Day 556.

The top masts were dropped in place and secured with their iron fids.  I did not glue the top masts in place – they were left loose as the rigging should hold them in place.

The two top masts (fore and main) have a very similar set of lines that hold them in the place.  They are rigged almost identically, the only difference being where they start their run.  On the main mast, they are called top mast shrouds, while on the fore mast they are called spreader lifts.

Main Top Mast Shrouds

The main top mast shrouds are a set of two lines on each side of the main top mast that run from the top of the mast down to the eyebolts on the spreaders.

They are looped around the top mast and seized, and an eye splice is made in the other end.  A lanyard is used to secure that eye splice to the eyebolts on the spreaders.

These shrouds were made with 0.018″ black rigging line.  The lanyards were made with 0.008″ tan line.

The main top mast shrouds loop around the top mast, above the band, and are seized together.

The main top mast shrouds run down to the spreaders on the trestle tree, and are secured to the eyebolts using lanyards.

Spreader Lifts

The spreader lifts on the fore mast are nearly identical.  The difference is that instead of starting at the top of the mast, they run from a band the sits just a short way up the top mast.

Like the top mast shrouds, these are looped and spliced onto the band, then run down to spreader where an eye splice is used with a lanyard to secure the line.

The spreader lifts are lighter weight than the shrouds, so these were made from 0.008″ black rigging line.  The lanyards were still made with 0.008″ tan line.

The fore mast’s spreader lifts are similar.  They start at a band, and run down to the eyebolts on the spreaders.

All of these lines exist on both the port and starboard side, so there is a total of 8 lines.