# Dandy vs ketch rigged smack



## Bredo (May 16, 2017)

Hi! Does anyone know of any illustration of the difference between a dandy and a ketch rigged fishing smack?


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## Barrie Youde (May 29, 2006)

Se the Oxford Companion to ships and the sea.

Apparently dandy-rig applies when the mizzen is set on a bumpkin, outboard of the transom.

As a ketch is defined as having the mizzen forward of the rudder-head, it would probably be rare to see a dandy-rigged ketch. But I own a small dandy-rigged yawl (a Drascombe Dabber). Such a rig is commonplace, particularly in the West-Country.

Hope this helps.


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## Bredo (May 16, 2017)

Thanks. My great grandfather bought a fishing smack from Grimsby in 1895, and in the bill of sale it is stated that the type was dandy.


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## Rogerfrench (Feb 25, 2010)

Isn't Dandy by definition a yawl? Not wanting a semantic debate....


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## Barrie Youde (May 29, 2006)

Must be - I reckon!


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## stein (Nov 4, 2006)

Edgar J. March: "Sailing Trawlers" page 61: "The "Dandy rig had been used by Manx fishermen since the early 1830's when they saw the advantage a mizzen gave to the Cornish lugger when lying to their train of fishing nets. They thereby converted their cutters by fitting a jigger mast well aft and setting a small standing lug. (...) The name Dandy was still given by fishermen to the big ketch-rigged vessels built in the late sixties to fish with a longer beam of 46 to 50 ft, and to compete with them many of the cutters were hauled ashore, cut in two at the maximum beam, the stern half drawn away with tackles and an additional section built in. This lengthened the hull by as much as 15 ft. and these converted vessels, ketch rigged, often proved faster than in their original build as cutters." Page 112: "The Dandy was really an elongated cutter with an additional mast stepped before the rudder." There is one photograph facing page 48, captioned "Dandy R. 430 at Ramsgate", this shows a ketch rigged vessel with a tiny mizzen, obviously too small to belong to a vessel built as a ketch. And that sail seems to be partly ahead of the mast, and so must be a lug sail. Besides, it would not be natural to lace such a small sail to the mast.

An old drawing: https://www.agefotostock.com/age/en/Stock-Images/Royalty-Free/WR2474059 If I understand March correctly (I have nothing more than his words as quoted here to go on), the nearest one here should qualify as a "Dandy": https://www.imuseum.im/search/archi...ury=&period=&name=&language=&display=&pos=198 But even with an ordinary gaff mainsail with mast hoops, it may still be properly termed a lugger?


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## Dartskipper (Jan 16, 2015)

Barrie Youde said:


> Se the Oxford Companion to ships and the sea.
> 
> Apparently dandy-rig applies when the mizzen is set on a bumpkin, outboard of the transom.
> 
> ...


I saw the prototype Dabber built when I worked briefly for Honnor Marine one winter. After exhibiting at the London Boatshow, I think the hull was used as the "plug" to make the moulds for GRP production. Lovely hulls with oiled teak timbers on all the Drascombes.


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## Barrie Youde (May 29, 2006)

#7 

Thank you Roy.

I've owned a Drascombe for more than forty years and have had much fun. Part of the best was in converting the main rig from standing lug to bermuda. This was done when our children were small, as I wished to avoid, as far as possible, knocking their brains out when lowering the mainsail.

The boat was in Finland at the time. How was it done? We needed a new mast, taller by about six feet or more. So we went into the forest and cut down a tree, left it to season for three years - and the job was done! The mainsail needed to be re-cut, slicing a small triangle out of the luff. But it has worked a treat!


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## Dartskipper (Jan 16, 2015)

Barrie Youde said:


> #7
> 
> Thank you Roy.
> 
> ...


They were very successful design Barrie, and still in production today I think. Originally built in Totnes, and at the old Morgan Giles yard in Teignmouth, there were many to be seen around South Devon. The provision of a mounting inboard of the transom for an outboard auxiliary engine was a touch of genius by Mr. Watson. I think your re -rig of the original design won't have altered the character in any way. A seamanlike solution to a practical problem!

Regards.


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## Barrie Youde (May 29, 2006)

Thank you Roy!

Originally I had a Drascombe Lugger, which was gunter-rig. After about five years for various reasons I down-sized to my present and much-loved Dabber, later towing her overland to my wife's family home in Finland.

You're quite right about the inboard/outboard - but I'm delighted to say that I've sailed the Dabber without any engine each summer for the last fifteen years or so. It is pure magic!


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## Barrie Youde (May 29, 2006)

The Drascombe Sailor

He sails an open lugger, as did Raleigh, long ago,
Having learned his knots and splices, as a boy on Plymouth Hoe.
He knows his ship as well as any mariner should know.
Captain, art tha sleepin’, thar below?

