USS Constitution and HMS Victory were the prototype ships for the entire Age of Sail idea. They proved that square-rigged ships can be operated under sail power alone, and that they are both fast and maneuverable. They also served as test platforms for various sail controls. I recently packed these two ships up and mailed them to California, so I took a detailed series of photos as I disassembled the ships. Here I will explain the running rigging, how it works on these two models, and how I would do things differently in the future. I'll start with HMS Victory. She was the second ship I built, and incorporated many of the lessons learned from Constitution. I'll also take a moment to define a few useful nautical terms as I quite literally "show you the ropes". BASIC CONTROLS Basic sail control is provided with a pair of high-torque metal-geared servos, waterproofed with o-ring and grease. While square sails are well-balanced and don't require much torque to rotate, they can easily strip plastic gears while luffing. These are connected to the sails by a large 4-inch metal arm, with the braces connected in a parallelogram arrangement. The foremast braces are controlled by the forward servo. They travel aft through a set of eyelets, then meet at the base of the mainmast, then travel up the mainmast, then split again to travel forward to the Fore Course yard. The mainmast braces follow a similar pattern, traveling towards the foremast through a pair of eyelets, converging underneath the foremast, passing up through a larger eyelet, then traveling aft to the Main Course yard. Brass crabclaw clips are used to provide quick-disconnect capability above deck, to allow disassembly for transport. To support easy tensioning and line replacement, the lines are held on the servo arms by a washer and nut. Loosen the nut, and you can easily adjust the lines. The two jibs are controlled by a single line from the forward servo. This line goes through a single eyelet directly under the arm when the servo is in the neutral position, then travels forward to the jibs. A single crabclaw clip connects to the sheets from both jibs, allowing both to be controlled from a single line. The effect is that as you brace your square sails over to head closer to the wind, the jibs sheet in to head closer to the wind. As you go back to neutral to run before the wind, the jibs sheet out as well. Note: both Constitution and Victory historically had three overlapping jibs. I chose two jibs because the Tyvek I used for sails was not flexible enough to allow overlapping jibs to properly transition from one side to another. If you use a different material, it is possible to use two sheets directly connected to the foremast servo to provide the appropriate control, and even force the jibs to the correct side for a given tack if there's not enough wind to do the job. The sails are held to the yards with a line of hot glue. The yards are held to the masts with a pair of eyelets. One eyelet screwed horizontally into the mast, and one screwed vertically into the yard. The eyelets on the yards must be opened up with needlenose pliers to install the sails. The lower sails (courses and topsails) should have their eyelets re-closed after installation, since you will not be removing them. The topgallants on up should stay open, so you can reduce sail to match the wind conditions. The bottom corner of the sail, the clew, is reinforced with a couple layers of packing tape. I did not know if this was necessary or not, so I played it safe. The packing tape is slowly peeling away after 12 years, but it does not appear to affect performance in any significant way. The clew-lines were simply pushed through the reinforced area of each sail with a sewing needle, then held in place with a small stopper knot and a drop of CA glue. To hold the clew-line to the next yard down, you'll notice there is a hole drilled in the yard. Push the line through the hole, then put an o-ring or a bit of flexible tubing over it, and friction will keep it nice and tight. You may need a needle to help push the line through the hole. The tip of each line was hardened with thin CA glue to prevent fraying. I used small rings of flexible tubing, but they aged worse than the packing tape did, and crumbled to dust when I pulled them off. Constitution, being the first ship I built, used a different method to hold the clew-lines. I tied a loop on the end, and just slid that over the ends of the yards. This wasn't quite as tight as I wanted, allowing a certain amount of slop in the sail controls. HMS Victory's adjustable clew-lines are the preferred method for future builds. The mizzen yards are directly linked to the main yards by a parallelogram arrangement of braces. Whatever you do with the mainmast, the mizzen will do as well. In accordance with historical records and practical experience, there is no need to control the mizzen sails separately. Next up is the cross-braces. Experience with both models showed that there was an undesirable amount of twist to the sails on a given mast. When sailing, the upper yards tend to twist further around than lower-down sails because the upper sails are not directly controlled. Historical ships had separate braces for every yard, but this was not practical on a model of this