Fisherman's staysail on schooner rig alternative?

[Captstash]

I know thiat this is a very old thread, but it came up on an unrelated search and I had to chime in. The photo of the gorgeous schooner is of a boat named Serena. Originally Amorilla and built by Lawley in 1916, Serena was the queen of the West Coat schooner fleet for many years. In that photo, she was owned by Moran. The sail between the masts is in fact a gollywobbler.


While Alden designed her a an 80 ft. on deck gaff schooner, he designed a new rig for her, which is the one she is shown with. the main mast wa over 100 ft tall. Ken Demuse bought the boat from Moran, and had Kenny Watts, and then Ted Hood build sails for her. When I sailed her in the 70's, she had a Ted Hood main and giant Ted Hood Genoa. The main staysail was loose footed, and she had three gollywobblers of varying sizes, up to the one known a Gargantuan, which was about 4,000 ft2.


She remains the only schooner to go under ten days in the Transpac.


Great boat.

[Don C L]

Originally Posted by Captstash

I know thiat this is a very old thread, but it came up on an unrelated search and I had to chime in. The photo of the gorgeous schooner is of a boat named Serena. Originally Amorilla and built by Lawley in 1916, Serena was the queen of the West Coat schooner fleet for many years. In that photo, she was owned by Moran. The sail between the masts is in fact a gollywobbler.


While Alden designed her a an 80 ft. on deck gaff schooner, he designed a new rig for her, which is the one she is shown with. the main mast wa over 100 ft tall. Ken Demuse bought the boat from Moran, and had Kenny Watts, and then Ted Hood build sails for her. When I sailed her in the 70's, she had a Ted Hood main and giant Ted Hood Genoa. The main staysail was loose footed, and she had three gollywobblers of varying sizes, up to the one known a Gargantuan, which was about 4,000 ft2.


She remains the only schooner to go under ten days in the Transpac.


Great boat.

Welcome aboard Captstash, and thank you for that added information.

[Bowdrie]

Originally Posted by Captstash

Serena was the queen of the West Coat schooner fleet for many years. In that photo, she was owned by Moran. The sail between the masts is in fact a gollywobbler.
While Alden designed her a an 80 ft. on deck gaff schooner, he designed a new rig for her, which is the one she is shown with. the main mast wa over 100 ft tall. Ken Demuse bought the boat from Moran, and had Kenny Watts, and then Ted Hood build sails for her. When I sailed her in the 70's, she had a Ted Hood main and giant Ted Hood Genoa.

Welcome to the forum.
Small world, I too was aboard Serena back when she docked in front of the Rusty Pelican restaurant on the coast highway in Newport Beach.
One good sight was watching ~10 or so guys carry the rolled-up mainsail up the ramp to the parking lot.
You're right, the sail in the pic is a Gollywobbler.
A true "Fisherman staysail" is a much smaller sail that's used to take up some of the open triangle space that's above the "main staysail" between the masts on a Staysail Schooner.
In the days of the Grand Banks fishing schooners, (even though most were gaff foresail boats,) a "Fisherman" and a "Forestaysail", (sometimes reefed,) would often combine to let the boat just barely jog along at a crawl and the "fisherman" being high up would help to dampen the roll.

[Lepke]

There are many terms for the sail. I believe fisherman is used on the east coast.
I sailed on a fishing schooner a long time ago. My father sailed on a 5 or 6 master during the depression.

[Bowdrie]

Originally Posted by Lepke

There are many terms for the sail. I believe fisherman is used on the east coast.

They are NOT the same.
in the article I'll link you can see in the very first pic a gaff schooner with a "Fisherman", and you'll see that it is nowhere near as big as a Gollywobbler.
A Gollywobbler is a huge sail, much bigger than any Fisherman, in comparison a Fisherman is closer to a Topsail in its uses and at what points of the wind it is most effective on.
From the link; "The gollywobbler is the schooner’s version of a spinnaker. It’s a huge staysail, usually bigger than the mainsail and foresail combined, and is set in place of them for downwind running".
https://goodoldboat.com/schooner/

[Don C L]

So would it be correct to say a Gollywobbler is a greatly oversized Fisherman?

[Bowdrie]

Originally Posted by Don C L

So would it be correct to say a Gollywobbler is a greatly oversized Fisherman?

In the context that a 135% Genoa and a #3 Jib are both "Jibs" you could say that.
Although the two sails don't sheet to the same locations nor have their best efficiency at the same points of sail.
Without a doubt the schooner rig in general has been a real playground for designers and sailmakers more than any other rig.
It's been the subject of all kinds of experiments for over 200 years, where designers and sailmakers just keep throwing things against the wall to see what sticks and what doesn't.
I'm a fan, I think that once you get to the size of boat where you want a divided rig a schooner makes more sense than a ketch or yawl.
The more modern rig of a staysail schooner with a Marconi mainsail is really easy to handle.
The rub, common with many divided rigs, is figuring out how to cover the cockpit area with an acre or so of solar panels.

[TrentePieds]

Here is a nice pic (harvested via Ms.Google) of a nice gollywobbler. Not a sail for the faint-hearted or for single-handers :-)

TrentePieds

[AKA-None]

Wow that’s huge