Lili's

Thames and Stumpie (Mark 1)

Owner's Manual

by Lili Squibb Edition 2, 21 April 2020

WHAT'S IN THE PACK?

You will need to 'unpack' your download before you can use it. Experienced Second Life users can skip this section of the manual, but I'll set the procedure out here for anyone who's unsure:

1. Find a 'sandbox' sim (or if you have your own rental land you should be able to do this all at your home) 2. Open up your Inventory and expand the panel called 'Received Items' at the bottom of the Inventory panel. Right at the top of the list you should see the download pack, called 'Lili's Yard Thames Spritsail Barges V5.x' there. 3. Click on the pack and drag it from Inventory onto the ground. This is actually only moving a copy so don't worry, the original will stay safe with your stuff. 4. Right-click the pack on the ground and select 'Open'. At the bottom of the window that pops up you will see a button called 'Copy to Inventory' - just click on that. 5. A New folder will now be created in your Inventory called 'Lili's Yard Thames Spritsail Barges V5.x'. This is the folder we'll be using from now on. 6. You can now delete the pack from the sandbox or your own land - don't worry, you still have the original in your Inventory!

Excellent. You are now ready to go! Well, almost!

Inside the new folder, you will see the following:

 Two control HUD's - small and large  A display model which you can use in your home if you have one in Second Life. It's the same model as the 'crate' the pack come in, but without the contents.  A pack of textures. These are the and name-board textures used on the models, so you can edit them and personalise your barges if you want to.  Six models

ABOUT THE HUD's

Using the HUD's

Right-click your chosen HUD in the Inventory folder where your barges have been unpacked. The HUD should automatically attach to your Centre attachment point, but if that doesn't happen then you can do it manually this way:

If it then appears at an inconvenient place that blocks your view, just right-click the HUD on your screen, choose EDIT and then move it around using the direction arrows until you have it where works best for you. Finally just close the edit window. The next time you 'wear' your HUD it should remember this same position and you won't need to repeat this position adjustment.

HUD sizes

Two different size HUD's are included; choose whichever works best for you.

HUD visibility settings

This is how the HUD appears by default:

The blue background is already partially transparent, but you can improve visibility and minimise how much the HUD cuts down your view by toggling the background transparency on or off. Just click anywhere in the background blue area:

Once you are aboard your boat you can use the HUD for control. I hope it's fairly self-explanatory by looking at it, but here's a quick summary:

Note the two blue 'Random' buttons for wind speed and direction. These have been added to simulate the kind of day when you turn up for a and the weather's doing its own thing! You could also use it when you change regions while .

Using the motor

 Click the 'Motor On' button to set the motor running in idle.

 To select forward gear, use the 'Page Up' button on your keyboard.

 To select reverse gear, use the 'Page Down' button on your keyboard.

 To go back into idle, use the 'Motor Idle' button. Forward or reverse motion will slow to a stop.

 To turn the motor off, use the 'Motor Stop' button.

Removing the HUD

When you're done sailing, just right-click the HUD and select 'Detach' to return it to your Inventory. Please don't ever choose 'Drop' or your HUD will drop off the edge of the known universe and be lost forever! This is not the end of the world because it's copy-permission so the original will still be in your Inventory, but still it's best to be tidy about these things!

ABOUT THE BARGES

This is the default view when sailing:

You can also use 'Mouse-look' to gain a captain's eye view:

In this mode you can look around using your mouse, but you won't be able to click on the HUD. If your mouse as a central wheel you should be able to flick back and forth between these two viewing modes by 'wheeling' in and out, but going into 'Mouse- look' for the first time will probably involve clicking on the relevant button depending on which Second Life viewer you are using.

Leeboards

Leeboards (see the illustration on the following page) act as retractable , swivelling down to bite into the water when a barge is sailing in a cross-wind. Because barges are flat-bottomed, designed to sit down squarely on the mud at low- tide while loading or unloading, it is important that leeboards also swivel up out of the way. You will also see them fitted to certain types of Dutch barges ('schuyt') and eel- boats.

Deploy your leeboards any time you experience significant 'heel', or lean in the boats when sailing at higher wind-speeds or during cross-winds.

Passenger Pose-ball

This is located in the dingy for an agreeable laid-back ride for your passenger.

Catching the wind

The barges have a four-colour visual sailing-aid, which is part of the core BWind scripting, to help you tell when you are sailing efficiently. This appears near to the main once you are sitting aboard and activate either the motor or the , and is clearly visible to help you sail in both default view and 'Mouse-look' views. Here's how to interpret the colours:

Blue: normally this is the state you find yourself in when first raising sail. Nothing much is going to happen when the indicator is blue; your sails are not set to catch any wind yet. To improve matters, use your keyboard's Up and Down arrow keys to being adjusting the sail position.

