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Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Onrust

Viewed from the boat launch, some of the details of Onrust. (Some history in yesterday's post.)

There's another sailing vessel tied up on the other side of the dock from Onrust - a pirate ship! It looks like these are friendly pirates, though...

From the bow, we see the bowsprit, the hole for the anchor line, the main mast with the sail gathered round the base, the even longer gaff mast going up at an angle, the leeboard (one on each side) and in the stern, the tiller is barely visible. No wheel, but a tiller.

This ship draws something like 4 feet of water, so she's not going to be deep enough to sail a reach (wind from the side) without being blown over. That's why her builders (then and now) added leeboards. These drop down into the water when sailing and act in the same way a keel does - it resists the movement of the boat from slipping sideways through the water.

Because there's one on each side, it doesn't matter which tack she's on; as she heels, one of them will be in the water! Leeboards are a very clever engineering answer to the problem of a ship having to sail in shallow water.

5 comments:

  1. I enjoyed the photos of the pirate ship and the story about the keelboards.

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  2. Lovely replica! Interesting to know it was made by hand.

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  3. It's nice to see the ship in its entirety. Truly beautiful. Great craftsmanship. Thanks, too, for sharing your knowledge of sailing with us!

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  4. I know absolutely nothing about sailing ships, but I think she's a beauty!

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  5. From Marine marchande this one Is really Wonderfull!

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