And, just as Raleigh grew to know his trade in Plymouth Sound,
The Master knows his way about, and knows his ship’s well found:
He knows each creek and anchorage and nature of the ground.
Captain, art tha sleepin’, thar below?

His vessel is a Drascombe with a handy, working rig.
He needs no flashy schooner nor some large, unwieldy brig.
His lug-sail yawl fulfils his all; her qualities are big:
Captain, art tha sleepin’, thar below?

He loves the way his little boat will fly when on the reach,
And how her shallow bottom will run gently up the beach,
And how she’ll let his children learn as much as he can teach:
Captain, art tha sleepin’, thar below?

He loves the way she drives to windward, when the wind is right,
With half a breeze, a single reef, the rigging singing-tight,
In sparkling sunshine this is any sailor’s pure delight:
Captain, art tha sleepin’, thar below?

No finer little vessel was delivered from the stocks,
She is utterly forgiving, short of driving up the rocks,
She is honest, kind and gentle; she is not amused by shocks:
Drascombe, art tha leakin’, thar below?

Now, Drascombe boats have sailed the world, on all the major seas,
From above the Arctic Circle to the Great Antipodes,
Where other boats would bring their crews to praying on their knees:
Captain, art tha snorin’, thar below?

The Drascombe has the merits of the new and of the old,
The working sailor’s rigging in a self-maintaining mould.
What joy would she create, for Drake or Raleigh to behold?
Captain, art tha dreamin’, thar below?

BY
2002


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## Dartskipper (Jan 16, 2015)

Brilliant, Barrie.

I wonder if a marketing department somewhere may be giving you a call?????


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## Barrie Youde (May 29, 2006)

Thank you Roy!

I did send it to Hoonor Marine when I wrote it in 2002 - but I think that by then they had gone out of business. I might be wrong. In any event, it was Honnor Marine who built my Dabber in 1974. She has the sail Number 134.


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## Barrie Youde (May 29, 2006)

I've just remembered that the Lugger which I had (1976 -1980) bore the insignia "H" followed by some numbers, prominently on her bow. I bought her from an owner in Norfolk - and never did ask him whether the insignia meant that she was registered as a Hull fishing boat. (It would have seemed such a daft question at the time.)

She was named Reedwarbler - and I last saw her on the hard in Kinsale in about 1994. I would love to hear any further news of her, if anybody might know?


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## Bill Morrison (May 25, 2013)

Posts #1 & #6 . Sailing Drifters by Edger J. March. Discribes the development of sail plans from small to large fishing vessels over the last two centuries. The photos and scale drawings if you are a model maker would be a must.


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## Dartskipper (Jan 16, 2015)

Barrie Youde said:


> Thank you Roy!
> 
> I did send it to Hoonor Marine when I wrote it in 2002 - but I think that by then they had gone out of business. I might be wrong. In any event, it was Honnor Marine who built my Dabber in 1974. She has the sail Number 134.


Honnor Marine finished in 1997. The boats are now built in GRP by a company in Hampshire, Churchouse Boats. They trade under the Drascombe name. Might be worth forwarding your poem to them!

https://www.drascombe.co.uk/


Dabbers went into production at Totnes with the lugger. The longboats, both the open and cabin versions were built at the Teignmouth factory.

Full history of the Drascombe fleet on Wiki;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drascombe

Regards.


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## stein (Nov 4, 2006)

Bill Morrison said:


> Posts #1 & [URL=https://www.shipsnostalgia.com/usertag.php?do=list&action=hash&hash=6]#6 [/URL] . Sailing Drifters by Edger J. March. Discribes the development of sail plans from small to large fishing vessels over the last two centuries. The photos and scale drawings if you are a model maker would be a must.


I wil take your word for it, and have therefore ordered a copy described as near mint from Amazon. A tad expensive it was, more than £40, but it will nearly complete my collection. I already posess "Sailing Trawlers", "Inshore Craft of Britain: In the Days of Sail and Oar", comprising 2 volumes, and "Spritsail Barges Of Thames And Medway". When i get my Drifters I believe I will only be without "British Destroyers", and being something of a pacifist I can do without that.

Apart from the "Trawlers" quoted in #6 , there is nothing on the "Dandy" in the Edgar J. March books I have aquired so far - but they are indeed excellent books.


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## Barrie Youde (May 29, 2006)

#16 

Very many thanks Roy!

Fascinating. Once upon a time I contemplated the Longboat Cruiser, but it wasn't to be. Far too late, now!

Repeated thanks.


