Move the Sail Beyond the Bow

The forward sail need not end where the deck ends. Moving its tack farther forward creates more room between its support and the mast, or between an outer sail and an inner one. The hull can remain the same length, but the loaded attachment now projects beyond it.

A bowsprit supplies that projection. It is a spar extending forward from the bow, carrying sail or rigging attachments outboard. A stay from the mast to its outer region pulls upwards and aft on the spar. Sail loads can add sideways pull, while the spar’s own weight and the boat’s pitching impose further demands.

Hold the inner end and restrain the outer one

The bowsprit heel is the inboard end. Its heel fitting locates and secures that end in supported structure. In E. F. Knight’s documented small-yacht arrangement, the heel lies between strong deck bitts (upright posts) and is secured by a transverse metal pin, the fid, passing through bitts and spar. The projecting member can press and turn against these contacts; the bitts and their fastenings must transfer that reaction into the boat.

Farther forward, the spar passes over the bow. The stem is already the forward joining structure of our conventional hull; the stemhead is its upper end. A stemhead fitting provides an attachment there for a stay or sail tack, carrying its pull through the fitting and fastenings into the stem and adjoining structure. In a plan with an inner stay at the stemhead and an outer attachment on a bowsprit, the two lower endpoints remain physically distinct.

Holding the bowsprit down where it crosses the stem gives it a second restraint, separated from the heel. Traditional gammoning uses turns of rope around the bowsprit and through an opening in the bow’s projecting cutwater structure. Tightening the turns binds spar to hull; frapping turns draw the wraps together. Nares’s nineteenth-century naval account also describes chain gammoning. The material changes, while the lashing still opposes the spar lifting from its support.

A gammon iron provides a metal retaining fitting at this forward support. Knight’s 1889 example is a ring bolted to the stem, lined with leather, through which the bowsprit can slide fore and aft. The ring restrains sideways and upward movement while the heel’s fid arrests the chosen fore-and-aft position. Gammoning binds a particular position; this ring permits controlled sliding. That difference will matter when we run the spar in. Knight’s Sailing, pages 42–43, records the complete small-yacht arrangement.

The bowsprit end is its outer region beyond the bow, where several pulls may meet. In Knight’s 1902 account, a cranse iron is a hoop or cap around that end with separate attachment eyes. The bottom eye accepts the bobstay, the two side eyes the bowsprit shrouds, and the top eye the stay from the topmast, an upper mast stage extending above the lower one. The fitting gathers those connections into the spar; the eyes identify which pull enters where. This is a particular four-eye construction, rather than a name for any metalwork near the bow.

From the lower eye, a bobstay leads down and aft towards a strong attachment low on the stem. Its tension pulls the bowsprit end down, opposing the upward component of the rigging above. The bobstay fitting at the stem carries the opposite end of that tensile load into the hull; the cranse attachment carries it into the spar. An eye merely screwed into thin planking would not complete the required structural route.

The stay above and bobstay below both pull partly aft. Their combined restraint therefore puts compression along the bowsprit towards its inboard supports as well as controlling its bending. The lower member does not lift the spar like a suspension wire; it resists its upward movement by pulling down. Its angle affects how much tension is required to supply that downward component.

Port and starboard bowsprit shrouds lead from the cranse’s side eyes aft to attachments on the corresponding hull sides. When a load tries to displace the spar sideways, tension in the opposing support restrains it. Knight describes wire members with rope tackles at their inboard ends, so their tension can be adjusted. A bowsprit guy names this lateral restraining role more broadly. In this selected arrangement it is a side support whose tackle is adjusted to suit the spar’s position, then secured; it is not a sheet trimming a sail’s clew. Knight’s later Small-boat Sailing, pages 105–106, supplies the individual eyes and connections.

The heel fixes the inboard end, the gammoning or iron restrains the spar at the bow, the bobstay opposes upward pull, and side shrouds oppose lateral movement. All act on a spar that also carries compression and bending. The fittings give those loads defined routes into the vessel.

Extend the projection in stages

Larger traditional rigs could reach farther by adding another spar. A jibboom, also written jib-boom, overlaps the bowsprit and projects beyond its end. A bowsprit cap fits around the bowsprit end and provides another opening to locate the jibboom. Bearing between boom and cap restrains relative sideways movement. The jibboom’s inboard heel also needs support and securing gear so that the extended spar cannot simply slide through the opening.

In the arrangement described by Richard Henry Dana and George Nares, a saddle or bed supports that heel, and a lashing or heel chain secures its position. The separated heel and cap contacts locate the extension while its rigging restrains the outer end. The cap is therefore a joint between spars. Knight’s four-eye cranse instead makes several rigging attachments around one spar; similar-looking ironwork must be read by the connections it actually contains.

An additional flying jibboom projects beyond the jibboom. Its inboard portion overlaps the earlier spar, with a guiding iron and heel securing arrangement. Loads at this farther attachment must return through its own rigging and the overlapping supports into the preceding spars and ultimately the hull. Greater reach requires another supported member, not merely another name for the same bowsprit end.

