DEAN TAPE MEASURE
Leather-bound with brass fittings gleaming, the wind-up measuring tape is as tactile and inviting of investigation as a vintage writing case. Your fingertips seem willed to explore the hand stitching as they would a cricket ball before delivery, feeling the urge to take measurements, and big ones; back in the day a 200ft (61m) tape topped the standard range, su cient to measure a J-Class and then a 12-Metre yacht with what’s left over. So perhaps it’s not surprising that such a tape routinely featured among the tools of the old-school yacht surveyor, along with the more rudimentary chipping hammer for investigating rust and pointy thing for probing rot.
Sailmakers, too, have long favoured the wind-up tape for measuring the lu of a new mainsail while the vessel is afloat with mast stepped. Conveniently the first inch of the tape is occupied by a swivelling brass loop, seemingly purpose-made for connection to the main halyard shackle for hoisting aloft. Given calm conditions (and not forgetting a safety line tied in parallel with the tape in case of a snag) the measurement to the top of the boom may be noted.
The best-known makers of early 20th century wind-up tapes (not to mention rules, straight edges and spirit levels) were John Rabone of Birmingham and James Chesterman of She eld, subsequently merged under the Rabone Chesterman brand. Small uncased tapes by Dean of London are more familiar to the tailoring trade (there should be one in every domestic sewing box), while the main business of Dean’s parent company, Howard Wall, was manufacturing parts for corsets and bodices, but the company also carried Dean’s wind up leather-cased tapes which found their way into the maritime sector and – of topical interest here – maritime archaeology. This 50ft example is exactly as used during excavation of the treasureladen Anglo-Saxon ship burial at Sutton Hoo in 1939. Last year the much-lauded movie The Dig reimagined events surrounding the excavation for the cinema, and it carries ongoing relevance for boatbuilders in the construction of a replica by The Sutton Hoo Ship’s Company (see CB404). Contemporary photographs show the Dean tape being used for mapping grave goods as they were uncovered, and archaeologist Basil Brown’s original is on display at Tranmer House, formerly home to Edith Pretty who owned the site, now managed by the National Trust.
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