About twenty five years ago, we laid out the keels for a new adventure - The Twin Brigantine project, in the parking lot of the #Los_Angeles_Maritime_Institute, next to the #Los_Angeles_Maritime_Museum, in the old ferry building that was, along with a pontoon bridge, obviated by completion of the #Vincent_Thomas_Bridge connecting the mainland to #Terminal_Island.
Up until that time, #LAMI operated and sailed the 70' gaff-rigged topsail schooner, Swift of Ipswitch (previously James Cagney's personal yacht) for it's youth sailing program. It took a few years to complete the Irving and Exy Johnson, sister Brigantine vessels built and outfitted by dozens of volunteers over the duration of the program. At some point, another gaff-rigged schooner was borrowed and enlisted, the136' Bill of Rights filling the need for accommodations of a youth sailing program that had greatly expanded over time, with many ups and downs, achievements and disappointments, but building two square rigger tall ships for and by a non-profit organization dedicated to youth educational programs for the community, a truly novel pursuit, eventually came to a close as a great success.
This photo shows the 113' brigantine Irving Johnson, on 23 March 2005, and which, after less than three years of service, she had run hard aground on a sandbar following several storms that affected local charts, leaving them partially obsolete - in short, on her way into the Channel Islands harbor, well... sadly, the pic speaks for itself.
Another year and two million dollars later to repair structural damages and flooding, the #Irving_Johnson once again joined her sister ship, #Exy_Johnson, in the pursuit of education as #school_ships, something that Irving and his wife Exy (Electa), following no less than 7 circumnavigations together, pioneered and championed in the 20th century aboard their three successive sailing ships - a #schooner, a #brigantine, and a #ketch - each named the #Yankee.
#tallship #youth_sailing #education
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tallship
For more info on Irving and Exy, their circumnavigations of the globe, and love of life together living aboard and blue water cruising, There's this National Geographic, as well as a several books that together and separately have published about their lives at sea.
Questions always follow after such, 'salty talk', or 'nautical nomenclature', or in #Star_Trek terms, #technobabble.
What's the difference between a mizzen topgallant sail and a main royal staysail? Just a few rules is all it takes, but in today's world, one need only avail themselves of the basic Marconi rig on a single masted sloop. There's a mainsail (the big triangular one aft of the mast), and a jib, or foresail. Typically, when speaking about a jib (the one forward of the mast), people will typically categorize them into about three classes:
a #Genoa (big one - low wind conditions)a #Jenny (also called a #working_jib for most wind conditions)a #Storm_jib - smallish, for reduced sail area in high and gale force winds.If you're rigged to run one jib, you're a #sloop; two, and you're #cutter rigged.
tl;dr: Unlike elections, rigging is a good thing. Without standing rigging you have nothing to hold your masts up in place and they'll just snap or fall over. Without running rigging you have no way to control your sails, hoist them up, or catch the wind.
So when it comes to sailboats, it's a very good thing that they're rigged :p