A jibstay supplies the luff support from the jibboom region towards an upper attachment on the forward mast. Nares describes one version secured at the jibboom end, led through a hanging block at the fore-topmast head, then set up with a purchase abaft the foremast. Along its forward sloping reach the jib can be retained while its head is hoisted. The stay’s adjustment and its load path are separate from the sail’s halyard and sheet.

The flying-jib stay serves the farther-out sail. In Nares’s complete rig it begins high on the forward mast and runs down through a sheave in the flying jibboom’s end. Its continuation below the spar supplies the means of tensioning it; we will follow that route once its lower support is in place. The flying jib occupies this outer position beyond the ordinary jib. In that convention it has a stay: the word flying identifies which sail, and does not establish a free luff.

The outer spars need downward and lateral restraints just as the original bowsprit did. Their greater reach makes the support angles especially important. A nearly horizontal rope can pull very hard while supplying only a small downward component at the end it restrains.

Give the downward support a better angle

A dolphin-striker is a strut projecting down beneath the bowsprit region. Its lower end gives the supporting rigging an attachment well below the projecting spars. A line from the jibboom end to that lower point now slopes down more steeply than a line drawn almost horizontally back to the bow.

In Nares’s arrangement, the martingale is the tension member from the jibboom end to the dolphin-striker end. Here we will call that member the martingale stay, keeping the name of the rigid strut separate. Two martingale backropes lead aft from the striker to strong bow attachments near the supports of the catheads (the projecting anchor-handling timbers at the bow). The forward stay pulls the striker’s lower end towards the jibboom; the backropes restrain it towards the hull. Their geometry loads the downward strut in compression while applying downward restraint to the outer spar.

The New Zealand Maritime Museum’s Breeze manual gives a corresponding modern traditional-vessel example: its martingale stay runs from jibboom end to dolphin striker, and two return supports lead to the bow bulwarks (the solid raised sides above the deck edge), one on each side. Its separate bobstay connects bowsprit end to stem. Following the two routes prevents the longer extension’s support being mistaken for the original bowsprit’s bobstay. Breeze vessel manual, page 9.

Historical names overlap. Charles Bushell’s 1874 Rigger’s Guide calls the pair from the downward strut to cathead eyebolts back ropes, or martingale guys. Under that declared convention, a martingale guy is an after return member: it restrains the striker against the forward pull, and its lanyard transfers the tension into the bow attachment. The same book uses martingale for the strut, and elsewhere applies martingale guys to another jumper arrangement. Naming the endpoints is what makes the selected meaning usable. Bushell, pages 122–123.

The flying jibboom can have a corresponding longer martingale. In Nares’s rig it starts around the outer boom end, passes through a hole near the bottom of the dolphin striker and is secured in the bow. That continuous route adds downward restraint to the farther extension. It does not remove the need for the jibboom’s own support or for sound attachments at the striker.

The flying-jib stay takes a separate route through this assembly. After descending from the mast and turning through the sheave in the flying jibboom end, it passes through the dolphin striker and leads to a purchase at a strong bow post, Nares’s knighthead. Hauling that purchase tensions the stay on which the sail is carried; the post returns the pull into the hull. The flying-jibboom martingale begins at the boom, whereas this stay begins at the mast. Sharing the lower support does not make them one line.

Spread the side restraints

The lateral route can also gain a wider angle. Nares’s jibboom guy runs from the jibboom-end fitting to the end of a short spar projecting sideways near the bowsprit. He calls these side spars spritsail gaffs or whiskers. An after guy continues from each whisker end to a bow attachment; other rigging holds the whisker vertically. The sideways spar spreads the restraining line away from the centreline, so the guy can oppose lateral displacement of the jibboom more effectively for a given tension.

The outer flying-jib guys follow a related route from their boom end through the whisker ends and back to the bows. This assembly is wider than the original fore-and-aft projection. Its additional spars provide useful angles, and their ends and supporting lines acquire their own loads. Nares’s complete bowsprit rig and component descriptions show why a dense set of ropes cannot be understood by counting alone.

Whisker stay is another name requiring a stated arrangement. On Breeze, the museum manual calls the port and starboard bowsprit shrouds and jibboom shrouds whisker stays: a separate pair leads from each spar’s end to the respective hull sides. They restrain sideways movement directly. That usage does not require Nares’s intervening sideways whisker spars. In both cases the endpoints establish the mechanism; the shared word does not entitle us to add a spreader that the vessel does not carry.

Distinguish the sail above from the sail below

An upper forward sail can use the topmast’s stay rather than another extension of the bowsprit. In Knight’s 1902 yacht, that stay runs from the topmast head to the bowsprit end. A jib topsail has its luff attached to hanks sliding along this upper support. Its head is hoisted towards the upper end, its tack held forward and below, and its clew drawn aft by its sheet. It is a light upper headsail, with the stay supplying the leading-edge attachment. It is separate from the gaff topsail carried above the mainsail’s gaff.

