Talk:Gunter rig

Disambuguation needed

Johnbibby 13:06, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Other

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)

Rewrite started

I have started a rewrite of this article. Please be patient as it will take a bit of time. Major references are and ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 00:10, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

References

reinstated deleted section

I have reverted Andy Dingley's reinstatement of some very questionable text. Whilst Andy's comment that the Mirror Dinghy is a very common gunter rigged boat is correct (though now available as Bermuda rigged), that is not the issue I have with this text. First, it is totally unreferenced. Secondly it uses some "invented" terminology that the original editor has presumably been taught by someone. The main element of this is the "gunter", supposedly being the wire span on the yard that the peak halyard attaches too. I have searched high and low for any source (of any quality) that uses this terminology - but with no success. So:
"This looks like a gunter rig when the boat is fully rigged. However it does not have the sliding component of the wire or the hooped gunter."
is complete nonsense.

The paragraph:
"Nonetheless such small dinghies have been termed 'gunter rigged' and 'gaff rigged' with free use of each term. It is likely that the fluidity of language allows both terms to be used with correctness for these small boats. For larger craft the terms tend to be more rigorously applied"
is simply POV. The current enthusiasts for the rig no doubt read magazines like Classic Boat, where the terminology is totally correct and precise - and many of them would be interested in dinghy cruising, so would read the book cited above by Roger Barnes. This book was used by Iain Oughtred for an article he wrote recently on the rig (Iain Oughtred is a highly respected dinghy designer - he has no Wikipedia page, but you can find him mentioned in articles). Expressing a POV on how those who have a little knowledge on a subject refer to it, whilst ignoring recognised authorities does not seem to be helpful to anyone who refers to this encyclopedia. The confusion between gaff and gunter is mentioned in the lead as the article stands - it really needs not much more than that. (Yes the article is a work in progress).

I am not sure how one is expected to make more clear that unreferenced text is unsupported/contradicted by the WP:RSs that are being used in a rewrite. If top quality sources do not mention some terminology that does not seem to exist anywhere (except in the head of the original editor), then the text that relies upon that terminology to make a POV point must surely be deleted.ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 00:15, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

• It's not so much about whether the Mirror has a Gunter rig or not, it's about the clear fact that the Mirror is regularly described as having a Gunter rig (true or false). So we should describe it here. If it's a Gunter rig, we say that. If it isn't, then we explain that it's often called that, that it isn't really, why it isn't, and why it gets described as such despite. Even if the Mirror had nothing like a Gunter rig (actually it does, just simplified), we should say "The Mirror rig is frequently mis-described as one", then go on to explain. What we can't do is just ignore it: Mirrors are (still) prolific and we're going to get a traffic of readers here looking for an explanation of why they have Gunters.

I have no opinion over the wording: I don't know anything abut Gunters, beyond a little bit involving Mirrors. But we should still cover the scope. Andy Dingley (talk) 11:16, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks your answer. This is an article which I had intended to do a relatively fast rewrite on - but a number of things intervened. Hence it is currently a target of valid criticism. The (very rough) plan for the article included giving a list of well-known examples of gunter rig in the present day (or perhaps also into the past). So that would include the Drascombe Lugger (probably more prominent nowadays than the Mirror, but that's my POV), the Mirror Dinghy and quite a few others. I can find refs that state that the Mirror Dinghy has a gunter rig quite easily, so that validates its presence in the list. As to whether sailors of Mirror Dinghies do actually call the yard a "gaff" at times, I cannot find any firm evidence - though it is easy to see how much this might happen (but not to estimate the extent). I can find refs that state that some people confuse gaff and gunter rig/terminology - but they all point their reader to using the "gunter terminology" of "yard" not "gaff", etc. So I think the article should deal with this terminological point, but in the same context as these sources: stating the correct terminology (in a non-judgemental way?).

Other things in the article plan include a better explanation of the development history (Leather even identifies the boat building company that devised one of the now-common innovations - whilst other bits are lost in the mists of time, but with clear evidence of a lot of development among pleasure boats on the Seine in the last third of the 19th century). Also I have at least one good ref on the aerodynamic efficiency of the rig. Even allowing for the possible partisan views of an expert in traditional sails, Gunter competes well with Bermuda rig - especially when one considers that it can be build and set up with simple tools and components - unlike the high-stressed Bermudan.

Does my waffling on about the subject (rather than getting on with writing the article) address the point you are making?ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 15:38, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

One has to laugh - just checked the Mirror Dinghy Association site for what they say about gunter rig and it sends you straight to this article!!ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 15:42, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

Inappropriate page move

This page has been moved from Gunter rig to Gunter without any discussion or evidence from RSs. Evidence to support "Gunter rig" is as follows: Generally, the word gunter seems to work as an adjective in normal maritime usage. WP:NOUN

RSs:

Roger Barnes: The Dinghy Cruising Companion, 20 usages of the word "gunter", 14 in conjunction with "rig" or "rigged", remainder in conjunction with "mainsail", "sail" or "yard".No usage of the word on its own.

John Leather: Spritsails and Lugsails - this is a definitive source, quoted by many other authoritative sources. Extensive coverage of the subject, talking about "gunter lug" and "gunter rig" (gunter rig was derived from the lugsail)

Glossary of Nautical Terms, Practical Boat Owner Magazine [1] "Gunter lug" (so, the old-fashioned form, but still an adjective)

Jane's Dictionary of Naval Terms uses "Gunter rig"

The only form that I can detect where "gunter" is acting as a noun is in "sliding gunter". This was originally a type of slide rule invented by a mathematician called Gunter, and an early version of gunter rig was called "sliding gunter" because the arrangement (supposedly - there is no hard evidence) reminded the yachtsmen of the slide rule. "Sliding gunter" is a now relatively rare variant of gunter rig. This is all explained in the Language of Sailing, whose entry on the subject is: "gunter rig".

I respectfully suggest that User:MB should
(a) undo the page move;
(b) present some evidence to support their position;
(c) seek a consensus on the matter. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 19:16, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

References

My reason was that it was listed as just "gunter" on gunter (disambiguation) since that page was created in 2007 and is so listed here and here. MB 19:35, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

These arguments seem to use Wikipedia and Wiktionary as if they were reliable sources (which they are not) and puts a general dictionary up against sources that specifically cover sailing rigs or nautical matters. Surely these latter types of references prevail. (Worth noting, in passing, that the Oxford English Dictionary is notorious for bad definitions of nautical terms.) ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 19:42, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

For usage by (possibly) the commonest classes of boat with this rig, see [2]. "Gunter" is always an adjective as used in this link. You have not addressed WP:NOUN.ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 19:48, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

I've asked at WP:RMTR for a revert of the undiscussed and controversial move, and I've fixed the disambig page, which really needs to move to just Gunter since there's clear no primarytopic. Dicklyon (talk) 21:51, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

Fixed, including a few dozen link updates and related fixes. Dicklyon (talk) 14:49, 4 September 2022 (UTC)