Mondfeld's bowsprit measurements

[Don Case]

I'm looking at Mondfeld's "mast proportions"(page 217 in my copy). The bowsprit length is puzzling me and I'm wondering if it's one of the mistakes in this book. The "British Warship 1800" has the length at 1.41 X the beam. The "British merchant ship 1810" has the length at 1 x the beam. This seems strange as I would expect other some spars to have a similar difference and they don't. Add to this, the jib booms on both types of ship are virtually identical. After you figure out the diameters of the sprit and the jib boom, the merchant ships sprit and jib boom are very close to the same diameter (which seems strange) where the warships sprit is twice the diameter of the jib boom. So what I'm wondering is if the merchant ships bowsprit length of 1 x the beam is a misprint? Has anyone else noticed this?

 

[Jwallkc]

I tend to think of Mondfeld as a visual dictionary but not a definitive reference.

 

[Don Case]

I waded through Fincham's "A Treatise on Masting Ships" and could only find the scantlings of two ships with a similar beam (28' 3"). They matched the "warship" measurements within a foot or so. I am sure the "merchant ship" scantling is a misprint. I'll use the "warship" measurements.

 

[fred.hocker]

I can say that Mondfeld's book on Vasa is rife with errors on almost every page, so an error or misprint here would not be a surprise.

 

[Don Case]

That is true but there is a lot of good stuff in there. Just keep it in mind that there may be errors.