Ryan21

hahaha. a staysail that straddles the pivot point has little effect, because the ship has a keel, which has a Center of Lateral resistance, which mostly defeats leeway and gives the ship forward motion. You can tack with everything on the ship set, main staysails too, once they are head to weather they are neutralized, they are inert. All the main staysails provide is extra forward thrust, that being said, if all you had set were main staysails she might make a tad more leeway depending on how much water she draws. The chieftain draws less water and they keep there mainsail (in the middle because shes a ketch) furled sometimes to prevent excess leeway.

I like the angles idea!

proportionally, all the "plain sail" was reduced in area by 8 percent. Also she was not permitted to carry anything but tops, topgallants, foresail, jib, foretop staysail and spanker. But she ended up getting royals, and main staysails like she should have, just dont set them with passengers or when the coasties are around.

..... really.. you dont need a degree. Go be a deckhand on Lady Washington for two weeks, read seamanship in the age of sail. Then come back and tell me that same statement. This is why I love forums... Its not as complicated as your making it out to be, the center of rotation is between the main and fore, anything abaft the fore serves as stern rotation. I iterate again, read seamanship in the age of sail by Harland, from first hand sailing experience I can tell you this book is as accurate as it gets. I would say rarely sets for and aft sails is also a fallacy. We set them all the time, they arent the main "power" sails but they add to thrust, and on a broad reach, a square riggers fastest point of sail, everything can draw, so in light wind you set everything. Here is one for you, we are broad reaching with full sail, making 6-7 knots in very light wind. Going straight as an arrow. Theres no black magic here, shes just doing her thing. The main and fore act 50/50 to pivot the ship.

It doesnt matter how close they are to the center of pivot, as long as they are ABAFT it, then she will be pushed by the stern, and as long as the fore is forward of it she will be pushed by the bow. I agree that I would like to see some headsail and spanker action, but the basic basic dynamics of the ship pivoting around that point realistically are my primary aim. Because when you step on board a square rigger for the first time this dynamic is one of the first things you learn about sail theory. Like I said, take all the squares away and try tacking, I have never heard if it being done, let alone succeeding. Weather and lee helm are good features but I worry that they may be made more potent than they should be. From the surprise simulator I have seen the headsails and spanker throwing the ship around in a sort of unrealistic way in certain scenarios. In life if you know how to sheet your spanker and headsails right and balance the rig out, in any kind of moderate to light wind the weather helm is pretty easy to deal with, it doesnt require three people on the tiller to keep her pointed the right way, the squares make it so that she is cruising along with relatively even balance, the fore top staysail is very very small and affects things in a minor way, you dont need to set the spanker just because you have the foretopmast staysail set, she tracks just fine. The spanker obviously has alot more area but is still quite manageable if everything is correct, in very heavy wind with close reefed topsails you aren't going to have the spanker set full so its sail area is greatly reduced, and if the weather helm proves too much you simply take it in.

The headsails and spanker do provide more weather and lee helm. However I still maintain that the main forces that allow the ship to maneuver are the squares, if you simple took away the force that the squares provide to each sector of the vessel, like I said before she wouldn't maneuver worth anything. I really dont see anything hard about the fact that the fore stack pushes the head around and the main and mizzen push the stern. If the balance "took care of itself" that would mean everything ive said in this regard would be implemented.

Is there any in game footage of the current tacking scheme yet? Or is that stuff going to be kept under wraps?

Hahaha! Excellent suggestion.

This discussion could get 9 kinds of complicated fast. Basically its going to end up being the developers call on the level of things they want to incorporate. These ships are my life, so naturally I get a bit zealous haha.

Yes you should be able to miss stays. I agree completely. Especially in light wind, yard timing should be critical to completing the tack. Basically what happens if you call the bracing to early or too late is that it is very difficult to brace the yards, you are fighting the wind. If for instance you braced the fore way to early and before the main you might miss stays because you dont have the huge power of that sail backing and pushing the head of the ship through. If the mate calls his bracing exactly right the yards should swing around with relative ease, if he's a second or two too late its like pulling teeth, and in heavy weather its very very difficult. Not completing a tack in heavy weather could have some nasty consequences.