size. As an experiment, I tried installing cross-braces to help guide the topsail yards. Each cross-brace is connected from one side of the topsail yard through the large eyelet to the opposite-size course yard. As you brace the course around, one side lets out and the other side pulls in on the topsail yard. This noticeably reduced (but did not eliminate) the adverse twisting of upper yards. The same system of cross-braces was also applied to the fore-topsail. Here we have a look at the Spanker, or driver. This sail is held in place by eyelets, and can swing freely within approximately a 60-degree arc. This arc was controlled by the red dental floss line. Unfortunately I had to cut this line in order to pack the ship, so you'll have to replace it. It is also possible to hook up some proper controls to the spanker, using a similar method to the jibs. Just connect it to the mainmast servo instead of the foremast servo, since the spanker is aft of the ship's center. Here you can see the ballast on HMS Victory. It takes a hefty chunk of lead to get this ship down to waterline. The keel is a 1/8" x 6" x 8" lexan plate, attached to the ship by a pair of aluminum L-brackets. A pair of stainless steel bolts hold the plate in place. Interestingly, this extra ballast gives HMS Victory a performance edge over Constitution in most sailing conditions. The extra weight keeps the ship more upright, which means that you can 1) carry more sails, and 2) the sails are better able to capture the wind's power without tipping over and spilling it. The classic notion of "smaller = faster" was quite false in the Napoleonic Era, and it remains false in the models. The blue tape in the second picture is holding various bits of running rigging so it doesn't get tangled. This is essentially the condition it will be shipping in. Here is a brief overview of the different sails in the condition they will be shipped in. Nothing too special here. Note how each mast has a long streamer on it. This is called a telltale, and it helps you tell what the wind is doing to the model. I used extremely light strips cut from a plastic shopping bag. Despite their light weight, it is common for one of more of them to get stuck in the turbulence downwind of the sails. Hence the need for multiple telltales, as high up as possible. USS CONSTITUTION - DIFFERENCES Constitution, being built before Victory, has a few construction differences. Asides from the different clew-lines mentioned earlier, Constitution's model kit included some very nice Fighting Tops that I included on the model. I used these for cable routing whenever possible, instead of the large eyelets seen on Victory. You can see that setup On the mainmast, the topsail got in the way, so I used the eyelet on the course yard instead. There is also a small grommet glued to the mast for the braces, which you can see just below the fighting top. I would not recommend this for future builds because the grommet is too small to fit the crabclaw fittings I used, so I could not fully free the mainmast from the hull. One other noteworthy difference is the Constitution's spanker. The booms are much smaller, so there wasn't room for a proper eyelet in each. Instead, small jewelry fitting was used. These are strong enough for model use, but they are more difficult to work with. Furthermore, the up-hauls were not designed to be detachable. To remove the up-hauls (and to subsequently re-install them), the eyelets at the top of the mizzen mast need to be removed. Not an issue for routine use, but that is one thing I wish I'd done differently (and did do better on Victory).
TERMINOLOGY USED *********************************** MASTS Foremast: the forward-most mast on a full-rigged ship. Mainmast: the tallest mast on any ship. Mizzenmast: the mast after the Mainmast on a full-rigged ship. Bowsprit: the forward-pointing mast on a ship that holds jibs, stays, and spritsails. Yard: The pole that holds a square sail. Boom: the pole that holds a fore-and-aft sail. Bentinck Boom: the pole that holds the bottom of a Course. This is a bit of an anachronism in the Napoleonic era, since courses were not supported at the bottom, but it significantly improves the precision of control for the models. SAILS Course: the lowest square-rigged sail on a mast. On the mainmast, may also be called the Mainsail. Topsail: the sail above the course. For Napoleonic-era ships, this is the largest sail on the mast by area, and the most important for propulsion. Topgallant: The sail above the Topsail, sometimes called the t'gallant. Toproyal: the sail above the topgallant, often shortened to just royal. Uncommon in the Napoleonic era. Skysail and Moonsail: the sails above the royal. Did not exist in the Napoleonic era, but did get used on some clipper ships. Jib: a triangular fore-and-aft sail on the bowsprit. Staysail: a triangular or trapezoidal fore-and-aftsail suspended from a stay. Spanker: a trapezoidal fore-and-aftsail on the aftmost mast. Sometimes called a Driver. Spritsail: a square sail suspended under the bowsprit. Only useful in certain circumstances, and was falling out of favor by the Napoleonic era. STANDING RIGGING Stay: a line that holds a mast in place by pulling forward. Usually named after which mast it supports, ie forestay, or main t'gallant