The Art of Rigging

Requires a basic knowledge of ship's rigging to be useful; but for the modeller, it is an excellent reference work for specifics of the rigging of various blocks,pendants, etc. it even tells your how to build-up specific types of rigging. Not a good primary reference but is good as additional information.

The book does not go into great detail, but does give an excellent idea of how square-riggers were rigged. It is more of an historical document than it is a descriptive analysis of how such ships were rigged and should be bought on that basis.

This book is brilliant. Highly recommended for anyone interested in the rigging of ships. Perhaps not so useful in the real world today, but full of great information and lots of practical knowledge should you find yourself stranded on a Nineteenth Century bark with no one else who understands rigging. Also beneficial for those who enjoy building ship models. A very excellent volume to have on your home library shelves with which to impress your friends and neighbors, too. Buy it, you won't be disappointed.

When you open the pages of "The Art of Rigging," you step back in time over two hundred years. The language herein is that of mariners of the days of wooden ships. You must learn the language to fully appreciate the treasure that is this book.The author or, more properly, reviser, Captain George Biddlecombe, Royal Navy, died in 1878. This book, first published in 1848 by another author, Charles Wilson, was based on a rigging manual published in 1794. It was again revised and published in 1925.If you are expecting modern terms, word usage, and grammar, forget it! This is the real stuff, exactly as done and recorded by the men of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.If you are expecting an easy read on the order of "Dick & Jane and Their Dog Spot," forget it! This book is hard work, even the pictures can be difficult, but it is a varitable gold mine of information if you're willing to dig.Here is a quotation that I found particularly opaque until I translated it into modern English: "Burton pendants are triced up by the girtlines, and placed over the top-mast-head, that the thimbles may hang on each side, to hook the burton-tackles in."Poetry! I leave it to you to perform your own translation!If you believe that there is no gain without pain, this book is for you. If you want your pablum spoon-fed to you, you'd best be advised to buy a plastic model.(...)