Red : you are sailing to close to the wind; the sails will probably 'flutter', which you will hear and see visually. This is not good - either change until you can catch the wind, or lower sail and move forward using the motor instead.

Yellow: you are now sailing close to the wind and you will make forward progress, but this is not the optimum set to your sails. Try adjusting them slightly using your keyboard's Down arrow key, or alter course slightly until the indicator turns green.

Green: this is the optimum; your sails are well set for the wind direction and you will make good forward progress. There is often slight adjustments that can still be made by gentle taps on the Up or Down arrow keys which could improve your speed even further. Or you could just cheat and select a faster wind speed from your control HUD, of course!

The Barges

An observer's guide to the Hrosskell (Lobster Pot Landing) working fleet included in this pack

Nr.1 'Madison Rose'

'Maddy Rose' was the first-built of the fleet, and served extensively as a Yard trials for experiments and developments. She features traditional red sails and a gaff mizzen.

Maddy Rose now serves as 'my' boat and is used for travel, attending sailing events and even racing on occasion. Wave if you see us passing!

Nr.2 'Ajax'

Where Maddy Rose was a prototype, 'Ajax' is the first 'production' boat and is, along with her sister ship Nr.4 'Monarch', most representative of a 'stock' spritsail barge with all the most common features. She is fitted with a sprit mizzen and has her mizzen-mast stepped on the sternpost instead of the deck.

Nr.3 'Sybil'

Little Sybil is a 'stumpie' (or 'stumpy') barge built to smaller dimensions. Stumpies were most commonly only river-going barges used in the and within the Regent's Canal system. Lacking a she carries no or , has a deck-stepped mizzen mast with a only, and her sails are a mix of colours.

Nr.4 'Monarch'

Returning to the full-size hull and retaining the -post mizzen mast and sprit mizzen introduced with 'Ajax', 'Monarch' has no lower main .

Nr.5 'Hope'

'Hope' carries a deck-stepped gaff mizzen rig and has had a rudimentary weather- cabin built to protect her steersman in bad weather. Of course, since it never rains in Second Life the most agreeable place from which to steer is perched out on the cabin locker to enjoy the sun and the breeze!

'Hope' is named in honour of all whose lives have been touched by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Nr.6 'Agamemnon'

'Aggie' has a sprit-rigged mizzen stepped on her sternpost, and supports her entirely using the sprit boom. No upper or lower main booms are fitted.

Hull Nr.7 'Jero Ramo'

The original production run of this 'Mark 1' design was planned for just six hulls, to explore some of the more major design variations. In the event a seventh was constructed specifically for Jero in thanks for all his tireless work scripting.

This barge is registered at Barbarossa, not Hrosskell, but you'll likely see her about from time to time.

[This model is not included in the pack because it is a unique custom-build for her owner. Her details are only included in this manual for completeness.]

In case you were wondering...

Here's what the major parts of a spritsail barge are called:

[Most of that's probably fairly self-explanatory, but the main- and fore-horses might be a bit of a puzzle: they are used to gather in the sails.]

Real-world Thames spritsail barges

In the real world a fair number of these beautiful boats survive, many in working order. If you want to know more, here are a few good places to begin looking: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thames_sailing_barge

List of active Thames sailing barges - Wikipedia

A new Thames – Classic Sailor

A Short History of Thames Barges – Totally Thames

Thames Sailing Barge Trust ~ Sailing Holidays and Short Barge Breaks

And of course you can just do a browser-search for Thames barge, Thames spritsail barge, Spritsail barge, etc. and follow your curiosity from there!

Conclusion

I hope that you enjoy these barges. I'm always happy to have feedback, suggestions for improvements and any criticisms, and I promise that I will do my best to help out and fix any problems you may encounter.

Either IM me or send a Notecard to LiliSquibb

With much love

Lili

Credits

This project could not have been completed without the unstinting help and support of (in purely alphabetical order):

 Claire - my Second Life landlady, who provides my boatyard, puts up with my many simpleton-like questions, scripts parts for me, and is a marvellous morale-boost!

 Jero Ramo - tireless scripting marvel, who never once complained even when I asked for silly things like random wind speeds and directions. Thank you Jero, you are a wonder!

 Jonny Slim - beta-tester par excellence! Amazons Forever :-) !

 Pixil - my wonderful Second Life partner, for putting up with my obsessive behaviour while working on this project and not beating me senseless with a virtual table leg to shut me the heck up!

My love and thanks to you all xxx

[End of manual]