We're no longer trucking

IF YOU READ a lot of books about sailboats you will surely come across mention of a part of the boat called the truck. Quite often it’s in a phase such as: “She is a real sea-going vessel from truck to keel.” This might puzzle you because most sailboats don’t have trucks these days.

There are, in fact several meanings of the word truck. There’s the vehicle, for a start, such as the well-known pick-up truck. There’s also the noun that indicates “dealings with” someone: “That boatyard robbed me blind. I’ll have no truck with them in future.”

But the truck we’re concerned with here is a flat disk of wood fitted horizontally on the extreme upper end of a mast of a sailing ship. On ships with more than one mast, it was found on the tallest mast.

It usually had holes bored down through it for flag signal halyards, or small sheaves instead, if it was a fancy truck. In old navy days men used to man the yards as a salute in honor of a visiting sovereign or high official, or in celebration of a national event. In ships of the line this display was topped off by a man standing on each truck.

If you know how the movement of a ship is exaggerated and quickened at the top of a mast, you’ll understand that this was an onerous duty for the poor soul chosen to man the truck, especially when you consider that the only way he could stand on this lofty perch for hours at a time was by steadying himself with the help of a small iron rod temporarily inserted in a hole between his feet.

There are very few sovereigns who need saluting these days, and probably just as few private yachts  with mast trucks big enough for a person to stand on — but I think that’s something for which we can all be truly grateful.

Today’s Thought

No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get him into a jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail with the chance of being drowned.

— Dr. Samuel Johnson

Tailpiece

“Any sovereigns in your family?”

“No, but I had an uncle who was a Peer.”

“Really? I had an uncle with bladder trouble, too.”

Here's a man on a truck

A FEW DAYS AGO, on March 23, 2014, I wrote a column titled “A lack of sea-going trucks.”

It was a response to a query from a reader who wanted to know what a nautical truck really was. It turned out to be a flat wooden disk atop the mainmast of a sailing ship. I said that when a warship’s yards were manned, as a salute to a visiting Lord High Emperor or someone, a sailor was chosen to stand right on top of the truck. He had to stay there, sometimes for hours, I presume, with only a thin iron rod inserted into a hole between his feet to steady him.

Another reader, Dale Stevens, asked if I had an illustration of this feat, and I was sorry to say that my search of the Internet had revealed nothing, probably because nobody has stood on a mainmast truck since the Internet was invented.

But I was wrong (as usual). A reader in the United Kingdom (Welsh Wales actually, if I’m not mistaken) has put me straight. His first name is Jack and I don’t know his last name but his boat is called Rhyddid, which is Welsh for Liberty, and he has provided a link to a most fascinating video on YouTube. It’s a presentation of young sailors and marines manning a land-based mast in Britain. And lo! this mast has a truck, and an iron rod, and a brave young man standing and saluting right on top of the truck.

I don’t know if the U.S. Navy does stuff like this now, or if they ever did, but it’s certainly fascinating to watch the Brits keeping up their old traditions, including the compulsory tot of rum, which that man richly deserved. 

Here is the link, thanks to Jack. Don’t miss it!

http://youtu.be/iJ6YJd04X6A

Today’s Thought

She comes majestic with her swelling sails,

The gallant Ship; along her watery way,

Homeward she drives before the favouring gales;

Now flirting at their length the streamers play,

And now they ripple with the ruffling breeze.

— Southey, Sonnets

Tailpiece

They say money can’t buy happiness, but I bet it’s more comfortable to cry your eyes out in a 40-foot Hinckley than in a 26-foot McGregor.

A lack of seagoing trucks

SOMEONE WHO signs herself “Persephone” says she was reading a book that described a small boat as “a real sea-going vessel from truck to keel.”  Now she wants to know what the truck is.

“My guess is that it’s the mast cap,” she says, “the bit that the stays are attached to. Can you confirm?”

Well, Persephone, you’re close, but the fact is that most sailboats don’t have a truck these days.

There are, in fact several meanings of the word truck. There’s the vehicle, for a start, such as the well-known pick-up truck. There’s also the noun that indicates “dealings with” someone: “That boatyard robbed me blind. I’ll have no truck with them in future.”

But the truck we’re concerned with here is a flat disk of wood fitted horizontally on the extreme upper end of a mast of a sailing ship. On ships with more than one mast, it was found on the tallest mast.

It usually had holes bored down through it for flag signal halyards, or small sheaves instead, if it was a fancy truck. In old navy days men used to man the yards as a salute in honor of a visiting sovereign or high official, or in celebration of a national event. In ships of the line this display was topped off by a man standing on each truck.

If you know how the movement of a ship is exaggerated and quickened at the top of a mast, you’ll understand that this was an onerous duty for the poor soul chosen to man the truck, especially when you consider that the only way he could stand on this lofty perch for hours at a time was by steadying himself with the help of a small iron rod temporarily inserted in a hole between his feet.

There are very few sovereigns who need saluting these days, and probably just as few private yachts  with mast trucks big enough for a person to stand on — but I think that’s something for which we can all be truly grateful.

Today’s Thought

No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get him into a jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail with the chance of being drowned.

— Dr. Samuel Johnson

 Tailpiece

“Any sovereigns in your family?”

“No, but I had an uncle who was a Peer.”

“Really? I had an uncle with bladder trouble, too.”