Soap, Safety & Sail Dressing
Sometime in the hazy days of lockdown June 2020.
In the first few weeks of lockdown I found myself making soap from coconut oil. All very appropriate you could say, given the new need for frequent hand washing, but what on earth has it got to do with the restoration of a sailing barge? If we go back a bit in time I’ll do my best to explain.
When Raybel arrived in Sittingbourne one of the first jobs was to set up the spars so measurements could be taken by sailmaker Steve Hall of North Sea Sails. The mains'l is in good order but a tops 'l and fores' l will be needed and this work can be done while restoration of the hull is carried out. Nowadays nearly all sailing barges have sails made of polyester fibre. There are very few natural fibre sails on barges as canvas of sufficient weight and quality is just not available. It’s a great shame, as Steve says, not least because man-made polyester fibre will not rot down, as flax will, when its useful life is over.
Until recently the raw sailcloth would begin life with the greyish white tone of the natural flax fibre used to make it. The new sails would be given time to settle into shape and then dressed with an oily mixture containing a red earth pigment. These red ochre coloured sails are perhaps the most distinctive feature of a sailing barge, even becoming the focus of a well known love song from the 1930’s - Red Sails in the Sunset. But whether in the yearning of parted lovers, dreams of freedom and adventure or simply the straightforward beauty of them, it seems the red sails have long crystallised the enchantment and romance of these craft.
Mixing and applying the red ochre dressing to the canvas was not especially romantic. The central ingredients were earth pigments combined with animal and vegetable oils, waxes and fats. There were almost as many recipes as there were barge crews but most involved a fish oil of some kind, such as herring or cod oil, and usually also sheep, cow or horse fat. And a suit of sails - around 4000 square feet (370 square meters) - would need something like 30 gallons (150 litres) of this pungent mixture. The skipper and mate would lower the gear and drag the sails ashore where they would be spread out on the quayside. The dressing would be prepared in a large drum and brushed on with brooms. Heavy work in itself and it was not uncommon for the sails to be bent on again the same day and the gear heaved back up, ready to leave on the next tide.
The dressing was vital to waterproof them, to prevent rotting, and also to minimise wear and chafe on the rigging. Recipes for this dressing will have evolved, as the sailing barges themselves, over several hundred years, but essentially they all achieved the same purpose and kept the cloth impregnated and coated with a greasy mixture.
Polyester fabric is equally vulnerable to wear and also suffers from exposure to the ultra violet rays present in sunlight - so still benefits from regular dressing. And given their size it wont come as any surprise that a suit of sails for a barge will cost thousands of pounds. Looking after them well is a vital part of a barges maintenance. Some barge owners now use water based acrylic fence paint on these polyester sails. Others have looked back on the age old recipes and devised a home made variant that suits them. And that was the path I chose in the early ‘90s when the mains’l and fores’l on Raybel were still of flax. With polyester sailcloth I still much prefer the traditional oily dressings especially as they can help achieve the colour and texture of the natural canvas that is central to the history and character of sailing barges.
The materials used to make sail dressing are fascinating in their own right. And none more so than the central ingredient - the dusty red ochre pigment. It was found in many parts of Britain so would have been readily available and cheap. Red ochre is still mined extensively over much of Europe but in Britain the last remaining mine is in Golden Valley, South Gloucestershire, in the Forest of Avon. And a brief look at the history of red ochre quickly opens a door to the history of the human race. Naturally occurring ochre has been collected and used by us since the dawn of our existence and there is evidence for its use as paint nearly half a million years ago. The earliest known examples of images made by human beings are of red ochre. In fact our ancestors found it useful for all manner of things - image making, the healing of wounds, protection against insects and the sun, bodily adornment, decoration etc. It’s use as a fabric preservative or sail dressing is simply a natural evolution of our awareness of its qualities and is likely to date back to the earliest sailing craft.
Well that’s a brief look at what makes the barge sails red. Let’s get to the connection with soap and coconut oil? It’s quite straightforward. Our intention was to put on some events this summer on the Lloyd Wharf site to serve as an introduction to the very heart of a sailing barge - the sails and how they are dressed and maintained. And not just the sails but also the hatch-cloths, covers, rigging wires, parts of the rope-work etc. are also treated with similar simple mixtures and interested people could learn about how these are made and, hopefully, help in applying them.I looked back on the trials I’d made since the ‘90s. One ingredient in the sail dressing was tallow - an animal fat. It’s absorbed by the pigment thus making an effective grease. I’m wary of trying to improve on methods that have been tried and tested over centuries but we sometimes discover health or environmental problems and have to look for new solutions. That was the case with lead paint for example - although very durable it was discovered to be a real danger, to both health and environment, so its widespread use was discontinued. With this kind of thing in mind it made sense to look at the various vegetable oils that might replace animal fat and be more environmentally friendly. A new discovery for me was coconut oil. First tests suggest it could be a good substitute, perhaps even an improvement, as it’s less prone to attracting bacteria or becoming rancid. And sources can be found where farmers produce it organically and support fair trade practices.
Anyway I was trying out different materials and trying to come up with ways that could best introduce people to the history of barge sails and rigging and how it was all looked after. Ideally it should be fun as well interesting. It was quickly clear that with just a little knowledge of materials some very high quality products can be made. Also it struck me that we’ve become so used to buying things ready made, bottled and branded that we are increasingly forgetting the kind of things our grandparents would have regarded as common knowledge. Reading about various substances was also waking me up to the good and bad qualities of things. I didn’t know for example that many candles still contain paraffin wax which gives off carcinogens when burned, whereas beeswax candles have a positive and purifying effect on the air.
The simple ingredients that can work well in a sail dressing recipe appear in all kinds of products so I tried making a few. Because of the beeswax I’ve found so good in the mixture, for dressing servings on the rigging as well as the sails, the first things I tried were furniture polish and then candles. As I found out more about the nature of coconut oil I saw that it was well known as a perfect base for making soap. With lockdown just beginning, along with the constant advice for frequent hand washing, it was quite an obvious step to give that a try too.
This fresh exploration into refining traditional dressings for sails and servings has been interesting and useful. Recipes can be adjusted to give varying degrees of softness and pretty much any colour, simply by using different pigments. They can be prepared as needed or made in advance as ready-mixed blocks and when required melted and stirred into the chosen solvent. The situation with Covid19, and the continued need for social distancing, is not quite so positive just yet. Our thoughts of events that could introduce the making of sail dressing, and ancillary things, have to remain on hold for a while longer. Meanwhile we’ve produced a few short runs of the ‘spin-off’ products and can make more if they prove of interest to people - available alongside our sail cargo goods at the Dolphin Sailing Barge Museum, Lloyd Wharf, by arrangement or on one of our Open Days. And if anyone is interested in knowing more about the traditional dressings please contact us directly.
Matthew Houston
