Customer Reviews

The Rigging of Ships: in the Days of the Spritsail Topmast, 1600-1720 (Dover Maritime)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is actually written by and for model ship builders. I gave it a 5 star rating because of the difficulty finding information of this nature. It is somewhat dry reading, but the diagrams are for the most part clear. Some of the whole ship detailed drawings, lost something in the reduction and are difficult to read. Much of the information here came from the authors detailed study of the St George model as well as impossible to find rare book references from the late 1600's.

I love every aspect of sailing and I'm particularly interested in learning whatever I can about how ship- rigged boats were actually rigged. This book provides some great information on the terminology of the complicated rigging of these vessels, as well as some of the construction details of the spars. In it you will find information on spars, proportions of the same, standing rigging, and running rigging, and the spirtsail topmast (which went out of use after 1720). If you are interested in learning everything you can about square-rigged ships, this is one of the few references still in print. Buy one while you still can. I am very happy with the book. Because of the rarity of the information presented here it will not be the sort of book I would loan out.

In another review, I said that one needed 3 books as a foundation for the hobby of model ship building. Oops, I was wrong. This is number 4!

Since I'm building a model of the Mayflower (1620), this is the book that has all the answers for all the questions I have. From mast tapering, angles, and length, to rigging hints and methods. This is the square riggers handbook. There is a ton of information, yes covering 1600-1625 period ships. Although there is more for the later part of the title, not to fear, the early part of the title is very well covered.

Despite the hard to read (and messy) illustrations, and weak reductions of original materials, the content of the book requires it get a 5-star rating. Even the dated language doesn't matter. Move past that, and the knowledge is abundant.

If you're not a modeler, and a fan of square rigged sailing vessels, then this is the book to learn how they operated. Very thorough in it's coverage of all the aspects of the vessel's rigging. You can almost feel the ropes in your hands.

So I'm sorry to say, you'll need this book too in your collection... Don't delay.....

Maybe more for the ship model builder than for the naval historian, unless you are planning to build a replica of a sailing vessel of the covered age as an experimental archeologist / historian.
Anderson is rather thorough and the illustrations are very helpful as well. A list of related literature would have been welcome.

The bad: it's assumed you know the terms for all the rigging etc. Such terms as cro'jack, leeches, single whips, tackle pendants, etc are undefined in the text, and there is no glossary. The 24 plates, detailed drawing of models, drawing, rigging guides, etc, some with pages of keys, are all so small to be virtually useless. The book would need to be several times larger, with plates extending over many pages, to be able to differentiate the various lines shown. No guide is given showing a generic sail plan (I'm used to a course, lower top, upper top, top gallant; a different method of naming sails than in this book). I found google a necessary accomniant...

The good: In a dry language, there is a detailed explanation of every line, where it starts, goes, and ends; rough timelines of when various nations felt the need to completely change how that line ran; discussions of various ships, estimates of how accurate various sources are. You will find more than enough material to rig most ships from this time period.

this book was verry helpful to me in building my ship model. the pictures of the various aspects of the ship's rigging and the purpose and function of it was extremely interesting.

Ship rigging with the ship modeler in mind.
You need this book if you build square rigged ship models.

This book was not what I expected. It is rife with great information about the rigging of ships, and is highly descriptive. This book is not for the novice ship builder or new ship modeler not intimately familiar with the structure of a sailing ship. The full ship plates showing all the rigging are very old-school and the size of the images makes it nearly impossible to interpret. Overall, the historical accuracy of the descriptive text is great, but if you are looking for a user-friendly book for illustrations on how to rig a ship or model you may need to look for other titles to compliment this text.