CDR_Ret

Julie, I know exactly where you are at. Hope your trip goes better than mine did... Because of the lack of docks or moorings at the Naval Base in Charleston, we had to berth our Catalina Screamer (named after my G-G-Grandfather's packet ship) at a small marina on Stono Creek, well inland from the south shore of Charleston Harbor. I and my family, consisting of my non-boat-person wife and two children under the age of 10, took delivery of the boat at the Naval Base Marina. We had minimal gear, mainly life vests, a chart, and some snacks. I had decided to remove the main sail for cleaning, but kept the big Genoa jib rigged, but furled. After having the boat put in the water and gassed up on a Saturday morning, I checked out what equipment we could—engine, bilge pump, fathometer, etc. Plotted out our route to the Stono Creek berth on our chart and then away we went under engine only. Strange boat. Untrained crew. No cell phones (this was 1990)—just a low-powered bridge-to-bridge radio for comms. What could possibly go wrong? Things seemed to be going well until we were off the Battery of Charleston. Then my daughter yelled up from the cabin that there was water sloshing on the floor and smoke was in the cabin. I jumped down and checked things out. After some panic I discovered that the engine's mild-steel exhaust pipe had broken at a rusted threaded joint. Both the exhaust cooling water and exhaust gases were dumping into the engine compartment which adjoined the cabin. The bilge pump was able to keep up with the influx of cooling water, but the cabin quickly was becoming uninhabitable. I decided to kill the engine and try to continue making progress under the jib alone. Well, that required unfurling the sail that was equipped with a roller reefing rig, which I had no experience with. Finally got the jib set, but none of the rest of my crew knew what to do about steering the boat while I was forward dealing with the jib. We ended up doing several jibes right off the Battery (that's a jibe with the jib). Practically wrapped it around the forestay several times. I'm sure that grabbed anyone's attention who was watching us. On top of that, soundings got down to five feet, and I just knew we were going to go aground on the Battery, on top of all our other troubles. I finally got the boat under control and the wind was fair for Wappoo Creek. But once we got into the creek, the wind died. I had to use the engine again and just live with the toxic smoke in the cabin. To make a long story endless, we eventually made it to our temporary berthing, which included having to communicate with a drawbridge, which didn't go well. After that experience, we-the-family were not very happy with our first boat outing. Over the next few weeks, I repaired the broken exhaust pipe and moved the boat back to the Naval Base Marina once they had a mooring ready. I think we had one day on the boat as a family before we sold it, and that was under engine power only. I still love the idea of sailing boats, I just don't like the idea of owning one anymore! Best wishes.

Heh. And how is that "hole in the water into which you throw money" working out for you? I bought a 27-foot Catalina sloop when I was still in the Navy, stationed in Charleston, SC. This was shortly after Hurricane Hugo, and there was virtually no intact dock space available anywhere in the area, so I had to moor it out on a buoy. The Navy marina was about 20 miles from where I lived. Every time a thunderstorm kicked up, I was worried that the mooring line would part or some other disaster would befall the boat. I put it back on the market two months after I bought it. After a lifetime of dreaming of what it would be like to sail my own boat, I discovered that the little time I had to spend on it wasn't worth the worry and expense of maintaining it. Hope you find yours more of a pleasure. Terry

Thanks, and these are in addition to homeschooling three of the G-kids in science and math, and holding down a Board position with our HOA. I actually looked for a local job when we first moved here. But now that I'm fully retired, who has time for a job?

This thread was made for me. I have been working on reconstructing the plans for the Galilee since around 2000. My son calls this work the 30-year ship model. However, since moving to Colorado Springs in 2017, there are other things that have demanded my time. Refurbing my back yard: No. One Grand-daughter's Leaf Press: Outfitting a Young Knight with an Authentic Shield: Tearing Down and Rebuilding a Deck (almost finished): No. Three Grand-daughter's Paper Press: And most recently, No. Two Grand-daughter's Puffin: Besides all the honey-do items and planting new shrubs, who has any time for a ship model?

