Maui: stuns'l booms

Subject: RE: Maui: stuns'l booms
From: GUEST,EBarnacle
Date: 13 Oct 06 - 11:32 PM

I wrote a chantey entitled "The Loss of the Pride of Baltimore" after seeing the vessels in her group in the "Missing Man" formation during OpSail. If you want it, PM me and I will be happy to comply.

Subject: RE: Maui: stuns'l booms
From: Rowan
Date: 13 Oct 06 - 01:36 AM

Les from Hull wrote; I agree that it's still a great song. And not nearly as inacurrate as that other fine song Eric Bogle's 'The band played waltzing matilda'!

Before Kevin Fewster became director of the Powerhouse Museum he had been the director of the Maritime Museum, latterly the Sydney one and, before that the Adelaide one. So I suspect he'd be able to set us straight on the correct story. In light of Les' comment, Kevin had done his PhD in Australian military history, and as a lecturer (and having edited the Diaries of CEW Bean) used the text of Eric Bogle's song as part of examination papers, asking the students do document the errors of fact.

How the wheel turns.
Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: Maui: stuns'l booms
From: Les from Hull
Date: 12 Oct 06 - 06:42 PM

A gun with a crack in it may be usable, but you would put a smaller charge in it, in case it burst. So the main effect would be reduced range and penetration. I agree that it's still a great song. And not nearly as inacurrate as that other fine song Eric Bogle's 'The band played waltzing matilda'!

Subject: RE: Maui: stuns'l booms
From: GUEST,DonMeixner
Date: 12 Oct 06 - 05:36 PM

I'm with Mick here. I think that the story told in Harris and The Mare is just that. A story. I think William of Orange is a great song and a great message. In time the message may even become acceptable to sing at Irish Fests.

Regards muzzle loaded cannons. I think you will find that it all depends on the direction of the damage. The barrels split along there length. The breaches crack around their circumfrence.

The end result of all this is the guns were damaged in a way that made them unreliable and possibly unaimable.

It is another of Stan's musical short stories that may be poor in history or accurate terminology but still a damn fine story.

Don

Subject: RE: Maui: stuns'l booms
From: Les from Hull
Date: 12 Oct 06 - 05:22 PM

Oh and you don't get more than one truck on a mast - and you don't get that until you get to the very top of the topgallant or royal mast. The bit you are referring to is called the 'cap'. So in the maintop (where the mainmast joins with the main topmast) the mainmast ends in a cap. Of course the mainmast can refer to the bottom bit of the stick in the middle, or to the whole mast, topmast, topgallant mast and royal mast together.

Yes I know I could bore for England on this subject...

Subject: RE: Maui: stuns'l booms
From: Les from Hull
Date: 12 Oct 06 - 05:15 PM

Sorry - mast, topmast, topgallant mast (in that order). Than on a proper big ship there's a royal mast, but you might think that's part of the topmast, because it sometimes doesn't overlap the topgallant mast.

On the larger Elizabethan sailing ships a fourth mast was called the 'bonaventure mizzen'. For most of the sailing ship age three masts were enough - you coundn't build ships long enough to need more than three masts using the techniques of the time. In English four masted barques the mast at the back (there's nautical for you!) was called the jigger. German four and five masted barques had various different names for their masts, but in German of course!

Brunel's Great Eastern had six masts - they were called Monday, Tuesday ... Saturday!

The crojack yard was a yard on the mizzenmast to spread the mizzen topsail. There wasn't a square mizzen sail, of course.

Might I recommmend 'Seamanship in the age of Sail' by John Harland (Conway ISBN 0 85177 179 3). click 'ere

