The Complete Rigger’s Apprentice: Tools and Techniques for Modern and Traditional Rigging, 2nd Edition

433 Pages·2016·26.59 MB·English

by  Brion Toss

The Complete Rigger’s Apprentice
SECOND EDITION
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The Complete
RIGGER’S
A P P R E N T I C E
SECOND EDITION
Tools and Techniques for
Modern and Traditional Rigging
B R IO N TOSS
Illustrated by Robert Shetterly
Incorporating The Rigger’s Apprentice and The Rigger’s Locker
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ISBN: 978-0-07-184977-7
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This book is dedicated
to the memory of Nick Benton, Master Rigger
Contents
Preface ix
Forewords
by Larry Pardey xi
by Peter H. Spectre xi
by Des Pawson xiii
Acknowledgments xv
Introduction xvi
CHAPTER 1 A Rigging Primer 1
Rope 1
Two More Tools 5
Small Stuff—Spike Knots, Service, Seizings, Constrictors 7
Lashing 14
CHAPTER 2 Creating and Managing Tension 21
Rope Construction and Materials 21
Block and Tackle 27
Block Construction 31
Tackle Applications 38
Choosing Winch Power 40
The Come-Along 45
Sweating Up 46
Turnbuckles (The Inclined Plane) 46
A General Admonition to Keep Things Taut 47
(or at Least Not Slack)
Sorting 48
CHAPTER 3 Friction, Part 1: Knotting 49
A Turn Around the Cook’s Leg 50
Six Hitches 55
Six in the Bight 59
Seven Bowlines 64
Eight Bends 70
A Specialist 76
The End of Your Rope: Stopper Knots 78
CHAPTER 4 Friction, Part 2: Splicing 82
The End of Your Rope Revisited: Multistrand Splices 82
Not the End of Your Rope: More Splices for 97
Three-Strand Rope
Braided Rope Splices 100
Braided Rope Repairs 121
CHAPTER 5 Standing Rigging Design and Materials 123
Design Principles 123
Spreader Loads 130
Shroud Loads 140
Mast Strength 146
Wire/Rod Options 150
Mast Hardware 159
Staysails 162
Seaworthiness 167
CHAPTER 6 Loft Procedures 175
Measurement 175
The Liverpool Eyesplice Made Difficult 188
The 1 5 19 Wire Splice Made Possible 202
Notes on Crimped Wire Fittings 214
Grommeting 215
The Comforts of Service 221
Into Leather 233
The Wire Round Seizing 239
Mysteries of the Tail Splice Revealed 247
CHAPTER 7 Installation and Maintenance 254
Installation: Getting Ready 255
Stepping the Keel-Stepped Mast 259
Deck-Stepped Masts 262
Living Aloft 263
Topmast Installation 276
Ratlines 279
Tuning 285
Survey and Maintenance 287
CHAPTER 8 A Portfolio of Rigs 297
Mizzens 297
Mainmasts 305
CHAPTER 9 Emergency Procedures 317
CHAPTER 10 Fancy Work 327
Hitching 327
One High-Class Knife Lanyard 330
The Turk’s Head: Harmonic Sequence and the Sailor 339
CHAPTER 11 Tricks and Puzzles 348
The Setup 349
Threading a Ring 351
The Jumping Ring 352
Overhand Knot Without Letting Go 353
The Cut-and-Restored String 356
The Professor’s Nightmare 358
Topological Bondage 364
The Mobius Bowline 365
Circling the World 365
Threading the Needle 366
The Good Old Actual Indian Rope Trick 367
The Lovers 367
CHAPTER 12 Sheer Ingenuity 369
Tie-Downs 370
Dinghies and Tenders 373
Mooring and Anchoring 374
Halyards 376
Managing Sails 379
Chart Stowage 380
Lifelines and Tethers 380
Appendix: Additional Tables and Graphs 3 8 2
Appendix: Soft Shackle 388
Glossary 392
Bibliography 398
Sources and Resources 400
Index 405
Preface
30 years ago, with an old cable spool as a chair, and field are applicable in another, but we all have a lot
my workbench as a desk, I began to write the first to learn from one another.
version of this book. I wrote longhand, on a yellow
legal tablet, slowly filling page after page with what I
DO THE MATH
hoped and meant would become a primer on sailing
vessel rigging. I wrote as much to refine and clarify Many of my clients have been engineers or archi-
my own meager understanding of the subject as to tects, and they have been unfailingly generous
inform anyone else; even then I had an inkling of and patient in expanding my understanding of the
the vast scale of what there was to know about rig- design aspects of the art. Rueful admission: when I
ging, and how incomplete my own comprehension was in high school, there was only one class about
was. But I was also filled with an evangelical zeal. I which I said, “I’ll never use this crap.” That class
wanted the world to know about this beautiful art. was trigonometry. It turns out that you cannot be
In the years since, I have worked on hundreds a competent rigger without some understanding of
(thousands?) of rigs. On some days, I seem to have trigonometry.
acquired some level of competence. On other days,
the learning curve is unbearably steep. On those
TRUST/VERIFY
days, to paraphrase Clifford Ashley, I feel that if
I can just keep improving at this rate, and if my Whether you get your information from a profes-
health holds out, I might someday manage to get a sional, or someone down the dock, or YouTube, be
grasp of the fundamentals. Therefore, gentle reader, sure of its validity before you put it into practice.
consider this new edition to be a work in progress. It Math can be a big help here, but so can discussion,
is certainly an improvement on the previous edition direct experiment, and common sense. This advice
—almost every page of my copy is marked with red (I pause here to wince) goes for some of the rec-
ink—and in addition to corrections and evolutions ommendations found in previous editions of this
you will find new ways of thinking about and work- book. The current one as well, for all I know. You
ing with rigging. can be wrong about things you sincerely believe in.
Some general bits of advice: It is overwhelmingly likely that you are wrong about
many things, right now. This can have a paralyz-
ing effect, partly because it can be embarrassing,
CROSS-POLLINATE
but mostly because, in rigging, people’s lives are at
In the course of my career it has been my privilege stake; your beliefs translate directly to safety. Or
to work with theater riggers, industrial riggers, not. That’s why we have civilization, which at its
arborists, timber framers, circus riggers, mountain best functions as a non-genetic means of preserv-
climbers, etc., in addition to riggers of all types of ing and transmitting aids to survival. Test results,
sailing vessels. The particulars of each branch of the engineering standards, theories, and algorithms are
art vary widely, and not all of the insights in one the left-brain means to this end. But don’t underes-
ix