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The mizzen chain plates can be evenly spaced. All the plates should line up with the angle of the shrouds attached to them. Therefore, the nails should not be driven home solidly until the shrouds have been rigged, which will allow proper adjustment of the plate angles. Complete the channel fastenings by putting four wire eyes just inboard of the fore and main-channel edges, and two eyes in the mizzen.
As a standard for rigging sizes, the foremost shrouds are triple-wound strands of No. 35 thread; the mainmast shrouds are triple No. 30 thread, and the mizzen shrouds, triple No. 60 thread. You can make your own shrouds by twisting triple thread strands together, fastening one end of the threads to a hook in the wall and the other end to a hook chucked in a hand-drill. Twist the strands tightly, wax heavily and then stretch them as tightly as possible and pass rapidly over a flame. This melts the wax and prevents the line from unraveling. The stays are triple shroud thickness.
The fore, main and mizzen lower masts are set up in their holes in the decks. Then the stays are lopped around each of their respective mastheads, over the forward crosstrees and down through the square holes in the tops, which should be large enough to allow passage of lines on all four sides. The mizzen stay is sewn through with thread and served (wrapped with thread) to represent a long eyesplice. The fore and mainstay loops are secured with eye-and-mouse detail illustrated in the rigging plan. The forestay is set up with two 9/32-in. deadeyes, the lower being fastened to a collar of stay-thickness which, in turn, is attached to the bowsprit with several turns of shroud line. The mizzen stay is set up similarly with a collar and seized to the mainmast, its angle just clearing the half-deck railing. The collar of the mainstay is much longer. It passes on either side of the foremast, through the holes in the deck, crosses itself above the beakhead and passes under the bowsprit, where the free ends are seized to the adjoining part of the collar.
Copyright, © 1933, by Popular Mechanics Company