Subject: RE: Maui: stuns'l booms
From: Dead Horse
Date: 12 Oct 06 - 04:22 PM

Pay attention now. I may ask questions later.
Masts on square riggers usually come in three parts.
The big bit, that sticks out of the deck (or floor), a slightly smaller bit is joined to the top of that bit, then another even smaller bit is stuck on top of that bit. OK so far?
The masts have names, and so too do the bits that go to make 'em.
The mast nearest the front (or bow) is called The Foremast. And that too is the name for the first bit of it that sticks up out of the deck. The next bit up on this 'ere "foremast" is called the "fore-top-gallant-mast" or (as we landlubbers wot knows a bit and wish to appear swanky calls it) fore't'gall'nt.
The next bit up from THAT is called the "Fore-top-mast" or fore-top.
Then as ye travel further back along the deck ye will find another bloody great mast. This is called The Mainmast. And guess what? The first bit of that mast also has the same name. The bit above that is called the "main-top-gallant" (main't'gall'nt) and the bit above that is called the Main-top-mast or maintop.
If this boat (ship) has only three masts, the last one is called The Mizzen-mast. Everything already said about the Fore & Main masts also applies to this mast.
If there be more than three masts, ye will have to ask someone who knows their names, cos I sure as hell dont! I believe the word Crojik is mentioned somewhere.......
Anything connected to these various bits, such as sails, lengths of wood, rope etc is also called after these bits i.e. the lump of canvas attached to the fore mast is called the fore-sail (or fore course) the canvas above that is called the fore-top-gallant-sail. If there be TWO sails on the t'gall'nt then they would be called lower and upper t'gall'nt sails accordingly. Same goes for the top bit. If there be any sail above the topsail, it be called a "royal".
Anyway, the whole point of this little lesson is this :-
The bit where the various pieces of mast meet is called a "truck"
So the main truck is the joining up bit where the main mast meets the main-top-gallant mast, see ?
(and by the way, "bits" are something else entirely)

If any of this turns out to be a complete load of bollards, then you didnt hear it from me, right!

Subject: RE: Maui: stuns'l booms
From: GUEST,Paul Blackburn
Date: 11 Oct 06 - 03:48 PM

Wow, two great songs in one morning. I went looking for the chords to My Favorite Spring, and found Don's posting, then searched his posts and this about the Rogers classic.

Nice topics, folks. Thanks for being out there.

Subject: RE: Maui: stuns'l booms
From: GUEST,Pelrad
Date: 15 Sep 06 - 08:12 PM

Mick, Everett Brown wrote an instrumental piece titled "Pride of Baltimore," shortly after she sank. It is on the Wickford Express album 'Fair Winds.'

Also, I found the following paragraph on the Pride of Baltimore II Captain's webpage: http://www.pride2.org/NewPrideSite/Pride2/Logs/1098.html
"Yet another creative connection with the ship was re-established in Marina Del Rey when Baltimore musician Patrick O'Brennan came aboard to provide entertainment during a reception for the Maryland Film Commission. Pat performed in Baltimore when the ship took her leave last December and has written two songs relating to the PRIDE legacy. One is dedicated to the "old boat," and is fittingly entitled "Pride of Baltimore." I was flattered when Pat told me that the other song, entitled "Pride II," was inspired by logs that I wrote last winter during the passage from Panama to Hawaii, which he had followed on the internet."

Subject: RE: Maui: stuns'l booms
From: Big Mick
Date: 15 Sep 06 - 03:29 PM

It's not a message, Charley, its a story. House of Orange has a message, Harris and the Mare is a good yarn.

Mick

Subject: RE: Maui: stuns'l booms
From: Charley Noble
Date: 15 Sep 06 - 02:59 PM

GregB-

More thread drift!

It's more likely that I object to the message in "Harris and The Mare." I don't like to see pacifists get bullied and innocent people brutalized or killed. I much prefer the message in "The House of Orange." But if Stan were still around we'd have a good argument, I'm sure, about my interpretations of both songs. And because he was bigger than me he'd probably win the argument, then feel guilty, and buy me a drink!

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Maui: stuns'l booms
From: Greg B
Date: 15 Sep 06 - 01:00 PM

You just don't like 'Harris' because you can't
do it, Charley! :-)

In fact, hardly anybody can.

But, I once heard Mary Travers sing it, and it was
sublime.

Then again, she's about as good a baritone as Stan was...

Subject: RE: Maui: stuns'l booms
From: Charley Noble
Date: 14 Sep 06 - 05:49 PM

And for the record I'm fond of Jeannie C, White Squall, Lockkeeper, The Bluenose, Make & Break Harbour, Fogerty's Cove, Field Behind the Plow, 45 Years, Mary Ellen Carter ... oh, well!

But I hate "Harris and The Mare."

Stuff that up your stuns'l!

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Maui: stuns'l booms
From: Dave (the ancient mariner)
Date: 14 Sep 06 - 12:52 PM

I'll second that Mike, Stan wrote awesome songs...Northwest Passage is my favourite.

