Jan, yes, you’re right, it can be a real terror trying to get some new rigging installed, without getting previously installed rigging caught up in the new stuff, or worse, get accidentally cut! It makes for slow progress! And the rigging is only about 1/3 done.
Just to further the discussion re: notching the yard or the mast for attachment of the yard, for this particular yardarm, it really would have been impractical to get a good notching of the mast, as the yardarm is not merely circular. Here’s 2 close-ups of the foretop yard, which I’ve tried to show the sculpting of it (unfortunately, they’re blurry, but maybe you can get the idea):
And here’s a pic of Heller’s instructions. It’s not the clearest thing on the drawing, but maybe you’ll get the idea (the foretop sail is “H” in the drawing):
And finally, here’s an image from Longridge’s book. In this image, imagine you’re standing above the yardarm, looking down. The cleats are facing forward, and the centerline of both mast & yard are between the cleats.
I realized today that I should be Summa Cum Laude in stupidity - in counting up how much thread I would need for the reef lines, I multiplied the total number of reef lines by 20, instead of 40. Why 20, and not 40? Because the reef lines hang 20 mm on each side of the sail, so I needed a total of 40 mm for each reef line; but because I had the 20 mm dimension in my mind, I multiplied by that, instead of the required 40. Oh well.
And one last thing: I saw in Tim R’s blog about his USS Constellation, he made mention that the lift lines were used to help take the weight of the ends of the yardarms. It’s been my understanding that the lift lines were used to actually raise and lower the yardarm against the mast. In days of old, when sailing ships were in port and had furled their sails, they would also lower the yardarm(s) to (I guess) lessen the amount of…stuff…that could catch the wind and move the ship around. But again, that’s just my understanding!
So hope everyone is healthy and whole, and as Gov. Larry Hogan (MD) says, “wear the damn mask!”
Cheers,
Tim