An older sail occupied a very different place. Falconer’s 1769 dictionary describes a spritsail attached to a transverse yard hanging beneath the bowsprit. The yard spreads the sail’s head across the vessel; its suspension passes that load into the bowsprit, and the bowsprit’s supports carry the resulting reaction into the hull. The sail’s lower corners are controlled below that head support. Falconer records openings in those corners to let out water thrown into the low-hanging cloth by the sea. Falconer’s spritsail entry.

This is the bowsprit-square sense of spritsail. In the diagonal-sprit sail already examined, an oblique pole ran from a lower mast support to the sail’s upper after corner. Here a separate yard supports the head of a square sail below a forward-projecting spar. The common word does not identify the same support geometry. Nares’s later nineteenth-century account describes the low square spritsail as obsolete in his practice, while retaining the related names in the bow rigging.

Move the attachment, or move the whole spar

An extended tack is useful under sail but awkward to reach. A moving fitting can bring it back along the spar. A traveller ring surrounds its guide while sliding along it; in Knight’s small-yacht arrangement the jib traveller is an iron ring around the bowsprit with the jib’s tack hooked to it. The spar guides the ring and takes its transverse loads while the tack moves fore and aft.

A jib outhaul draws that traveller towards the bowsprit end. Knight’s 1902 version starts with a rope spliced to an eye on the traveller. It runs out to a sheave just inside the cranse, entering from above and emerging beneath the spar, with a single block attached to its other end. A second rope is fixed at the bowsprit bitts, passes through that block and returns aboard as the hauling part. Pulling it draws the block inboard; the first rope turns over the outer sheave and draws the traveller outwards. The moving block supplies purchase while the outer sheave reverses the direction of pull.

A jib inhaul brings the attachment back. Knight fastens a smaller line directly to the traveller and leads it aboard. Its inboard pull returns the tack towards the crew as the outhaul is eased. These lines position one moving fitting. They do not shift the whole spar or replace the halyard that raises the sail’s head. Knight, pages 112–113, gives both routes.

Knight’s running bowsprit makes the larger movement. Remove the fid once the loads have been appropriately managed and the spar can slide through its gammon iron and between the deck bitts. At the chosen position the fid secures it again. Bobstay and shroud tackles must be adjusted to the changed distances. A ring able to slide freely and a pin able to hold the loaded position are both necessary parts of this arrangement.

Knight describes running the bowsprit completely in when no jib is set, or partly in when exchanging a large jib for a smaller one. That reduces projecting weight when the bow pitches into a sea. It also adds a sliding contact that can jam and securing gear that must remain usable under its expected load. A fixed bowsprit avoids that particular moving joint while retaining its full projection.

Three motions are now distinct. Hoisting moves the sail’s head upwards. Hauling the traveller moves its tack along a spar that stays in place. Running in the bowsprit moves the support itself. Each requires a different route, and each changes a different part of the working geometry.

Retain the job, change the exposure

The need for forward sail does not compel a long bowsprit. Gloucester’s fishing schooners carried large rigs and long projections as owners sought carrying capacity and speed. Work at the outer end exposed crew to the sea. Thomas McManus’s 1902 Helen B. Thomas used the knockabout response: omit the bowsprit and arrange the hull and forward sails so they can be handled from the deck. The Smithsonian’s Gloucester account connects that physical change to the particular working hazard. It does not make all the fishery’s losses consequences of bowsprits.

Contemporary sailing yachts can use a shorter projection for the tack of a specialised flying sail, while leaving the principal forestay at the bow. Seldén’s deck-mounted example slides through a lined bow ring and secures its inboard end to a deck eye with a plunger fitting. A tack-control line runs through the tube and aft to the cockpit. When the sail is down, the spar can be slid back and secured at an after eye.

Here the separated ring and inboard attachment return the projecting load into the deck structure. The tube’s material and allowable unsupported length have to suit that load; it is not a miniature assembly requiring every historical martingale and jibboom. Nor should a sail-tack extension be assumed to carry the principal mast-supporting forestay. Seldén’s bowsprit description and dimensioning make this a documented current alternative. Its flying sail and changing tack loads will receive fuller treatment later.

The same attachment-space problem can occur aft. An after boomkin, or bumpkin, is a short spar projecting beyond the stern to provide a sheet or stay attachment farther out. Pull at its outer fitting enters the spar and returns through its inboard support and fastening to the hull. It extends the rig’s attachment space without extending the deck, just as the bowsprit does forward. A sail’s boom is instead the moving spar directly supporting or controlling that sail; the after hull projection has a different place in the load path.

Fixed, sliding and omitted bowsprits make different provisions for placing and handling forward sails. The next comparison assembles these parts into the complete one-mast sail plans named cat, sloop, cutter and Solent.