The Boats That Built Britain - The Reaper - Part 1 

Thankfully, stocks in many places are starting to recover, but much of the world still has problems with overfishing.

Rich industrialists are taking everything.

Apparently they are !

All for you !

How good is this

That’s a lot to get in - in 30mins - but understand the wider geo political points you make.

Less than a day sailing.

To be out of step with most of the world?

The IALA buoyage system is different in the Americas, opposite to that in Europe.

This is a dipping lug. That means you drop the sail and transfer it to the lee (downwind) side of the mast every time you tack. You don't get them on leisure craft but they were very practical on fishing craft. They would sail a long way out to the fishing grounds on one tack, lower sail to work their nets, then hoist the sail on the other side to come back on one tack. It's a very efficient rig: efficient aerodynamically, but also efficient in using the minimum of expensive materials to achieve its purpose. On balanced and standing lugs, the sail stays on the same side of the mast all the time. There is a very small difference in efficiency on one tack from the other. For a cruising dinghy, the simplicity and easily stowable spars are more important than an extra 5% performance in certain circumstances. Once the boat's going at hull speed, any additional power is wasted. People who have not used lug sails tend to criticise their faults. People who have used them love them. (My own boat has a balanced lug rig.)

@Peter Braden The rig is called a dipping lug sail. To come about the sail is lowered half-way, or all the way, until the "yard" (or sprit some call it) can be dipped (forward part of the yard is canted downward) until the yard can clear the mast. Then the yard is put on the opposite side and raised. (Takes more time to write it than do it). DD

@@desultorydilletante4120 Lol, I think you just capsized with all hands lost, a tragic newpaper story for Tom to meditate on. What you describe might work for the mizzen, where the tack seems to be at the foot of the mast, but the mainsail tack is on the bow, and you've just created an enormous knot of ropes and sails, and the force 8 is blowing the boat backwards. I assume the tack of the main must either be on a traveller, loosed free after the gaff is dipped, hauled aft to the mast, transferred to the other side of the mast and hauled forward. Maybe they just had a couple of men hanging on for dear life after the tack was freed and man-handled it round the mast, but no joke in in a force 8 with seas breaking over the bow and that huge sail trying to take you over the side. Hard to see the detailed rigging in the film, so not sure of the exact arrangement, but Tom mentioned that there was a man controlling the tack when the sail went up, and whatever he was hanging on to must be part of the how-to-tack procedure.

You lower the sail and unhook the strop from the traveller. (The traveller is the metal ring that you can see the sail hanging from.) The traveller is attached to the halyard. You disconnect the tack from the bow. You manhandle the yard and sail to the new lee side of the mast. You reattach the tack. (you can see at 8:02 that there are attachment points each side of the stem post.) You hook the strop back onto the traveller, and you hoist the sail on the new side of the mast. The downfall of the halyard is now on the weather side and has a secondary purpose as a stay. It sounds like a lot of fuss but a fishing vessel only tacks rarely. Out to the fishing ground on one tack, back home on the other. On smaller vessels it is possible to pull the sail around the front of the mast. @PeterBraden it is always a yard on a lugsail; it runs along the top edge (head) of the sail and crosses the mast. A sprit goes diagonally across the face of the sail, like on a London sailing barge or on an Optimist dinghy.

@@mikefule330 Makes sense. It does make me think how very dangerous a crash gybe would be - well, it is in any large sailing vessel, but here you would definitely be in a lot of trouble. Not a likely thing to happen, I suppose they would never drift the nets whilst on a run, which would perhaps be one unlikely reason for an out-of-control change of course if the nets snagged something. And if not using the nets, then it would take a lot of inattention to get caught out I guess. Still, pretty dangerous boat in high winds with any mishandling. Everything is so big and powerful.

@@thisnicklldo A gybe is no big problem for a lug rig since when heading downwind a perfectly-setting sail is not so necessary. With nets in the water, the vessel is either 'hove-to', creeping slowly to windward, or drifting with the nets and without sail. Hence we have the generic term 'Herring Drifters' for all Fifies, Scaffies and Zulus. The 'Zulu' was the supreme development - a cross between the other two with a straight stem for steady steering and the cutaway stern for rapid manoeuvres and kindly sea-keeping. I had one which I renamed 'Silver Darling' when I lived in Kirkcudbrightshire.

Indeed. I'm sure they didn't benefit whatsoever from being part of the largest empire the world had ever seen.

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@@BoatYardBuilds One has to remember to assume that and word the comment accordingly :)

Fascinating! Could we get back o the boats now?

You wish!

We already buy Scottish Kippers and Scottish smoked mackerel in Australia, so make sure we get ours first.

With a suitable tariff applied?

Nah you'll be making all that money from oil😂😂😂

I think if a Labour government comes in and scraps first past the post, the main points in favor of independence will start to fade, especially with momentum building for Britain to rejoin the EU.

Strange you say that seeing as this series was commissioned and shown by the BBC

And you would still watch it.

Do you blokes never take a day off? It's a wonderful video about boats and fishing. That's it, enjoy it for what it is. Besides, so what if it were presented by someone young, black, Muslim or gay? So you are saying there's never been a young, black, gay or Muslim sailor? In the entire history of sailing around the world? Really? I'm pretty sure there's a common bond between anyone who goes to sea to make a living. The north sea may be vastly different from warmer climates...but if you took a fisherman from another part of the world, and sat them down with a Scottish herring fisherman, they would have more in common than differences.