Subject: RE: Maui: stuns'l booms
From: Alaska Mike
Date: 14 Sep 06 - 12:49 PM

Who gives a flying stuns'l boom. They're fun songs to sing even if the terminology is skewed. I wish Stan was around to give us some more.

Mike

Subject: RE: Maui: stuns'l booms
From: Dave (the ancient mariner)
Date: 14 Sep 06 - 12:41 PM

Nice to see some nautical stuff discussed here eh Charley? ;-)

Subject: RE: Maui: stuns'l booms
From: Charley Noble
Date: 14 Sep 06 - 12:40 PM

Dave-

You're right, of course, and some of us are flogging a dead horse.

But I really have found parts of this thread informative, and other parts amusing.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Maui: stuns'l booms
From: Dave (the ancient mariner)
Date: 14 Sep 06 - 12:18 PM

And gun barrels are not cracked, they are split, but this thread is becoming very pedantic. ;-)

Subject: RE: Maui: stuns'l booms
From: Les from Hull
Date: 14 Sep 06 - 12:17 PM

True Dick, and also it's worth pointing out that many sailor songs weren't written by sailors.

Subject: RE: Maui: stuns'l booms
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 14 Sep 06 - 12:12 PM

Just to remind folks that sailors were not always precise in their terminology as are today's wannabees (including myself)

Subject: RE: Maui: stuns'l booms
From: Charley Noble
Date: 14 Sep 06 - 10:54 AM

So there, Dave!

Thanks for the support, thurg!

Hanging on by the reef-tackle fall,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Maui: stuns'l booms
From: GUEST,thurg
Date: 14 Sep 06 - 09:17 AM

In the context of the song - "The Antelope sloop was a sickening sight", etc. - the implication is that the crackED four-pounders were just that - cracked. That's the way Stan R. spelled it on the lyric sheet enclosed in the album (in his own handwriting, no less!).

Subject: RE: Maui: stuns'l booms
From: Dave (the ancient mariner)
Date: 14 Sep 06 - 09:01 AM

The "Crack" four pounders were not cracked Charley. Crack was an old expression for "the best"

Yours, Aye. Dave (who's main truck was not screwed on in Bristol but got wet on on the North Atlantic many times ) ;-)

Subject: RE: Maui: stuns'l booms
From: Charley Noble
Date: 14 Sep 06 - 08:52 AM

Hear, hear, for Eric Ruff of Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, and member of the Yarmouth Shantymen. At least someone in this discussion has his main truck screwed on Bristol fashion!

With regard to gun carriage wheels being referred to as "trucks," I'd like to remind members, and you millions of lurkers as well, that the Antelope sloop was only armed with four-pounders (and those were cracked). It's true that the cannons in question weighed more than four pounds (that's a reference to the approximate weight of their cannon balls) but the entire assembly weighed about 400 pounds, distributed between four trucks. Geeze, some wimp stepped on my toe!

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Maui: stuns'l booms
From: stormalong
Date: 14 Sep 06 - 04:42 AM

Chris Roche is actually the person who told me what stuns'l booms were when I asked him after the Shanty Crew's excellent workshop at Broadstairs Folk Week, but he wasn't so sure about the "sound" issue which is why I aksed it here!

Stan Roger's "main truck" is discussed here (http://www.chebucto.ns.ca/~jacktar/barretts.html):

"Eric Ruff curator of the Yarmouth County Museum once discussed this with Stan Rogers, who at first told him that "main truck" meant gun carriage but later took Eric's advice and decided use to use the explanation that it refers to the very top of the mast."

Gun carriage would be my preferred rationalisation, but then "main" doesn't make much sense so I'd probably want to change the words from "the maintruck" to "a gun truck".

Subject: RE: Maui: stuns'l booms
From: Barry Finn
Date: 14 Sep 06 - 03:18 AM

"Every night his ghost can be seen
Sitting on the main truck all wet & green"

Barry

Subject: RE: Maui: stuns'l booms
From: GUEST,Rowan
Date: 13 Sep 06 - 11:28 PM

Although I'm no expert I've always associated the word "trunnion" with the timber carriage on wheels that carries the cannon, referred to by jeffp as the "cannon truck". But, when dealing with theodolites and other telescope-type surveying instruments, the trunnion is the pair of horizontal 'posts' the theodolite's telescope uses as axles. The equivalent on a cannon would be the pair of horizontal posts (cast with the barrel) mounting the cannon in the timber carriage and used as pivots when sighting/aiming the cannon. I suspect different navies may use different terminology.

