Research Note

Catharpings

John Harland

Catharpings were rigged in various ways. With the Steel method of individual crossunits, I think the eye would have been seized to the futtock stave. With the Röding method, the catharping was a single length of rope, snaking back and forth going round outside the shrouds, and if it was to be adjusted from time to time, may not have been seized at all, or if that was done, the seizings would have to be cut prior to any tightening up process.

Johann H Röding Allgemeines Wörterbuch der Marine (c.1794), shows two different ways of snaking the catharping back and forth from one side to the other, and then getting everything bar taut by frapping the turns one to another. Another method used individual 'Catharping legs'.

Steel Elements of mastmaking Sailmaking and Rigging (1794) describes them thus:

"Catharpin-legs are four in number. The foremost is the shortest, and they increase one inch in length as they go aft. The length of the foremost is from four feet in small ships to eight feet in large. They have an eye spliced in each end for lashing, and are then wormed parcelled and served from eye to eye."

These were seized to the lower shrouds, at the level of the futtock shrouds, so they could not separate, even if the ship were rolling heavily. Iron bars were sometimes substituted for rope. In any case, a major function of the cat-harpings was to support the topmast. Once the futtocks were secured to a necklace on the mast, catharpings fell into disuse. William Brady in The Kedge-Anchor (1852), saying they are seldom used, and considered 'useless lumber aloft'.

The lack of catharpings in Constitution, as rigged today, has been the discussion on this and other lists before.
{John Harland}

Back?