On the structural assessment of tall ship rigs

In this paper, the numerical approach for the structural assessment of tall ship rigs is presented. It allows investigating complex sailing vessel structural rig layouts, composed of different types of masts (armed with both square and Lateen sails), yards, stays and spreaders. For these types of vessels, Classification Societies do not provide any direct calculation approaches, but only a mere comparison between cross sections and thicknesses with reference values as a function of the mast length. The provided approach can overcome this lack and it is based on considerations and calculations of real aerodynamic forces and the experimental evaluation of the pretension load of stays and shrouds. The herein proposed approach is very practical and can be adopted as a reference for this type of vessel, also with different mast configurations.