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## Robert Hilton (Feb 13, 2011)

Well done Barrie. You should definitely send it to Honnor Marine, though many lack the vision to avail themselves of such works. I sent my poem "Oggy" to a chain of pasty shops and received little response. It could have gone on the back of a menu to occupy waiting customers during a rush.


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## Barrie Youde (May 29, 2006)

Many thanks, Robert.

I might just try again, to those who have taken over from Honnor Marine.

Best wishes,

BY


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## alaric (Feb 27, 2012)

#11 
Wonderful Barry.
Thank you from a Rutland (_Drascombe design by Honnor Marine_) Lugger builder and sailor.


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## Barrie Youde (May 29, 2006)

My pleasure, Alaric.

Will PM you.


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## Bill Morrison (May 25, 2013)

stein said:


> I wil take your word for it, and have therefore ordered a copy described as near mint from Amazon. A tad expensive it was, more than £40, but it will nearly complete my collection. I already posess "Sailing Trawlers", "Inshore Craft of Britain: In the Days of Sail and Oar", comprising 2 volumes, and "Spritsail Barges Of Thames And Medway". When i get my Drifters I believe I will only be without "British Destroyers", and being something of a pacifist I can do without that.
> 
> Apart from the "Trawlers" quoted in #6 , there is nothing on the "Dandy" in the Edgar J. March books I have aquired so far - but they are indeed excellent books.


Well Stein I only paid £12.00 for my copy on ebay a few years back.
I think you will find it worth the present cost. Attached a preview on dandy rig.


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## alaric (Feb 27, 2012)

Many of the contributors to this thread also took part in the related thread on "heaving to", started in this forum back in May 2015. All interesting reading.


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## stein (Nov 4, 2006)

Today my copy of "Sailing drifters" arrived, and I can now say that I have read all that Edgar J. March had to say on the subject of "dandy rig." And regrettably it has become obvious there existed no powerful athority deciding upon the sole craft upon which that label could be used. It would seem that a lengthened smack, with a standing lug sheeting to a bumkin added, would be the type one could with the most assurance call a dandy; but at times even ketches built as ketches, and former one-masted vessel with mizzen sails added that were both comparatively large and gaff rigged, were at one time in certain places given the designation "dandy."
The book "Sailing Drifters" btw., is excellent as regards content, but my 1973 edition is only glued - that is not bound - and so, with such a heavy book, one cannot expect the pages to stay attached to the spine for any great length of time.


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## rickles23 (Oct 13, 2006)

Any help?

Regards


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## alaric (Feb 27, 2012)

rickles23 said:


> Any help?
> 
> Regards


I'm afraid not. Can't be sure from these two photos, but I think these boats are ketches rather than yawls. LT 472 does not have a bumpkin.


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## Bredo (May 16, 2017)

Well. More replies than I expected  Let me end by telling the reason why I asked in the first place. My great grandfather bought the smack Westward Ho in Grimsby in 1895. In the original bill of sale it statet that the type of vessel is "Dandy".


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## Barrie Youde (May 29, 2006)

The mizzen on a Drascombe Dabber is stepped forward of the rudder-head by not more than two inches. How so? Both are fixed to the transom, with the mizzen-mast inboard and the rudder outboard. On one definition, this would seem to make the Dabber a ketch, which seems absurdly ambitious.

I prefer the additional qualification in the case where the mizzen sail is noticeably small in comparison with the mainsail (as with the Dabber), which makes her a yawl, which seems much more sensible.

As to Rickles two photographs at #26 , I agree with Alaric that it is difficult to be certain whether either one shows a yawl or a ketch.


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## stein (Nov 4, 2006)

A quote from Tom Cunliffe's "Hand, Reef and Steer", 2'nd ed. p. 24: _Some nineteenth-century dandy-rigged drifters were technically yawls, because they had left the old mizzen lug where it was after converting the mainmast to gaff. It was stepped a long way aft, and the sail was still sheeted to the outrigger typical on a lugger. This spar, incidentally, was the forerunner of the bumkin almost invariably seen on the modern gaff yawl. A number of Breton fishing types adopted this rig, among them the famous Camaret langoustiers. These were sometimes known as "Dundees." The origin of this name can only be the English "Dandy", since the Scots were among the last to convert their luggers._

Took me awhile to understand the last line here, what he is saying (I believe) is that when the Bretons started using the name "Dundee", then the Dundee fishermen had still not started using the Dandy rig. And so the French "Dundee" would merely be a mis-spelling of the British "Dandy"(?). And it would seem that Cunliffe's "Dandy" is a two-masted vessel, once lug-rigged on both masts, where the main have been converted to a hooped gaff sail (and a bowsprit and a jib added).


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## Barrie Youde (May 29, 2006)

As a matter of etymology, "Dundee" and "Dandy" make a perfect connection!

Thank you, Stein and Tom Cunliffe!


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