I would love to see the game have all the features of headsails and spanker but I'm not sure that a 100 percent simulation is what the game developer is going for.

The main point is square riggers do not tack like schooners. They have a distinct and seperate process that revolves around their largest most powerful driving sails, which are the squares. In tacking a modern rig or fore and aft rigged schooner you essentially put your helm over and as she comes head to weather you sheet in everything, as she falls off on the new tack you ease the sheets out onto the opposite tack. I have never heard of a square rigger being capable of tacking with just fore and aft set, because there simply is not enough sail area to generate the power needed. I'm not trying to come off harsh here, but Ive spent over a year hauling lines and in some instances calling sail maneuvers on these vessels. If you left out the dynamic of powering and depowering the squares we might as well be sailing fishing schooners into combat.

There is nothing complex about the balance of the square sails. In real life, the headsails and spanker certainly affect pressure on the bow and stern, but they only have a minor fraction of the power of the square sails. The squares are the MAIN driving and maneuvering sails on a square rigger, if you took them away entirely for instance, and set all the fore and aft, attempting to sail her like a schooner she would be very sluggish and poor in maneuvers and speed in general. Schooners fore and aft sails are much much larger. I have used the simulator and there are some parts of it that I feel are not quite like to reality, I know what you are talking about with the violent snappish turns, and the facts are, on a real ship, they just simply do not behave like that. Like I stated earlier, it is important to de power the headsails when tacking at the right time but the headsails are small and do not throw the ship into violent turns. In any weather condition the square sails are the primary force for driving and maneuvering the vessel. You could take away all the fore and aft sails and she would sail nearly as well. With both topsails set you can execute effectively any maneuver the ship can perform. The simulator is great for certain things but not so great for covering all contingencies. all that being said, the headsails and spanker are helping hands in maneuvering.

Heheh, ya we do that from time to time. The "no touch 180"

Here it is, notice how Lady Backs the main, allows Chieftan to pass and then rounds up and gives her a gun. This is modern day example of how Naval Battles were fought, in miniature.

