The Masting and Rigging of English Ships of War, 1625-1860 [Hardcover]

James Lees (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1984

This heavily illustrated reference is a treasure house of facts and figures with pages of tabular data providing specific dimensions on masts, rigging, and spars.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 212 pages
• Publisher: US Naval Institute Press; 2 Rev Sub edition (December 1984)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0870219480
• ISBN-13: 978-0870219481
• Product Dimensions: 11.9 x 10 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #448,782 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The only reference you need, November 29, 2000

By 

dr david b griffith (glasgow, scotland United Kingdom) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Masting and Rigging of English Ships of War, 1625-1860 (Hardcover)

The author is (I believe) the curator of the ship model collection in the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich. Having spent his life studying these contemporary models, he is in an ideal position to write the definitive book on the subject. Every mast, spar, rope, block, tackle, sail, and virtually every knot is described in detail. How practices changed and developed over time is covered comprehensively. Diagrams are first rate.

The language is technical and terse and some knowledge of the subject is assumed, as terms are not explained for the layman. However, this is not a book that a layman would buy for a good bedtime read. But a bedtime read it is not. It is a reference book for someone who needs to have in-depth information on the subject, and in this respect it is superb.

On the down side, it deals only with British practice, and only with square-rigged ships, but then that is the remit of the title.

I used this book as the main reference for rigging my model of HMS Unicorn of 1745, and I beleive that the rigging is now as acurate as I could reasonably make it and far better than the original kit instructions would have allowed.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Very detailed, but not well-presented., January 4, 2003

By 

A. J. Watson "Bones" (Newcastle-on-Tyne, UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Masting and Rigging of English Ships of War, 1625-1860 (Hardcover)

While this contains almost everything that one could possibly want to know about rigging a British Man-o-war, it is not well- presented. Understandably there is a lot of jargon, that is not my quibble, it is the way things are presented that drags the quality down. Some sections are very well done, but then there are others with tiny little drawings that are frankly confusing. Most books I have seen adopt the convention of bows to right, stern to left, but this book follows no convention, which confuses one at times.
Blocks are well described, but the sizing of them is a mystery - a table relating the size of sheet or line to the overall size of block could have been easily done and made a world of difference.
In particular, the last section on belaying could have been done so much better... There are already plan views of the various rates of vessels, but the descriptions are not even paragraphed; whereas there could have been callouts for each pin or fiferail to make it quickly apparent which line goes where.
The same goes for the appendices on sizing spars, masts etc; App1 is a jumble of words with no attempts at bullets; App2 is tabulated, but difficult to interpret easily, (the axes should be swapped,IMHO).

This is an invaluable reference, but better editing would have made it a whole lot more user-friendly and readable. ***

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Invaluable Resource, April 14, 2000

By 

Cheryl Marks (Northwest U.S.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Masting and Rigging of English Ships of War, 1625-1860 (Hardcover)

There are curently three books circulating, which describe historical sailing ship construction from the last four hundred years. Others deal with arming/fitting and construction, this volume comprehensively documents discrete design and construction of Masts & Rigging. Easy to understand, this is the standard contemporary reference for anyone involved with historical research and/or modeling.