Setting square sails

How to set sails on a tall ship. Star of India

[@stephenarmiger8343]

Fascinating to realize that the crew on these ships were a fraction of what we see in this video!

[@Mandolinpossum]

Fascinating! I wasn't even aware the Star was still seaworthy. I'd love to go just to see her someday, but to sail on 'er would be amazing.

[@flyyntk]

Ah, this is beautiful! The teamwork and everything!

[@bjrnhusted6752]

Oh jaa - been there. 1984 Training Ship Danmark - 5 month, day and night - 80 cadets 19 crew...

[@nolanmcdermott8245]

Sorta-kinda. You have to brace your yards so the sails will make most use of the available wind. Anytime the wind or the ship's heading changes, you need to re-brace, as well as reevaluate which sails you need to have set. Eg. In a high wind, you'd leave your lower, stronger sails set and strike your upper light-air sails. In a dead calm, you'd have every square inch of canvas out. In addition, to sail upwind, you need to tack--turn the ship upwind using only sail power. And repeat, and repeat..

[@Neptune7133]

Yo! The Star of India is my wallpaper

[@ShawnaGraham50]

Wow thanks for all that! I always wondered about upwind sailing.

[@johnk.lindgren5940]

Edutainment at its best. Nec Plus Ultra. Thank you.

[@Franz_Z]

Wonderful! The most efficient method to get control is using whistles.

[@seagraver]

Does the Star of India crew us Eagle Seamanship as their "how to" reference for sailing her?

[@luisdonizetepereira4991]

Boa Noite excelente quarta feira para todos!

[@ShawnaGraham50]

Wow that is some serious work. They have to do this as they sail too?

[@justforever96]

What do you mean? This is sailing. If you mean do they do this constantly, it depends. Multiple times a day, unless they are sailing in a steady, unchanging wind. If they are sailing into the wind and tacking or wearing, they need to do this sort of thing all the time. You need to use different sails for different winds and seas, and you need to take the sails in and out as the wind increases and decreases. So as a rule, yes, they do have to do this as they sail too. There might be calm periods where hardly a sail is touched, but if it gets stormy, or with variable winds, then it can be very exhausting, especially since the watches are 4 hours each, 24 hours a day: you get 4 hours on, 4 hours off. All of your sleeping must be done in those 4 hour periods. If they need to make sail (what they are doing in this video), then they will rouse the off duty watch out of bed and make them come and help (you need the whole crew for that). Every second night you get to sleep 8 hours: from 8 to 12, on duty from 12 to 4, then off duty again from 4 to 8. The other half of the crew sleeps from 12 to 4. The next night you rotate. So you only get to sleep 4 hours every other night (although you can usually nap during your off duty watches in the daytime). No one ever said sailing a ship is easy. One of the reasons they picked up steam ships when they became available.

[@ShawnaGraham50]

William Walker wow THANK YOU for the information! That’s exactly what I was asking! I always figured by looking it was challenging work but I never experienced it. Thank you again, I have even more respect then I did before.

[@andrewmurtha3880]

this ship is more than 100 years old and it still sails OMG

[@stratoleft]

I'll not only get up there on the mast, I'll beat anybody else to the top going up the mast

[@bryantreacher5793]

I was wondering are the mask fixed or do they pivot so they can be turned into the wind

[@justforever96]

The masts certainly do pivot. It's called "bracing" and it is done by pulling on the "braces", the ropes that hold the yards at the angle you want. This is how you sail into the wind from different angles, and all types of sail (except very primitive before--the-wind-only rigs like you'd see on a raft or something) can adjust the angle. To be accurate, the MAST does not rotate. Just the yards. They are not firmly attached to the mast, they can slide up and down, and rotate around it, all controlled by ropes. But yes, you rotate the whole "stack" of sails together, and it looks just like the whole mast is being rotated.

[@lishen9]

"if the hair on the back of ur neck doesn't stand up... with that view you don't belong here" i think whom ever quote that haven't been sailing very much !!!!

[@justforever96]

I agree. A silly quote, meant to sound all deep and interesting for a soundbite, but which is actually just pretentious and meaningless.

[@yeehawwoohoo]

does anyone know where to get a job like this?I would love to do this for a living.