So lets start this out by having a look at the tacking procedure of a brig. I know and am accepting the fact that the game will have limitations, that being said, im still really excited for this game!! So i'm just going to assume we are ignoring the headsail sheeting factor because that is probably a little too much complication. --In life as the helm is put hard a lee the headsail sheets are eased to the point where the headsails are de-powered, this is very important and can prevent the tack from being completed because the headsails are pushing the bow of the ship downwind. We must think of the brig as having three MAIN factors contributing to its manuevering in a brig. One is the fact that the brig will pivot on a certain point depending on which of the two masts (its main sources of thrust) are backing and which are filling. These things make a square rigger unique, you can pivot her around by manipulating the braces on both masts provided you depower the sails at the bow and stern of the vessel ( the headsails, and spanker.) -- In tacking, the brig comes exactly head to whether due to the speed she has on and inertia, at this point the fore square sails will have been aback a little while, this HELPS to push the bow down wind. When she is exactly bow inline with wind, you brace the main squares over to the new tack as fast as possible, any wind that slips past the backing fore sails will hit the main squares ( that are on the new tack) and they will back and push the stern of the ship upwind, effectively turning her more and more onto her new course. --The instant that the main squares begin to fill with wind on the new tack ( instead of backing) the fore yards are braced around as quickly as possible, and they will fill. -- at this point the brig will begin to gather way on the new tack -- only when the brig steadies on her new course will you sheet the headsails in for drive, if you sheet them in too early they can push the bow too far down wind and make for a sloppy maneuver --The reason I have ommited ships and used a brig for reference up to this point is to keep things simpler. On a ship (three masts with squares,) The mizzen squares get braced in tandem with the main, so when the order is given "Mainsail Haul!" the mizzen and main are swung around together, with the same timing I described. THE REALITY As much as I would like to see bow and stern pressure with headsails and spanker, I think that may be to complicated for the game, so lets look at what could happen. -the main/mizzen and fore yards are braced at the correct timing described here, or, if you are too slow or too quick the manuever either stalls the ship out and gives her stern way or slows down the manuever. -Basically if its possible I would like to see the proper rotation balance that a ship or brig has with the square sails and yards being manipulated relative to the wind direction... This doesnt need to have individual sail control, just control of each "stack" of yards as a group on each mast with realistic ship pivoting based on wind direction. Imagine a frigate with only the fore lower mast, with the fore course set. She will have her head pushed constantly downwind and not be able to make way forward except directly down wind. Now imagine the same frigate with only a mizzen topsail, she will always be pushed my the stern up into the wind and not be able to make way only when the sails are balanced on each mast will a ship make headway, and tacking is just manipulating the push and pull effect that balance has on certain parts of the ship. If this is possible this would give opportunities for ships to "box haul" in battle, which means you could bring her into the wind, and square the fore yards, start to go backwards, and "back her up" in either direction, essentially steering her by the fore braces with the sails backed. This is a legitimate battle manuever that was used and is still used when we have battle reanactment sails with the other tallships. It allows you in some instances to stop when you are next to an opposing vessel and slip behind them by going backwards. Only a square rigger can do this You could also heave to, which basically stalls the vessel out, you fill on of the masts and back the other, so if you needed to stop and take advantage of a firing position you could slow her down, stop her, fire, and fill the backing yards and be on your merry way. I dont understand game design other than the fact that its difficult, but the essential thing that I think would take the realism to another level and set the standard would be this realistic sail balance, it basically leaves you with a million options, as long as the theoritical wind force pushes on the ship and sails, and the force of the sails is applied to the correct area of the ship, this would be all thats needed, and if certain players dont like it, switch on the auto pilot and she'll tack for you. Also if in "auto skipper" mode, the yards still braced at the correct times, this would make everything look and feel more realistic. Rather than in empire total war where the ship just sort of lazily goes through the eye of wind and eventually all the yards on all the masts swing over as one. It really has a sloppy feel in empire and takes forever. In reality tacking quickly and effectively meant life or death in some situations, and even bluff bowed merchantmen like lady could tack in less than a minute, and faster with higher wind. In napoleonic times a tack executed without a sound and being carried out efficiently was the mark of a crack ship and real Man o wars men. In the game this will also depend on the ships doing the speeds they do in real life. I hate in empire how the ships seem to be doing about 40 mph, that alone makes manuevering in battle irrelavant because you have taken away one of the biggest factors of these battles, speed. These ships weighed hundreds of tons, and were powered by wind, the fact that you can get a multi hundred ton wooden ship bowling along with control at speeds like 12-14 knots is impressive in itself. In the Later days of merchant sail some of the fastest could do 18 knots, thats modern diesel propelled tanker speed! Cutty sark made an atlantic crossing in 19 days once! Now im getting off topic.. The point I was trying to make is when in game these ships seem to be doing car speeds, traditional battle tactics become irrelavent because back in the day, most of these ship actions were fought at much lower speeds, the battle of Trafalgar was a very light wind day, Nelsons lines were just creeping up to Villenueves at 3 or 4 knots. Also alot of the time they fought under reduced sail to simplify manuever's when they had to be executed quick, a common set was just topsails, headsails and spanker. *one small tidbit here is that setting the spanker, especially when its sheeted in tight makes her turn much faster through the tack and sometimes is necesary in light winds, it "spanks" the stern around. Likewise when waring ship the spanker must be taken in, in most cases because it tends to push her upwind and it makes it really hard to turn her downwind for the ware. Like I said, I dont know if anything im saying is even possible, but if it is I can garentee this game will be flying off the shelves. This is what box hauling looks like. http://static.rcgroups.net/forums/attachments/1/9/8/8/2/a1491202-6-boxhaul.jpg?d=1190483553 Well thats my two cents. Ryan This video illustrates a tack. If you listen close you can hear the skipper on deck telling the crew "Helms a lee!" at about 1 minute, when he puts the tiller hard over. Also listen for the crew repeating Mainsail Haul! And Let go and haul! Watch the flag on the main for wind direction, as well as the land astern of the ship. Im uploading a video that will show some of the tricks we use in a battle sail like heaving to. Ill post it as soon as it finishes.