Either way, it's more likely to remove one's legs than the truck on any mast.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: Maui: stuns'l booms
From: Lighter
Date: 13 Sep 06 - 11:19 PM

The "main truck" was a delivery truck that brought supplies to ships at sea ("the bounding main"). The "main" is slippery when wet, and if a driver lost control the results could be disastrous.

Subject: RE: Maui: stuns'l booms
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 13 Sep 06 - 11:19 PM

jeffp is right, Charley. Loose cannon and all that!

Subject: RE: Maui: stuns'l booms
From: The Sandman
Date: 13 Sep 06 - 11:01 PM

Chris Roche is needed.

Subject: RE: Maui: stuns'l booms
From: jeffp
Date: 13 Sep 06 - 10:58 PM

I suspect that the main truck in question was a cannon truck (the wooden assembly that supports the cannon barrel).

Subject: RE: Maui: stuns'l booms
From: Charley Noble
Date: 13 Sep 06 - 10:48 PM

"What care we for that sound" may be a rhetorical question from one of the shanty singers, implying that the sound of the stuns'ls breaking away is not in the proper pitch. As a matter of fact at this point the entire ship's rigging should be retuned! It boggles my mind how they managed to get any serious singing done aboard ship.

Stan Rogers freely admited that when it came to nautical terminology he was very much at sea. In "Barret's Privateer" there's that curious line where "the main truck took off both me legs; it's hard to imagine how a little knob on the top of the mast could do that but what the hell, haul away, me bully boys!

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Maui: stuns'l booms
From: Lighter
Date: 13 Sep 06 - 07:08 PM

Well, since this is folk music, you can sing "booms," which is normal and understandable, or you can sing "bones," which is...different.

Subject: RE: Maui: stuns'l booms
From: GUEST,thurg
Date: 13 Sep 06 - 06:13 PM

Okay, I learned the song from a Stan Rogers recording, and I heard him say "bones" rather than "booms" - have we established that the term in question is defintely "booms" (and that Stan presumably got it wrong or had a moment of mispronunciation)?

(I'm merely an armchair sailor, and even in my armchair I usually don't venture more than a few feet from the living-room walls, even though I know it's far safer out in the middle of the floor, especially in stormy weather).

Subject: RE: Maui: stuns'l booms
From: Rumncoke
Date: 13 Sep 06 - 05:59 PM

Duh - I am enlightened!!

I was thinking of the sails and the yards they are bent onto - the higher ones could be set by lines running down to the yard below, but stuns'ls are carried outboard, so the lowest one would require a spar extended - that is 'rigged out', in order to hold the line from the lower outer corner of the stuns'l and spread it correctly.

A line from the outer corner of a stuns'l would be at the wrong angle if taken directly to the deck, and as a spar holding out the lower edge of a sail is a boom, that is what the spar would be called.

Thank you Lighter, for the definition.

Anne

Subject: RE: Maui: stuns'l booms
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 13 Sep 06 - 05:57 PM

Darcy Lever, 1819 (further editions to 1863), "The Young Sea Officer's Sheet Anchor or a Key to the Leading of Rigging...," goes in detail into the subject of studding sails and studding sail booms.
The illustrations, directions for use and instructions on when and how to set them and take them down, are quite detailed.

This wonderful book (the second edition, which was expanded for both the Royal Navy and for the East India Company) has been carefully reprinted by Dover. Very educational for a landlubber like me.

Subject: RE: Maui: stuns'l booms
From: Lighter
Date: 13 Sep 06 - 04:10 PM

My interpretation of the lines has always been the same as that given by Charley Noble and thurg. The song is very much in the Romantic style, with psychological realism and practical seamanship taking the back seat.

"We're not worried about that sound 'cause it shows just how fast we're going home."

Rumncoke's interpretation of "boom" as limited to fore-and-aft sails may be correct in current usage, but here's what Admiral Smyth had to say in "The Sailor's Word-Book" in the 1860's:

"Studding-Sail Boom. A spar rigged out for the purpose of setting a studding-sail, and taking its name from the sail it belongs to."

