How to: Build a replica Cannon Part Six

The Tackle

In Parts One, Two and Three of this "How to:" series we established the background and how we went about building our scale replica cannon. In Parts Four and Five, respectively, we looked at how we recreated the projectiles and gunners' equipment needed to perform mock "firing" drills. The final stage is to recreate the tackle used to haul the cannon inboard for loading and outboard for firing through the ship's gun ports.

Typically tackle is a mechanism consisting of ropes, pulley blocks, hooks, or other things for lifting heavy objects. The final challenge, therefore, is to recreate the typical arrangement of ropes, which comprise the gun tackle, train tackle and breeching lines.

Gun Tackle  The gun tackle (or "outhaul" tackle) was a system of two or more pulleys with a rope or cable threaded between them. The pulleys were assembled to form blocks and the blocks paired so that one is fixed by a hook to a ring bolt on the bulwark, while one moves with the load and is hooked to a ring bolt on the gun carriage. The rope is threaded through the pulleys to provide mechanical advantage that amplifies the force applied to the rope.

The gun tackle was used to haul the gun out to the battery (firing) position after it was loaded. For larger guns the tackle consisted of a single block hooked to the gun carriage and a double block hooked to the bulwark. Smaller guns might just use two single blocks. The line leading from the block attached to the bulwark had to be long enough for the gun crew to grab.

Train Tackle  The train tackle (or "inhaul" tackle) was similar to the gun tackle. It hooked to a ring bolt at the rear of the gun carriage and to another ring bolt mounted in the deck some distance behind the gun. The train tackle was used to haul the gun back inboard to the loading position. When not in use it was stowed with all the other gun handling gear, often on the bulwarks between the guns.

Breeching Lines  The breeching lines were attached to ring bolts on the bulwarks and to the cascabels at the rear of the cannon. For earlier guns the lines were wrapped around the cascabel or, in some cases, they were attached with a cut splice that fit around the cascabel. Later guns had a breeching ring cast into the barrel above the cascabel, and the breeching line passed through it.

The breeching line stopped the recoil of the gun when it was fired, preventing it from crashing about the deck. It was roughly 1/3 the diameter of the shot, and was long enough (3 times the length of the cannon bore) to allow the cannon to move about a foot or two inboard of the bulwark to give the gun crew room to swab and load the cannon.

Neither breeching nor tackle could be blackened or treated in any other way that reduced their flexibility. Ropes had to be of manila or another pliable material. Consequently, jute rope of an appropriate diameter (25 mm) was duly purchased.

Block Pulleys

Wooden block pulleys are available to purchase online but finding ones of the appropriate size and quantity proved difficult given the scaled down nature of the cannon. It was decided, therefore, that the block pulleys could be fabricated in house. Usefully there are several YouTube videos showing how to make a block pulley, for example this one by Mark Thijssen or this one by Mr Chickadee who uses a more traditional rope strop.

Given that the block pulleys are largely for show rather function, it was decided to make them from plywood to the design shown below:

This six-part series has briefly explored the history of naval guns used by the Royal Navy in the 18th- and 19th-centuries. It has looked at the gun firing drills and the equipment needed to serve a long gun during the Age of Sail. In Parts Two and Three we proposed a design for making a lightweight cannon barrel and a gun carriage to support it. Part Four explored the types of projectiles discharged from period naval guns, their intended use, and how we attempted to recreate them. The gunners' equipment was recreated in Part Five, and finally we looked at the gun tackle needed to haul cannon inboard for loading and outboard for firing through a ship's gun ports. So, with the project finished, Tastes Of History was delighted to learn that at least one person was inspired by the series to build their own replica (pictured).