#tall sails

[her-penetrating-soul]

"Letting go helps us to live in a more peaceful state of mind and helps restore our balance. It allows others to be responsible for themselves and for us to take our hands off situations that do not belong to us. This frees us from unnecessary stress."

~Melody Beattie

[theleastprofessionalchef]

Daryl and Marlin, our ship cats! It's Marlin's second season sailing (though he's been with us three years- got locked at the seaport last season for crimes) and Daryl's first! What sweet babies 💖

[maureen2musings]

Sailing to Antarctica

benjaminhardman

[letmeinimafairy]

New big pendant for a driftwood and sea glass necklace

[victusinveritas]

Gdansk, Poland.

[incognita-soul]

Darrell's first day as a ship's cat and bosun's mate on the tall ship Lady Washington!

Here he is inspecting the quality of coils, making sure passengers were heeding the "no smoking" rule, and standing bow watch through the anchor hawse.

He looked very dapper in his PFD and sunglasses! (I highly recommend looking into Surfer Cat for harnesses and PFDs made to fit cat bodies specifically. their gear is well designed, and they are a small company with excellent customer service!)

[bantarleton]

Iconic.

[lucybellwood]

A while ago Falynn K. asked this question on Twitter:

"So on a tall sailing ship you have the mast, and you have the yards across it--is the yard/spar actually attached to the mast, by like i dunno, a pin or something, or is it strictly roped/lashed to it?"

This is a totally reasonable question! A lot of folks who haven't sailed square riggers might think that the yard stays put, but in fact it needs to move up and down the mast so the sails can be fully set. (Y'know how everyone's always talking about halyards? They literally haul the yard up. You're welcome.)

So to answer the question: yards are held loosely to the mast by a looped line strung with large wooden beads called a parrel. The beads roll up the mast as the yard is raised and lowered. Here's a drawover that hopefully clarifies a little:

Once you start explaining things about tall ship anatomy it's hard to stop, so there's a bit more context for how the sails work:

(These are pages from my comic A Week at Sea with OHP, which you can read online here or grab as a print minicomic here.)

Hope this is helpful!

[solarpunks]

This cargo ship from 1909 is starting to make zero-emissions deliveries again

Sailcargo doesn’t expect to replace the massive industry. But as companies look for ways to reduce emissions, it can offer a solution that works now. Because it doesn’t use shipping containers—goods are loaded on pallets—it also has some logistical advantages. “Some of these fast vessels have to wait at port often up to two weeks, because they’re dependent on the port infrastructure,” says Doggett. “They need the big crane to unload the container. We do not—we can unload ourselves.”

Doggett, who started sailing on tall ships as a 13-year-old, started thinking about the potential to revive traditional cargo shipping more than a decade ago. In 2014, she and two partners launched the company and later began working on building a traditional vessel from scratch. While traveling, Doggett had also run across the Vega. The ship, built in 1909, had been retired in the 1960s, as fossil-fueled container ships started to dominate trade routes. It was headed for the scrapyard when a family of Swedish shipbuilders rescued it and spent years restoring it; Doggett, who loved the design, stayed in touch with them and eventually made a deal to buy it.

Read more here

[haridraws]

Thinking about Them (ships)

[thepictorialist]

"What ship? All I see is ropes."—Oban, Argyll, Scotland, UK 2023

[theredontbedragons]

Black Sails Sets: The Walrus Half Ship & Full Merchant Ships

Source: Ross Jenkin

[ltwilliammowett]

Schooner Opal off Iceland by Frits Meyst

[theleastprofessionalchef]

And we're off! Folks, it's bad.

[letmeinimafairy]

Back to the Arctic on labradorites, aurora borealis and a ship for @star-of-flame-eternal

[victusinveritas]

The Tres Hombres is the only trans-Atlantic sailing freighter without a motor! She is the flagship of Fairtransport and the sailing ambassador for cleaner sea transport.

And here are some shots of her unloading a sustainably sourced cargo (coffee, possibly cacao, though there's also rum in her hold I think):