stay. Backstay: a line that holds the mast in place, specifically pulling back against the tension of the stay, and to either side. Clew: The bottom outer corner of a sail, or the line that holds said corner in place. RUNNING RIGGING Sheet: the line that controls the position of a fore-and-aft sail. Brace: a line that controls the position of a square sail. Always comes in pairs. OTHER TERMS Tack: which direction the wind is coming from, relative to the ship. Heel: The wind force on the ship causes it to lean over. This steady-state leaning due to wind forces is called heel. ******************************* LESSONS LEARNED Sailing ships are complex objects, but there are a number of useful lessons to learn from these ships. The basic control scheme worked VERY well. The entire ship can be controlled with just three channels: foremast sails, main/mizzen sails, and rudder. The parallelogram method of controlling sails worked quite nicely for these smaller-scale vessels, too. However, experience showed that some method of controlling slack in the yards is needed for larger models. This improvement has been incorporated into the larger 1:48 Constitution, with sliding rails for the servos to allow spring tensioning. Rigging on these models was mostly made from Fly Line Backing, a particular type of fishing line. A little was made from regular braided fishing line, and still other bits were improvised from dental floss. I have included the original spool of fly line backing, in case any rigging needs repairs. Both the braided fishing line and the fly line backing worked very well, although the fly line backing is a thicker material that looks a lot nicer. Sailing conditions proved to be a vital consideration. Just like the real ships, steady winds are very important. Not so much the wind strength, but a steady direction is very important. This means a relatively large, open area without too many trees or buildings nearby to generate eddies and down drafts. Trying to sail in flukey, unpredictable conditions can be a very frustrating experience. Also make sure you're not carrying too much sail. While it's OK for the occasional gust to cause a lot of heel, you shouldn't be spending too much time with the scuppers awash or with green water over the bow. If you find that's happening, bring her in and reduce sail. Another important lesson is how much time these ships spend with at least some amount of heel. Larger models heel less, but there is always some heel. Again, the larger 1:48 Constitution kit has some provisions for this, with the entire gun decks able to pivot up and down with a servo to keep the guns pointed at a safe direction. However, it isn't perfect. The kit's built-in water channeling is perfectly flat. While this is fine for electric models that remain mostly level, even a tiny amount of heel is enough to prevent the water channeling from serving its purpose. Some modifications may be necessary to get water from the outboard bilges into the sump. Lastly, the method for attaching sails to yards has room for improvement. Interlocking a pair of screw eyelets worked well enough on these models, but it had a fair amount of slop. Future models should incorporate more precise means of installing the yards, especially to prevent side-to-side swaying. It may also be worth considering simple one-piece masts and rotating the entire mast, to eliminate the problems of upper-yard twist and to greatly simplify removing masts for transportation and storage. CLOSING THOUGHTS These two models have seen a lot of use in their time. They served very well as prototypes and trainers, proving the theory that Age of Sail combat is practical and giving direct hands-on experience with both operations and combat maneuvers. By passing them along I hope they can inspire others and reignite interest in the period. Whether you spend your time with them fighting mock battles or re-enacting the great Tea Races of the 1860's, I hope they continue to serve well in their new home.
The rudder works as well, but it is just like any other model ship's rudder so I didn't really focus on it. Besides, the rudder on a tall ship is more for fine-tuning your course, and heading up and falling off the wind. For major direction changes, ie tacking, wearing, or box-hauling, you need to control the sails. Foremast and main/mizzen sails are operated independently to quickly pivot the ship around its center using wind force. It's kinda like having independent thrusters at the bow and stern of the ship. There are various guides on how to do the different maneuvers, but here is an example of turning down-wind, or wearing ship: View: https://youtu.be/TgHGXCpgjEk?t=98 Wind is coming from the right of camera. The maneuver starts with putting the rudder hard to starboard, and setting the main/mizzen sails parallel with the wind. This allows the sideways force of the fore sails to pull the ship's head around, and the main/mizzen to provide thrust for the rudder to work. Once the ship crosses the eye of the wind, the situation is reversed: the main/mizzen are close-hauled to provide sideways force, and the fore sails are slacked to help her head up into the wind. When the final course is achieved, the rudder is centered and all sails are squared up for maximum forward thrust again.
