Talk:Jadran (training ship)/Archive 1

Archive 1

double topsails or topsail and topgallant?

There seems to be something odd about the square sails on the foremast, in the photo showing yards crossed. Firstly, the two sails stowed on the yards seem to fit the definition of topsail and topgallant. They do not look like upper and lower topsails. If the yards were on the same mast, then they would fit the description of double topsails. So this does not fit the description in the article. The source is presumably a translation - so there is a risk of nautical terms not being correctly dealt with. Secondly, unless I am misinterpreting my read of the photograph, there is no fore yard to sheet the topsail home to. Has it been sent down for repairs? A photo of the ship with the square sails set would help. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 23:06, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

I should have looked harder before posting - there are plenty of photos of this vessel under sail available on line. So the fore yard has been sent down. I cannot see it on deck anywhere - possibly the ship is being moved a short distance after putting the yard ashore for repairs? [1] provides a useful narrative as well as a photo of a model (though not of a standard for an RS, I suspect). The schooner/barquentine debate is not as simple as stated in the article - too late in the day for detail on that, but the deciding factor in my opinion, is what the owners/operators of any single example describe her as.ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 23:16, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

Yes, sailing ships are not my forte, I am just reflecting what Freivogel says about the sail plan. He has plenty of photos of her from different periods in the book, which I could email to you for examination. There are plenty of reliable sources that call her a schooner though. As I go through other sources I may expand on the note. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 23:58, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

(1) Schooner versus Barquentine:
Maritime terminology is often nothing like as precise as nautical dictionary writers would have you believe. Basil Greenhill, in the author's note to The Merchant Schooners says "Ways of doing things related to small sailing ships and boats varied greatly from port to port.... Even the terminology and the very pronunciation of the technical words used varied." His book about schooners has content about barquentines - just to demonstrate the confusion. However, legislation enacted at the end of the 19th century to police the Master's Certificates issued (in an attempt to ensure that everyone in the deep sea trade was qualified) has three classifications: (a) Ordinary Master - can command any type of ship (b) Master, fore and aft - so obviously including schooners and ketches, etc., but specifically excluding full-rigged ships, barques, brigs, barquentines and steamships carrying square sails. (Note that brigantine is not included in that list, so OK for a fore and aft master to command that type outside the Brest/Elbe limits.) So there must be either a definition of a barquentine in that legislation, or a very well accepted general understanding of the term. (c) (for completeness of this list) Master, steamship.
Jenny Bennett's Sailing Rigs, an Illustrated Guide is an authoritative, well written and concise RS - and has the advantage of being recently written and in print. It has a definition of the difference between a barquentine and a schooner with square rig sails. A barquentine has a "square rigged mast". That is not simply a mast that has square sails on it. It is a mast composed of a lower mast, topmast and topgallant, with a yard on each of those masts setting the sails: course, topsail (or double topsails - see below), and topgallant. If you look at photos of schooners and barquentines in books by Greenhill, David R MacGregor and other authoritative writers, and the drawing in Sailing Ship Rigs and Rigging by Harold Underhill (the definitive authority - cited by all the others), you soon see the difference. It is clearest without any sails set. The foremast of a barquentine has a lower mast that is much shorter than the lower mast of the main and mizzen. This is visible in the illustrations in Barquentine, though the article text does not really explain the difference.
Jadran's foremast has a lower mast that is roughly the same height as the lower mast for the main and mizzen. That means the fore and aft gaff sails set on all three masts are approximately the same height in the hoist (the length of the luff, the front edge of the sail). (Consider how the ship would be sailed with the wind forward of the beam: the largest sail area on the foremast would be the foresail - that is the fore and aft gaff sail set on that mast. In a barquentine, they would probably have the fore course set. This bracketed bit is my interpretation.) But, conversely, Jadran's foremast is in three pieces, lower, topmast and topgallant. We seem to be faced with a matter of interpretation - or to put another way, the limited abilities of recognised authorities to say what they mean. I am in no doubt that Jadran is a schooner, but I am not an RS, even though I once worked as bosun's mate on a schooner with square sails on the foremast, including a fore-course.
I stick to the point made earlier: a vessel is rigged in the way her owners and operators describe her.
The solution might be have article text that states she is a schooner, but a footnote added to say that some may regard her as a barquentine, though her owners and operators do not use that term (presuming this last fact is confirmed by sources).

