questions for you sailors
2 Dec 2012 08:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaigouCame across this:
The parts that intrigue me:
12:01 -- the guy's lowering a sail, but the ropes go through holes in a wooden piece. Is that a euphroe? (There was a description of junks using these; I could never find pictures, but that sure looks like how they were described.)
12:30 -- one guy's pulling down, but it looks like two more are pulling on the same rope. Why not all three pulling on the same side of the pulley? Why does one guy pull down and the other two pull sideways? Uh, are they raising sails?
12:32 -- jackpot! guy using tiller.
I've seen descriptions of older (as in, Tang dynasty) chinese ships that it took four or more guys to move the tiller, until they figured out fenestrated tillers. But I've never seen any of the rigging around a tiller, not like this guy with the ropes. Are those just to make it easier to move the tiller back/forth?
Also, there's a shot midway through showing the pilot, where you can see the sails also shifting direction. I can't tell if that's just bad editing or if I'm supposed to get the impression that this change in the sail-angle is related to the change in the tiller. Is it? Or is it a matter of the tiller changing to match what the sailors are doing?
...shows like this are useful for a sense of size and info about the different (later-era) ship styles, but sheesh, I still wish someone had a clip -- with explanation! -- about how and what the pilot is doing when he's steering the ship. It looks like there's a lot more going on than just the hollywood-version where someone stands at the wheel and moves it back and forth.
36:44 -- the railing are OPEN, whut! I've seen on some later-era junks that there was a mid-ships opening in the railing used (from what I gather) to have an easier time loading stuff on/off. Then some kind of board was pulled up or across, to close off the opening as the ship pushed away from the dock. But why would you have an open railing that's just a railing and long stretches of open with netting between them? Is there some functional reason for this, or is this a case of just saving money in construction by not having solid sides along there?
The parts that intrigue me:
12:01 -- the guy's lowering a sail, but the ropes go through holes in a wooden piece. Is that a euphroe? (There was a description of junks using these; I could never find pictures, but that sure looks like how they were described.)
12:30 -- one guy's pulling down, but it looks like two more are pulling on the same rope. Why not all three pulling on the same side of the pulley? Why does one guy pull down and the other two pull sideways? Uh, are they raising sails?
12:32 -- jackpot! guy using tiller.
I've seen descriptions of older (as in, Tang dynasty) chinese ships that it took four or more guys to move the tiller, until they figured out fenestrated tillers. But I've never seen any of the rigging around a tiller, not like this guy with the ropes. Are those just to make it easier to move the tiller back/forth?
Also, there's a shot midway through showing the pilot, where you can see the sails also shifting direction. I can't tell if that's just bad editing or if I'm supposed to get the impression that this change in the sail-angle is related to the change in the tiller. Is it? Or is it a matter of the tiller changing to match what the sailors are doing?
...shows like this are useful for a sense of size and info about the different (later-era) ship styles, but sheesh, I still wish someone had a clip -- with explanation! -- about how and what the pilot is doing when he's steering the ship. It looks like there's a lot more going on than just the hollywood-version where someone stands at the wheel and moves it back and forth.
36:44 -- the railing are OPEN, whut! I've seen on some later-era junks that there was a mid-ships opening in the railing used (from what I gather) to have an easier time loading stuff on/off. Then some kind of board was pulled up or across, to close off the opening as the ship pushed away from the dock. But why would you have an open railing that's just a railing and long stretches of open with netting between them? Is there some functional reason for this, or is this a case of just saving money in construction by not having solid sides along there?