Talk:Gunter

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This article needs a list of gunter-rigged types, and some photos and diagrams. Andrewa 20:10, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Sailing terms are always a little fluid, of course, but I understood "gunter" to mean the vertical gaff arrangement rather than some wire contraption. For a start, I can't see how a sliding block would work for a vertical gaff (surely the gaff would just slide down until the block was at the top end?) and secondly the Mirror, always described as "gunter rigged", has no such system. The halyard is attached to a fixed point on the gaff.

Oh, and the Swallows and Amazons books describe the boats as having a standing lug, not a gunter. --Pete

Some make a distinction between a true "sliding gunter" with the yard vertical and secured to the mast by two hoops sliding on the mast and a "two halyard gunter", which is essentially a gaff rig with a high-peaked gaff. The usual sloppy nautical terminology that varies from place to period.

Right. Sounds more like what I understand the term to mean. But the page still maintains that a gunter is a wire running along the yard/gaff, which as far as I can see couldn't be used for a gunter rig as you or I (or any number of authors) understand it. --Pete

For the gunter to work there are two halyards. One has a block, sometimes just a shackle, that allows the gunter (wire parallel to the gaff and fixed to it at two points on its upper (or leading) surface), and the other to raise or lower the jaws of the gaff.

The mode of operation is:

1. bend the gunter halyard to the sliding device on the gunter
2. bend the jaws halyard to the jaws
3. secure the parrell beads around the mast from jaw to jaw to locate the jaws positively around the mast
4. haul the gaff into the vertical with the gunter halyard and make fast
5. haul the jaws up the mast until the desired height is reached and make fast
6. using whatever reefing mechanism you have, usually reefing points, reef any excess sail at the foot to the boom (if any) or gather the belly of the sail if loose footed.

Reference for this? Several years spent teaching Sea Cadets to sail in the ASC Gunter rigged dinghy.

That the Mirror dinghy is called Gunter rigged is probably because the gaff is vertical. Language changes over time. When I learnt to sail in 1965 the terms gaff rigged and gunter rigged were used interchangeably by people who were no longer steeped in sea lore and terminology. When I taught people to sail from about 1970 the whyole "Bob Bond" era had dejargoned sailing such that the painter was called "The bit of rope at the front that we tie the boat up with"; the mainsail was "The big sail at the back"

Small wonder, then, that gunter and gaff became mixed up.

Fiddle Faddle 15:46, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

because the article was unclear I have made a major rewrite and posted it. We now should be clearer enough on what a gunter rig is. Fiddle Faddle 16:36, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Look at the Oxford English Dictionary for the source of the name of the rig. It is named by analogy, after a Gunter slide rule.

The wire which the wiki article, by some back-formed etymology calls a 'gunter' is a jackstay. The Admiralty Manual of Seamanship of 1951. Volume 2, calls it both a 'jackstay' (fig 185) and a 'wire span' (p 279).

The distinctive spar is in fact, though not in name, a running topmast. The Manual of Seamanship refers to it as a 'gaff' though when I had anything to do with such things, around 1955 to 1965, almost everyone called it a 'yard'. (RJP 21:32, 14 January 2007 (UTC))

In view of the excellent source of your information, please both add it to the article, rewrite where necessary, and definitely add the citation(s). Fiddle Faddle 21:37, 14 January 2007 (UTC)