(2) Double topsails versus topsail and topgallant.
We are on easier ground on this one. With a 3 (or more) piece square rigged mast, sails take their name from the mast on which they are set - lower mast: course, topmast: topsail, topgallant mast: topgallant, etc. With Jadran you can see that the foremast is in 3 pieces. There is one square sail on each of the two upper pieces. So the two visible square sails in the photo are the square topsail and the topgallant. If she had double topsails, the upper topsail yard would rest on top of the lower topsail yard with the sails furled, as the yard is hauled up when the sail is set. Reference for this is David R MacGregor's Square Rigged Sailing Ships, pg 12. Though the other authors of the various RSs in front of me presume this knowledge, it is an inescapable interpretation of what they say, including numerous sail plans in Underhill's books and plans and photographs in others. As mentioned before, Jadran's fore yard seems to have been sent down, presumably for maintenance.
Sorry to ramble on for so long - and this is the short version. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 12:40, 22 May 2021 (UTC)

A picture is probably better than my explanation.

This shows double topsails (and double topgallants as well) The upper topsail yard has been lowered down to just above the lower topsail yard. Both these two yards are on the topmast. The same applies to the topgallant mast/sails.

ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 16:18, 22 May 2021 (UTC)

I've said that she is a topsail schooner but that some sources call her a barquentine. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 10:30, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

Rig section

Section: Sail plan and engines

If the lower square sail is referred to as the foresail, that leaves you with no name for the gaff sail that is set on the foremast. I don't know how the sources deal with this problem, but in usage I have encountered, the square sail in this situation is termed "fore-course" and the gaff sail "fore-sail". (Hyphenation/spelling taken from Underhill.) However, I cannot find an RS that clearly states this usage with the precise rig of this vessel - many who wrote on the subject were well immersed in the details and therefore missed some basic points. It is totally clear, though, that "fore-course" is a well accepted name for a square sail in this position and is an equal alternative for "fore-sail" on vessels where the latter would not be ambiguous. (Underhill, Sailing Ship Rigs and Rigging is very clear on the equivalence of the two names in a square rigged vessel.)

I still persist in the view that the 2 higher square sails are not upper and lower topsails, but a topsail and a topgallant. One simple test is: where is the higher of the two yards when the sails are stowed? Whilst some might argue that you have to follow sources, sailing vessel enthusiasts might feel that this is WP:BLUE. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 08:00, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

I'd argue you have to follow what the reliable source say. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 07:41, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

Agree, but
(1) In the instance of "foresail" for the largest square sail, versus "forecourse", when the only word to describe the gaff sail on the foremast is "foresail": "Foresail" and "forecourse" are interchangeable - we have Underhill as a reference for that, whilst Jenny Bennett appears to use only "forecourse" for the square sail that can be so named (difficult to prove she never uses the other option without reading the whole book again). So that provides RSs on the use of "forecourse". Add to this that a Wikipedia editor should avoid ambiguity. The gaff sail on the foremast is not individually named in the article, but if it were, or if someone adds a sail diagram, things would get very confusing.
(2) The upper and lower topsail point: I think the issue here is that you appear to be using a single source for the naming of these sails in this vessel. It may be that on this training ship, they did use the terminology in that source - in which case one could argue that the usage of the operators of the vessel over-ride broader usage. But I presume it is not clear if this is ship usage or author error. Do you not have any other descriptions of the rig from other sources? I think also this is one of the cases where the knowledge and understanding of the subject by a Wikipedia editor might over-ride something in a source which is incorrect. I can think of instances where the most well thought of sources have an error and it is the role of an editor to swerve round such points. There are plenty of sources to confirm the interpretation of topsail and topgallant.
It is, ultimately, a judgement thing - the only extra things I can throw at this are the requirement to avoid ambiguity and the ability to identify errors in sources based on a general knowledge of the subject. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 08:31, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

Video

@Peacemaker67: The Italian propaganda film appears to be online: https://patrimonio.archivioluce.com/luce-web/detail/IL3000082369/1/come-si-diventa-marinai.html. I'll let you decide how to handle a link. Srnec (talk) 16:20, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll have to look at the copyright licensing as I am not that familiar with how it works with video/film. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 22:06, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Tesla

I have reverted (twice now) the addition of Tesla’s Serb ethnicity and American nationality to this article. The issue if Tesla’s ethnicity is a matter that has involved a lot of POV pushing and edit warring in en WP, and it is inappropriate to introduce that here on an incident of limited importance to this article. He was not by citizenship a Serb, because he was born and lived in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, not Serbia, and emigrated to the US before Yugoslavia came into being. Any further additions will be reported as edit warring and I will seek to have the article protected so IPs cannot edit it. If you have an alternative view, this is the place to discuss it, not via edit summaries. Cheers, Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 00:12, 16 January 2024 (UTC)