The Seaman's Friend / Containing a treatise on practical seamanship, with plates, a dictionary of sea terms, customs and usages of the merchant service

by Richard Henry Dana

To unbend a Course.—Haul it up, cast off the robands, and make the buntlines fast round the sail. Ease the earings off together, and lower away by the buntlines and clew-garnets. At sea, the lee earing is cast off first, rousing in the lee body of the sail, and securing it by the earing to the buntlines.

To unbend a Topsail.—Clew it up, cast off the robands, secure the buntlines round the sail, unhook the sheets, and unreeve the clewlines and reef-tackles; ease off the earings, and lower by the buntlines.

A top gallant sail is unbent in the same manner, and sent down by the buntlines. A royal is usually sent down with the yard.

To unbend a Jib.—Haul it down, cast off the hank seizings and the tack-lashing, cast off and unreeve the downhaul and make it fast round the sail, and cast off the sheet-pennant lashings. Haul aboard by the downhaul, hoisting clear by the halyards.

The rules above given are for a vessel in port, with squared yards. If you are at sea and it is blowing fresh, and the topsail or course is reefed, to send it down, you must cast off a few robands and reef-points, and pass good stops around the sail; then secure the buntlines also around it, and cast off all the robands, reef-points and reef-earings. Bend a line to the lee head-earing and let it go, haul the sail well up to windward, and make fast the lee earing to the buntlines. Get a hauling line to the deck, forward; ease off the weather earing, and lower away.

To bend a new topsail in a gale of wind, it has been found convenient to make the sail up with the reef-bands together, the points all being out fair, to pass several good stops round the sail, and send up as before. This will present less surface to the wind. One course may be sent up as the other goes down, by unbending the buntlines from the foot of the old sail, passing them down between the head of the sail and the yard, bending them to the foot of the new sail, and making the new sail up to be sent aloft by them, as before directed. Run the new sail up to the yard abaft the old one, and send the old one down by the leechlines and the head-earings, bent to the topmast studdingsail halyards, or some other convenient rope.

One topsail may be sent up by the topsail halyards, got ready for bending, and brought to the yard, while the old one is sent down by the buntlines.

[Illustration: PLATE V.]

CHAPTER VII.