Page 10 - The Complete Rigger’s Apprentice
P. 10

Preface











             30 years ago, with an old cable spool as a chair, and  field are applicable in another, but  we all have a lot
             my workbench as a desk, I began to write the first  to learn from one another.
             version of this book. I wrote longhand, on a yellow
             legal tablet, slowly filling page after page with what I   DO THE MATH
             hoped and meant would become a primer on sailing
             vessel rigging. I wrote as much to refine and clarify  Many of my clients have been engineers or archi-
             my own meager understanding of the subject as to  tects, and they have been unfailingly generous
             inform anyone else; even then I had an inkling of  and patient in expanding my understanding of the
             the vast scale of what there was to know about rig-  design aspects of the art. Rueful admission: when I
             ging, and how incomplete my own comprehension  was in high school, there was only one class about
             was. But I was also filled with an evangelical zeal. I  which I said, “I’ll never use this crap.” That class
             wanted the world to know about this beautiful art.  was trigonometry. It turns out that you cannot be
                 In the years since, I have worked on hundreds  a competent rigger without some understanding of
             (thousands?) of rigs. On some days, I seem to have  trigonometry.
             acquired some level of competence. On other days,
             the learning curve is unbearably steep. On those         TRUST/VERIFY
             days, to paraphrase Clifford Ashley, I feel that if
             I can just keep improving at this rate, and if my  Whether you get your information from a profes-
             health holds out, I might someday manage to get a  sional, or someone down the dock, or YouTube, be
             grasp of the fundamentals. Therefore, gentle reader,  sure of its validity before you put it into practice.
             consider this new edition to be a work in progress. It  Math can be a big help here, but so can discussion,
             is certainly an improvement on the previous edition  direct experiment, and common sense. This advice
             —almost every page of my copy is marked with red  (I pause here to wince) goes for some of the rec-
             ink—and in addition to corrections and evolutions  ommendations found in previous editions of this
             you will find new ways of  thinking about and work-  book. The current one as well, for all I know. You
             ing with rigging.                            can be wrong about things you sincerely believe in.
                 Some general bits of advice:             It is overwhelmingly likely that you are wrong about
                                                          many things, right now. This can have a paralyz-
                       CROSS-POLLINATE                    ing effect, partly because it can be embarrassing,
                                                          but mostly because, in rigging, people’s lives are at
             In the course of my career it has been my privilege  stake; your beliefs translate directly to safety. Or
             to work with theater riggers, industrial riggers,  not. That’s why we have civilization, which at its
             arborists, timber framers, circus riggers, mountain  best functions as a non-genetic means of preserv-
             climbers, etc., in addition to riggers of all types of  ing and transmitting aids to survival. Test results,
             sailing vessels. The particulars of each branch of the  engineering standards, theories, and algorithms are
             art vary widely, and not all of the insights in one  the left-brain means to this end. But don’t underes-

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