SAIL AREAS.

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 148, 23 June 1923, Page 17

SAIL AREAS.

1 . A CORRECTION. (By SEA BREEZE.) Following on articles of the days or the clipper ships, their wonderful performances under canvas, and the terrific sail plan that they stood up to, comes a correction of some importance. The writer had stated that the sail area of the Lightning, James Baines, and others !of that, great epoch was 13,000 square i yards. Mr. Philpott, master sailmaker, of Auckland, who, ashore and afloat, has handled canvas for nearly half-a----j century, in an exhaustive analysis of j sail plans, states that this is impossible. IHe is substantially correct. The James Baines' working suit was 13,000 yards of American cotton canvas, IS I inches wide. This would cut down the i actual area spread to slightly under I 6000 square yards. The famous Lights nine's spread was identical, so Basil Lubboek says, with the Champion of the Seas, 12,500 yards of American cotton. The Donald Mackay boasted ' 17,000 yards. The Blue Jacket's sail 1 area alone is expressed in square yards, 1 oGOO. These great American and Nova Scotian clippers were sparred in the i days before the double topsail and double top-gallant-sail became univer--1 sally adopted, and they tapered away ;to the skysail, nearly two hundred feet i from the "deck. The British sail plans lof a later date were in marked contrast to the tapering pyramid of early times. The mast plan was reduced, but the upper yards were tremendously square. The two Bens, Carnachan and Voirlich. had upper top-gallant yards 56ft and royals 44ft. In proportion to their tonnage vessels like the beautiful Cimba and the Aberdeen White Star clippers out-carried the great soft wood packets. In Mr. Lubbock's book the sail areas are <*iven in running yards, with one exception, which gives the key to the whole. British canvas is hemp, 24in wide, American cotton. ISin. The seaming with flat seam overlap reduces thj net area by about an inch and a-half in the running yard. There is no mention of tabling, buntline cloths, etc., bo it may be assumed that -a further deduction will have to be made on that account. Where such prominence is given to the •\meriean areas, it would be interesting to know the exact yardage of vessels like the great Tweed, Thomas Stephens, and other British sparred vessels.