Traditional Rigging in the 21st Century
Courtney J. Andersen
Courtney Andersen will explore the evolution of sailing ship materials and designs over the pre-Industrial age, and then illustrate how rapidly materials have changed after WW2, as synthetics took over the industry. He will discuss what this means for today’s riggers. Using various museum ships and movie sets as examples, he will also address the “green” aspects of the old ways versus a dependency on oil-based products.
Biography
Courtney Andersen was born in Minnesota of good Viking heritage. Water has always been in his blood: first the small and Great Lakes, then travels following the Mississippi in the wake of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn. As a child his family moved down to the Gulf Coast of Mississippi, then Florida where his fascination with pirates and sailing ships began. Savannah, Georgia, kindled a love of atmosphere and walking through an historical setting before moving back to Florida, where he believed for a time that he would become the next Jacques Cousteau. HMS Bounty had other plans for him, and he became ensnared in the world of historic ship rigging. Sailing and moving up the Eastern Seaboard, he settled for a time on the Hudson River on the Half Moon, and delved in earnest into 17th-century Dutch rigging, including a research sabbatical sojourn to the Netherlands. Hollywood called, and he answered, moving to Los Angeles to work in film production, designing and building the rigs for various pirate and historic sail movies. Next came a move that was to last for 15 years to San Francisco as he became the Historic Ship Rigging Supervisor at the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park, tending to several National Historic Landmark vessels dating from the late 1800s. Research and historic rig design were his focus, with an emphasis on esoteric techniques and “doing it the way grandpa did.” After 2019, he returned to film production ship rigging, established his own rigging company, and began working on The Whole Art of Rigging. He currently is deep in a restoration of his 1960 Angelman ketch.
Podcast done by Courtney Andersen with Golden Hinde in London: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6OKwSdkYuJUuIuKooACDdc?si=eZbUumn_RPGGlW2MFgwKOA
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