[@lishen9]

but have to admit.. i m jealous u guys get to sail a ship that!!! old ;)

[@kimparish1982]

This video ended prematurely, before all the sails were set.

[@astra4nn]

Looks interesting. A lot of sail training vessels teach how to do set square sails. This is even a more dumber question, is Star of India a sail training vessel? A lot of the tall ships do have such programs going.

[@lishen9]

haha.. yah like once a year and alot of dock side training not very intimate with the actual experience...fortunately i do this all the time... and even lived on board (brig niagra), you get used to it after a week or so..

[@nolanmcdermott8245]

You're very welcome! I spent a lot of my adolescence on a (smaller) square-rigger so..y'know...any excuse for a sailor to talk about boats.

[@justforever96]

Okay, a little clearer, but it still doesn't explain WHY. Why are some of the sails loosed and then pulled down, but you have to raise the yards on the others? The course is drawn tight with the downhauls, but you need to raise the lower topsail by raising the yards with the halyards? Wait...I think I get it...the course has nothing below it but the deck, so the sheets can draw the sail downwards. But if you had long ropes connecting the upper sails with the deck, they would interfere with bracing the yards, or you'd have to loose and adjust them all every time. So instead, the sheets are made fast to the top of the mainyard, and the yard is pulled upwards. That way the whole thing can be braced as unit. But no, that doesn't make sense either, since what do you attach the sheets of the sails above the lower topsail to then? Do they also attach to the main yard? Or do you lower the main course AND upper topsail, and raise the yards of the lower topsail and topgallant? That way you're pulling up and down from two different anchor points. But you'd still need to rig the downhaul of the upper topsail yard so the whole mast can be braced about. None of these videos are quite clear enough. Or I'm missing something. I guess what I really need is a rigging diagram, not a video.

[@shipwreckchannel9368]

they should put 1800s clothes on so it looks like its in the 18 century :)

[@hultonclint]

1800s is the 19th century.

[@justforever96]

That would cost a lot more. Most of these hands only work short periods at a time. They'd need to buy them themselves, or you've have to have a big costume room. It's just too expensive. And what are you going to do, insist the females dress as males? What if they don't want to? What if some of the hands feel like they would just look silly? I'm sure they talked about it and decided it wasn't worth it. Probably a lot of them feel like it would be making them into a tourist's show then, where they mostly feel like it's just another job. And since they are not full time, more like semi-volunteer, it's just too much of a hastle to figure out how to provide a constantly rotating set of people of various sizes and shapes with clothes. And then there is the problem that sailors don't wear uniforms, they dress in all sorts of getups. So you'd have to carefully order a hundred different outfits, to fake an "organic" randomness, which probably wouldn't be convincing anyway. It would cost thousands of dollars just to order 100 of the same uniform. 100 unique sets of "18th century sailor's clothes" would have to be specially made or collected here and there from a dozen different sources that make reproduction old fashioned clothes. Most of which are either very expensive, or very cheaply made and only suitable for costume parties. And probably not as good for working in as modern clothes. You want to make them all go barefoot too? How is it going to look with them wearing safety harnesses over their "sailor's clothes"? I'm happier to think that whatever money they make goes back into maintaining the ship. I doubt it is making anyone rich, and it costs a lot to pay that big crew, even if most of them are only working for what amounts to a nominal fee. I doubt they are paid much more than minimum wage, and it's probably part time or seasonal, so they don't have to pay insurance (thank God, since they could never function if they did, and they'd have to mothball the ship instead of sailing it). They couldn't make these ships pay even back when they had cargo to carry and you could hire a whole crew for peanuts (compared to labor costs today). I'm sure that the people who run this do it just for the sake of keeping the ship running, like the people who run these heritage steam railways. You charge a fee to the passengers hoping to make enough money to keep operating at all, not to make money off of it. The margins are very low, and if you raise ticket prices (to cover uniforms, for example), the passengers will just decide to go elesewhere.

[@lostindiancamp]

These ships are beautiful, but to own one would require you to be a millionaire just to be able to afford all the maintenance and crew. You can't sail one of these with just a few people.

[@flyyntk]

The Star of India is the oldest ship that still sails if I'm correct :P

[@Neptune7133]

You are stil correct