Why is being a "Top man" a lonely job? and what would you be doing?

a 'Top man' was a sailor who worked at the very top of the mast. Very lonely!!!

Not in this case Jenny. Its a present day job title ...and you are on the right track

Jenny is right. There are quite a few tall ships in service today, some with full crews as the older ships had, including the Top Man.

NEWPORT BEACH, CA (August 20, 2002) --- About 20 tall ships will participate in the Southern California Regional Observance of the First Anniversary of the September 11th Terrorist Attacks on America on Wednesday, September 11, 2002 in the waters off Newport Harbor and at Big Corona State Park. - LYNX EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION

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Tall Ships event at Barrow Dosks (June 2005)

Log 17 - Monday, August 2, 2004 - To say the city of Halifax Nova Scotia came to life this weekend would be an understatement. In my entire experience with ASTA, this port festival has drawn some of the largest crowds I have ever seen. Not only did the people flock to the piers, but so did the ships. There are about 40 here, which really does make Halifax the largest Atlantic Coast Event. - http://sailtraining.org/contribute/2004raceteamlogs.htm (Several Pictures Here)


Tall Ship in the Mediterranean



NEW YORK - If predictions hold, it will dwarf the Spanish armada, the Normandy invasion fleet and every regatta ever held - as many as 70,000 watercraft jammed into New York harbor for what organizers call the "largest maritime event in history."

At the center of the week-long affair beginning July 3 is Operation Sail 2000, the latest gathering of wind-powered "tall ships." This year, more than 180 sailing vessels from 60 nations will share attention with 40 modern warships of 23 navies in an International Naval Review, the sixth in 107 years.

Gotham is the most important port of call in the tall ships' nine-week coastal cruise from San Juan, Puerto Rico on May 25 to Portland, Maine, on July 31, with stops in Miami, Norfolk, Va.; Baltimore, Philadelphia and New London, Conn. Brochures say the "parade of sail" will be 30 miles long.

But the real story could be the thousands of commercial and private yachts, sailboats, cabin cruisers and other small craft flooding into New York. The Coast Guard recently upped its estimate from 40,000 to 70,000 - nearly three times the number at the 1986 Statue of Liberty centennial.

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USS Constitution, known as "Old Ironsides," is a wooden-hulled, three-masted frigate of the United States Navy. Named after the United States Constitution, she is the oldest commissioned ship afloat in the world, and is still in service in the US Navy. The Constitution was one of the six original frigates authorized for construction by the Naval Act of 1794 and was launched in 1797. Joshua Humphreys designed them to be the Navy's capital ships and so Constitution and her sisters were larger and more heavily armed than the standard frigates of the period.

A 'top' is the platform fitted around the head of any of the foremasts of a ship. The 'top-man ' is a sailor assigned to duty up there, attending to the upper sails.

There is a higher task: in Naval Schools in Britain (schools for boys, originally to train youngsters with a view to their becoming sailors in the Royal Navy: we started them young, years ago) there has long been a ceremony where cadets climb the ratlines ( the lines like a climbing net )of a 'main-mast' set in the grounds of the college. This they do as a drill, in unison. One boy, 'the button boy', is assigned the task of standing on the 'button' on the very top of the mast itself i.e. on the tip of the vertical pole (and not look down: as if he would )

quote:

One boy, 'the button boy', is assigned the task of standing on the 'button' on the very top of the mast itself i.e. on the tip of the vertical pole

Not in any of the history books.
like the "go for a 'long rest'" and "candy striped" paint Jokes I'll bet you they sent new boys aloft to polish that "button" as an Initiation ceremony?



Can anyone find my Top Man? Clue ...He swings around in town a lot