Rigging anchors and catheads

I simplified the full set of commands that Jean Boudriot includes in one of his four volume set, under "Gunnery - The Crew at Work". pp 123 - 32. My addition here is that he identified gun crews on his 84 gun ship as: 36-pounder - 14 men, 18-pounder - 9 men, 8-pounder - 5 men, all not including the powder monkey and those boys carrying up additional shot. Lots of moving around! PT-2
I wonder that they didn’t trip over all those coils of ropes.
 
I wonder that they didn’t trip over all those coils of ropes.
Good question. It takes time to coil a line which was not available in the fast commanded pace of firing commands where a good crew could get a 32-pounder shot off about every 90 seconds. Depending upon the captain, spit and polish with only admiralty allowed powder and shot stores (very limited) or what the captain may provide from out of his own pocket for more actual firing and not just dry run-throughs, frequent evolutions coordinated who went where in the firing sequence and where lines and accessories were laid down to be picked up as needed. Coiled lines are for display only, not actual battle use. All of which is from the research of my younger brother who has a large library of resources for his own writing and includes Jean B. PT-2
 
Hi WarrLight, you keep asking the next question for me as I progress with my build. I am following your example with my cannon rigging, many thanks. George
 
I’m trying to find out how to rig the cat heads on the bluenose my kit cam with white metal cats heads. The instruction don’t show how they are mounted or rigged. Any help will be very much appreciated.
 
From what I have seen and heard the cable of the cat head was almost always run thru a triple shelve block or double if small anchor. They were used to raise and secure the anchor after the hawser ropes were removed when anchor was raised. Like in one photo Jimsky showed after it was raised the anchors were secured to ship with other lines and not left hanging from cats head
 
I’m trying to find out how to rig the cat heads on the bluenose my kit cam with white metal cats heads. The instruction don’t show how they are mounted or rigged. Any help will be very much appreciated.
From what I have seen and heard the cable of the cat head was almost always run thru a triple shelve block or double if small anchor. They were used to raise and secure the anchor after the hawser ropes were removed when anchor was raised. Like in one photo Jimsky showed after it was raised the anchors were secured to ship with other lines and not left hanging from cats head
On a schooner it is ‘slightly different’:

These 2 pages from “The American Fishing Schooners” from Howard Chapelle gave me a lot of information about the davits, cathead and rigging of the anchors:
IMG_3658.jpeg
In this post in my build-log I explained some more about the 2 different anchors and there rigging:
—> Fishing and Harbor anchor <— (Click)
Regards, Peter
 
Last edited:
Back
Top