Small Boat Forum: Re: Egret's sailing behavior... by Dennis Bradley

Regarding Egret's heel, I dont regard her as tender at all but then, I dont have an inclinometer either. Human ballast does make a sensible difference. Then again, to me, 30 degress doesnt seem like much tho she doesnt hit this often due to other factors. First her spars are short--about 25 feet. And, tho her bottom is less than 5' midships and she has no forward overhang, her stern does, so as she heels, she combines her significant flare (flair too) with another 3 or more feet of length. She heels easily as when boarding and firms up quick. Have never had a knock down yet but conditions havent been favorable (?) for one when I've been out. 3rd, a gaff rig has CE lower than a bermudan (I think) tho the sails are generally larger for the same size mast. So much for my technical knowledge. Does anyone have real numbers?

Regarding gammon lashings. I'm no expert but.... Look at pictures of old wooden square riggers with the bowsprit angled up at 30 degrees and more. just above the figurehead and forward of the stem you can usually see a heavy lashing around the sprit and thru a hole in the heavy timbers supporting the figurehead. This is the gammon lashing. A vertical dolphin striker was usually rigged at the end of the sprit like a spreader to support the jib boom that extended past the sprit but the gammon lashing did most of the heavy work holding the sprit against the pull of the topmast stays. For some reason, no doubt based on experience, they had no bob stay like one usually sees nowasays.

To this day, many european boats use a 'gammon iron' to do the same thing on their movable sprits. Its just an iron ring bolted to one side of the stemthru which the sprit can be slid in and out. A tackle bob-stay--led back to the deck-- is usually rigged from the outer sprit-end down to an eye-bolt at the waterline, in order to set up the forestay.

On our Egret, Fred made a heavy stainless steel strap thru-bolted half way up the stem to hook to the trailer. For our 'gammon lashing' I simply tie a 3/8" line from this strap and up around both sides of our A-frame bowsprit.