Here is the tacking video, note the wind was very light at about 10-13 knots. Yes Lady is not a light wind performer for a couple reasons, very round bow, and relatively small sail plan. The current Lady Washington's sail plan was 8% reduced in overall sail area for her regular sail set by the coast guard than what the original Lady would have carried. Lady loves a good stiff blow, the Captain I served under once had her down to single reef topsails and foretopmast staysail, wind was steady 35 gusting low 40's and she was "surfing" above her hull speed down the 20 foot sea state making between 11-12.8 knots. Her hull speed is a little over 9 knots hahaha, but in this instance she was overcoming her bow wave on the run down the swell on a broad reach. I know multiple people who were crew on that transit and it was a white knuckle ride. Keep in mind Lady is steered by a 9 foot long purple heart tiller connected straight to the rudder. The fastest I have personally seen on Lady is 9.3 and we were in the San Francisco Bay with a skipper who really liked to sail her hard, which admittedly I enjoy. It was blowing a solid 20 knots gusting to about 25, we had tops, topgallants, fore course, spanker, foretopmast staysail and jib set, heh heh.. both topgallantmasts and the jib boom were straining at a fairly steady rate and had a good 6 to 8 inch curve in them. If a single gust had hit a few knots north of 25 we probably would have either carried away our topgallantmasts or the jibboom. But she bore this strain well as it was a very steady wind that day with only a few harder gusts, and really we should have set the main staysail as it is low and excellent performer in good wind but it obstructs the deck and hits passengers in the head. If you have seen how round Ladies bow is in person you would have a grin on your face as big as me, we were overtaking modern 20-30 foot sloops, and sent out a 10 foot bow wave with spray flying back above the rail. It was such a glorious day. In the first video you sea the wind state lady likes that I just described, but this was a different day than my last story and at the time we had a more conservative skipper who had us take the topgallants off her when we came out of the lee of sausalito, as you can see she's still moving along smartly under topsails at about 8 knots, so picture her heeled over a few more degrees with the topgallants set and straining, giving it everything shes got Good wind Bay video Tacking video

We did it on a day sail before the day with the gale

When reefing is done in a seamanlike fashion you shouldn't be able to tell that there is a bundle of sail tied up there you roll it as tightly as possible.

No we dont do it at anchor, it is for when you are sailing in heavy weather. sometimes when we are anchored you will set a reefed spanker thats sheeting right amidships to act as a weather vane and keep the ship head to weather so she is pulling the correct way on her anchor.

Yes those sound about right, I dont have a degree in this stuff but I did experience it first hand every day for about 9 months if you include the schooner I was on. What we considered to be a good tack as crew was when we tacked without losing any ground, even in light wind. Lady Washington always impressed me with her ability to tack in very little wind, you just have to know what your doing. So yes tacking in your own length is reasonable for some vessels. Niagara tacked especially quickly, like lightening, I'm pretty sure she was tacking in her own length most of the time. It would be nice to have a birds eye view of tacking. I'm uploading a video of Lady tacking from the perspective of the foremast looking back. One time in very light wind, I mean maybe 3-7 knots I was acting sail master and I put her through a tack that took about 5 minutes but she still came through, and then the wind got even lighter and I was forced to ware, the ware took about 10 minutes to complete.

I am not sure, the schedule is at graysharbourhistoricseaport.org They are in San Francisco right now, one of my favorite ports.

Wine forsooth! Alas, I drink only port!

Generally on most ships the Topsails, Foresail, Mainsail, spanker, and certain lower staysails can be reefed, everything above the topsails would be superflous to have reefing because you take in your royals and topgallants at a relatively low windspeed and the topgallant and royal mast sections are smaller and do not bear as much strain. On Lady its good practice to take in the Royals at about 15 knots, topgallants and jib at around 18-20, first reef in the topsails at about 30-35, and any higher than 35 knots sustained double reef topsails and reefed foresail. The lower sails can bear much more strain because of their mast sections being thicker and the center of gravity is lower. So forget about all those paintings of tall ships that have 35 sails set in a storm, its simply not real. To me a square rigger running under nothing but reefed topsails in a gale, charging along at 13-14 knots and throwing out a 15 foot bow wave with spray flying aft to the quarterdeck is much much more attractive than any of these fantasy paintings hahaha.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/116121315@N07/12257670106/ This is how much smaller Ladies foretopsail is when its double reefed. We did this in Oxnard California before heading to Long Beach in a 45-55 knot gale.