I like the cut of those yellow ones.
Just one more sail bro. I swear, we just need one more sail.
Are you fucking kidding me? You’re gonna look me in the eye and tell me the sail flying above the poop deck is called a spanker?
Unfortunately not! The poop deck is an elevated deck, aka a sterncastle; back aft on this one is the quarterdeck.
Question, if I may: in some sailing / pirate works I’ve read, a ship has been said to be making a “spanking pace.”
Any relation with that back sail there?
Interesting! I can’t actually say on that one; to me, “spanking” sounds like an old fashioned intensifier I’ve heard “brand spanking new” a few times, which feels like the same kind of use. As to whether that has anything to do with the sail, I’m not sure. It looks like the sail itself was introduced in the late 18th century; in Seamanship in the Age of Sail, John Harland reports that one William Nicholson complains about the new sail design in a book of his in 1792. That’s the closest I can get to origin of the term.
[off topic]
“Master And Commander” with Russel Crowe is considered one of the best, most accurate depictions of what life was like on a Napoleonic Era sailing ship. It’s a great movie.
A ton of work and attention went into that film to keep it historically accurate, even down to assigning all the extras to watches and figuring out what the watch rotation would be and who would be on duty at any given time.
That is so cool!
And it makes it hurt even more that we didn’t get a couple dozen of these movies.
Hollywood loves to make extra films. The fact that I can’t have a full set of Master and Commander films makes me worry I’m on one of the dark timelines.
“Rum, sodomy, and the lash…”
Definitely one of my favorite albums of all time: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_nqo2SNJP3rvX6HhtfIJ-YYTaRRJAni5C4&playnext=1&index=1#bottom-sheet
I adored that film, although it could have been better with less Maturin.
although it could have been better with a less two-dimensional Maturin.
FTFY
You must admit that in the books Maturin is the most compelling and well-explored personality, and the character POB most closely identifies with (finding based solely on personal assumption, mea culpa).
I would assert that the film, as good as it is, reinforces my thesis that the golden age of sail is the least adaptable to film of any literary genre. The movie is to the books as a description of the Grand Canyon is to the actual experience.
Also they are “studding sails” and referred to colloquially as “stun’sl’s” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studding_sail
So there.
Another great one is “Waterloo.” Back in the day, the Soviets trained thousands of Red Army troops in Napoleonic cavalry tactics. They wanted to compete with Hollywood when they made ‘War And Peace.’ Those same troops helped Hollywood make Waterloo, which has a very accurate reenactment of the battle.
I’ll agree regarding movie Maturin. Though it makes sense for him to be a sleeper character for the first book.
If I recall correctly, we didn’t even get
massive spoiler for the book series
any insights into Maturin’s life as an international secret agent, or the conflict he feels that his best friend is constantly being redirected to do unwitting awesome spy work, but has no idea how important it is.
FYI the red ones are studding sails, often called stu’nsails because sailors love leaving off letters (like how “boatswain” is often called “bosun”). Also, jibs are staysails; staysails are any sail that slides up and down a stay, which are the pieces of standing rigging that support the masts from the front and the back.