Subject: RE: Maui: stuns'l booms
From: GUEST,thurg
Date: 13 Sep 06 - 03:33 PM

I take "what care we ... " etc. to mean "we don't give a damn"; i.e., "we couldn't care less ... " (or, we could care less, however you prefer the expression; don't want to open up that can of worms). In other words, it ain't going to slow down or worry a tough and able bunch like us (cf. Charley Noble, above).

Subject: RE: Maui: stuns'l booms
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Sep 06 - 02:59 PM

another way of looking at it. As a rhetorical question
Our stuns'l booms are carried away,
what care we for that sound?? (answer we don't care to hear it)(my grandad used to say I don't care for this or that meaning he didn't like it)

Just a thought?

Because no one would want any part of their rigging torn away as it would possibly lead to them not getting home.

Subject: RE: Maui: stuns'l booms
From: Barry Finn
Date: 13 Sep 06 - 02:21 PM

Funny Bones, Mick?
Barry

Subject: RE: Maui: stuns'l booms
From: Charley Noble
Date: 13 Sep 06 - 02:15 PM

Les-

Thanks for the image of the Pride of Baltimore II, and it is indeed rigged as a tops'l schooner, square sails above the fore an' aft ones.

The jib bone's connected to the fores'l bone,
The mains'l bone's connected to the tops'l bone;
The spanker bone's connected to the crojack bone;
Let's all drink in praise of the Lord!

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Maui: stuns'l booms
From: Big Mick
Date: 13 Sep 06 - 12:23 PM

Until this thread, I had never heard bones. Funny.

Subject: RE: Maui: stuns'l booms
From: DonMeixner
Date: 13 Sep 06 - 12:22 PM

Charlie,

I've only ever heard them in the song called "Bones". But I've only heard two or three recorded versions of it. I wonder if they are "Whaler" slang specifically.

And I imagine I'd not care for the sound of rigging being torn away no matter how it was stated in a song.

Don

Subject: RE: Maui: stuns'l booms
From: Anglo
Date: 13 Sep 06 - 11:58 AM

John Paul Jones also used stunsail booms, apparently. From one version of "The Stately Southerner":

"Out booms, out booms", our skipper cried, "Out booms and give her sheet,"
For the swiftest keel that ever was lauched in all of the British fleet
Came bearing down upon us, with the white foam at her bow,
"Out booms, out booms, and give her sheet, spare not your canvas now."

Subject: RE: Maui: stuns'l booms
From: Big Mick
Date: 13 Sep 06 - 11:19 AM

Are there any songs written about the Pride of Baltimore, and its sinking?

Mick

Subject: RE: Maui: stuns'l booms
From: Les from Hull
Date: 13 Sep 06 - 11:11 AM

Charley Noble it's Pride II

In all my references (including the very comprehensive 'Seamanship in the Age of Sail' by John Harland) they are called booms. A boom is usually something for holding something else out or for fending something else off.

Subject: RE: Maui: stuns'l booms
From: Rumncoke
Date: 13 Sep 06 - 09:29 AM

There isn't any confusion over booms and yards - not on my watch.

A boom is found on the bottom of a fore and aft sail, where fitted.

A yard is found on the top of a square sail. (OK it is actually trapezoid but is is called square)

There are other types of spar which support sails - sprits for instance. I have never known a sailor to get them confused.

In the photo from Bill you can see stuns'l yards with rings, and also part of a stays'l.

Sigh.

Here's me with a dose of Sea Fever again.

Subject: RE: Maui: stuns'l booms
From: Charley Noble
Date: 13 Sep 06 - 08:06 AM

Rev-

I usually cringe when I hear someone sing "stuns'l bones." I haven't found a trace of evidence to support that "bones" was sailor slang for "spars." Good guess but no grog for you!

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Maui: stuns'l booms
From: GUEST,Rev
Date: 13 Sep 06 - 02:13 AM

I have sometimes heard and/or seen the line as "Our stuns'l bones are carried away," "bones" being a sailors' slang term for any spars. That avoids the confusion over booms vs. yards, etc...

Subject: RE: Maui: stuns'l booms
From: Charley Noble
Date: 12 Sep 06 - 07:58 PM

Bill-

Nice stuns'ls!

Is this a tops'l schooner or something bigger?

Cheerily,
Charley Noble