Methods of setting up the shrouds
in the 19th century. Top: left - cutter stay fashion,
right - iron heart.
Bottom: left - rack; middle - rigging screw with single thread; right
- rigging screw with left and right handed threads.
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The bentinck shrouds
Additional shrouds for the lower masts, known as bentinck shrouds after
their inventor Captain Wm. Bentinck, Royal Navy, were introduced into
the British navy in the latter part of the 18th century. They were
normally only rigged in very heavy weather .
Four or six short ropes with eyes spliced in one end were seized roun
the futtock stave and shrouds close up to the catharpins and led do,
through
the shrouds where they were spliced into a common ring or seized to a
thimble. In large ships the bentinck shroud was also spliced into this
ring and led to a ringbolt in the opposite waterway where it was set up
with a tackle. Small ships occasionally had the rings from both sides
joined by a short
span from which a single bentinck shroud led down to the foot of the
mast
and was set up in the same way.
The catharpins
From the middle of the 17th century on, it was usual to
link the shrouds by catharpins. A line was looped round the futtock
stave and
the shrouds, and then lashed together with seizings - the various
methods
used are shown on the drawing. British warships occasionall: had lower
catharpins about one-third of the mast height above deck at the main
and foremast,
more rarely also on the mizen mast, which was rove through blocks
seized
to the shrouds. They were not used after 1730.
The topmast shrouds
The topmast shrouds were fitted and secured in the same way as the
lower mast shrouds. The methods used for shipping the topmast
shroud.o;. on the masthead, the shrouds themselves, the deadeyes and
lanyards were all identical to those used on the lower shrouds, except
that the dimensions were correspondingly smaller and thinner. Around
the
middle of the 19th century it became standard practice in some areas to
set up the topmast shrouds with small hearts or thimbles instead of
deadeyes,
especially in smaller ships.
The topgallant shrouds
In the 16th and 17th centuries the topgallant shrouds were attached by
means of deadeyes, like the topmast shrouds.
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