In the Romance languages, the spritsail was known as the "nosebag" (Civadière, etc), since with the ship pitching a bit, it reminded people of a horse plodding along with his nose in an oatbag. [See Mark Myers' sketch on p. 17 of Seamanship in the Age of Sail.]
In light winds, the problem can be overcome by pulling the sheet down as much as possible. Roger Anderson comments on the practice of fitting double spritsail sheet pendant, which were allowed to twist up, and were secured to the clew of the sail with a spritsail-sheet knot. [Rigging of Ships in the Days of the Spritsail Topsail 1660-1720 pp. 222-3]. He doesn't explain the reason for arranging things this way, but my guess is that it helped pull the clews down more than would have been the case with single pendants, and that a weight was incorporated in the spritsail-sheet knot, more or less as sometimes done with the monkey's fist at the end of a heaving-line. (This BTW was discouraged in the Royal Navy, but I can recollect handling a heaving-line so fitted while in the service. Any comment about parallel practice in the US Navy?). Perhaps the sail was rarely set if the winds were really strong, but I have never really thought the matter completely through.
Anyway, it is clear that if the ship were pitching there was the danger that
the sail would tend to ship water. In England, drainage holes were fitted close
to each clew; In France an additional hole was worked in the center just above
the leech. [ J Romme: L'Art de la Voilure (1781) Plate III.] The sail could
be reefed diagonally to function as a sort of under jib. In this case, that
half of the sail set, would be to leeward, and as the vessel heeled to the
wind, the clew would be even closer to the water than when running before the
wind.
{John Harlan}
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