Comments on Eliav's ‘Folding and Unfolding of Early Modern Galley Masts’

Abstract

In a recent article in The Mariner’s Mirror Joseph Eliav described the arrangements in use in early modern Mediterranean galleys to raise and lower their sailing rigs. These masts were heavy, weighing around 1.8 tonnes, thus the manoeuvre of raising and lowering the masts required that the ship’s structure was adapted to it and that the crew had an established procedure to handle the masts with safety and efficiency, both at harbour and at sea.1 The first part of the article describes the geometry of the structural arrangement based on historical accounts and early seventeenthcentury texts. These are used to support the proposed reconstruction of the mast partner arrangement.2 The article goes further and, in its second part, hypothesizes about the mechanics of the process of raising and lowering the masts. The article acknowledges the lack of primary data describing the process in detail. To solve this difficulty, the article proposes a hypothetical description of the process based on a simple physical analysis of the geometry and forces involved, and ‘engineering common sense’.3 This note seeks to identify some weak aspects of