with threats of what he was going to do if he had to come up with breakfast for the blank-dashed-excoriated mariner of canine ancestry who had gone to. roost up there among the dickybirds. On such occasions one’s descent to the deck demanded skill and judgment and great knowledge of the military science of planned withdrawal to a prepared position, other than that reserved for the devil and his angels.