Rigging

The jig-saw I have on the go at the moment shows an incident in the battle of Trafalgar- with HMS Victory sandwiched between a couple of smaller French warships. Guns are popping and cannonballs plopping into a choppy sea. As the eye travels upwards past the tattered sails and battle flags and the mind-befuddling cat's cradle of rigging so it exchanges the nasty, greyish-yellow smog of war for the deepening blue of a cold October sky.

Early 19th century warships are the most extraordinary machines. I'm in awe of the men who devised them and built them and got them to work. What remarkable minds they must have had to make sense and get results from all those miles and miles of rope.