Sorlandet

Norwegian sail training ship, Sorlandet; picture a screen grab from You Tube noted by David Rye.

A bit of a treat today with a link found by our friend and occasional contributor, David Rye.

 

Go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6DZIvMZWzQ&feature=youtu.be

 

This is a video explaining how to sail and manouvre a square rigger. This link is to part 1. The video claims to explain all sorts of manouvres from weighing anchor and getting under way, through tacking, heaving to and finally anchoring under sail but part 1, 11 minutes long manages only to explain the sail plan and get under way. I presume the other parts will cover the rest. It is fascinating stuff mainly for the myriad ropes (sheets, buntlines, braces, halliards etc) and huge amount of people needed to crew the ship. In this case it is the Norwegian sail training ship Sorlandet. Get a look at it, if only for the beauty of the ship and the snippets of info you will be able to drop into conversation if it all goes quiet in the snug tonight. A ‘ship’ for example was a fully square rigged vessel with squaresails on the mizzen, anything less, for example a mere ‘Spanker’ on the mizzen, and you were a ‘barque’. The commentator also sounds worryingly like Rebuild Project Manager, William Collard, to me anyway!

Thanks very much for that, David!