Hi Chief. Don't suppose you have any photos of this situation? Changing the load line of a ship isn't a trivial thing. Either the ship had reserve cargo capacity built in or someone is playing with the stability tables. It would seem that seaworthiness certifications and insurance companies would have something to say about such an act. From my limited familiarity with marine physics, I would think that the main adverse effects to raising the load line would be reducing reserve buoyancy and some effect on the righting moment (the actual effect on stability might either reduce it or increase it, depending on a number of factors). As for the weld issues, I'm having a hard time visualizing the problem. Are there gaps (broken welds) at regular intervals along the keel, that would indicate some relationship to deep frame locations? Does this condition basically flood the keel structure with seawater? Overall, welding plates between the buckles seems to be a band-aid approach to the problem. There is obviously some serious structural issues at work. Terry

Just bought a used copy of Underhill's book today on Amazon for $32. I skimmed the openlibrary.org copy and it has amazingly detailed diagrams of the rigging and masting details not available in the photos I obtained from DTM/CIW of the Galilee. Since this book emphasizes 19th and 20th century sailing merchants, it will likely be a good source for rigging the model. Sadly, the one diagram that I needed to reference wasn't scanned in the digital copy from the Boston Library. Terry

Reserved a digital copy at openlibrary.org. That looks like a good place to obtain access to out-of-print books. Operating under a grant from California, so the site seems legit.

Thanks, Henry. I'll look into that reference. Terry

Hi all. Anyone know of an authoritative reference showing late 19th-century merchant pinrail diagrams? It is my understanding that belaying pin arrangements were fairly standardized by ship-type throughout most of the world, or at least within a nation's fleet, so that crew could be hired in nearly any port and would be able to serve with little additional training. I am looking specifically for the pinrail layout typical of a late-19th century, West-Coast, brigantine merchant of medium size. Any assistance will be appreciated. Terry Egolf Colorado Springs, CO, USA

I tried to get Shapeways to print a Cold-War submarine 7-bladed screw from an STL file I created in Blender. However, at the scale I intended, the online evaluation tool said the blades were too thin. Anything thicker would have looked wrong, so I gave it up. Terry

This past weekend, I received a packet from the Maine Maritime Museum*. It contained several scanned pages from a 1902 Hyde Windlass Company (HWC) catalog that related to their manual capstan and windlass machinery. Since the patents listed in the figure were several decades prior to the publication date, the design spans the time the Galilee was built, and is likely representative of the type she carried. This is the scanned engraving of the machinery from the catalog. Compare this design with the image in the previous post. The wildcat brake actuators consist of forked lever rods that engage the band brakes from the forecastle deck, rather than screw actuators mounted on the main deck as I drew them. It turns out that Galilee did indeed have this type of brake control, as indicated in the following photograph, which was taken in 1905 during her outfitting as a magnetic research vessel. I also discovered from this photo that the capstan was mounted on a base about 8–10 inches high. This is referred to in HWC catalog, so I will need to include that detail in the final plans. So I am now much more confident that I have identified at least a plausible anchor handling gear for this vessel, and can now move on to other deck furniture. Terry *Maine Maritime Museum contact information: Anne Witty, Chief Curator Maine Maritime Museum 243 Washington Street Bath, Maine (ME) 04530 Tel: 207-443-1316, ext. 328 Email: witty@maritimeme.org

FYI, Shapeways, the 3D printing company, shared an email today that lists five popular (and free) 3D drafting programs that you can use to create models suitable for 3D printing. They are: TinkerCAD Sketchup (good for creating deck furniture, rigging components, etc. Frames and planking are more difficult) Sculptris (a free version of Zbrush) 3D Slash (not recommended for ship modeling; too blocky) Ultimaker's Cura (checks models before 3D printing) And there are always Blender and DELFTship. These are also free, but their learning curves are pretty steep. Terry

Hi Matle, The items you labeled "1" and "2" in your original post are probably chesstrees. These are vertical timbers of wood fastened to the inside surfaces of bulwarks (or frames) for the purpose of redirecting the tacks and sheets of the lower courses for belaying. Their designs appear to be quite variable. Some have sheaves incorporated into their upper ends. Others seem to be more like vertically-oriented, one-ended cleats, with the "thumb" of lower end used to change the direction of the line. They are described in The Art of Rigging by George Biddlecombe and in The Ship Model's Assistant by Charles G. Davis, as well as on-line. Davis's book includes a diagram of a typical chesstree found in a 17th-century sailing vessel. Matthew Turner's Galilee (also a late 19th century, West Coast merchant) had four chesstress on both bulwarks. The Smithsonian plans identify them and show a cross section, regrettably not very clearly. The photo below shows a pair of chesstrees on Galilee's port bulwark. Hope this helps answer your question. Terry

Aaannd .... here is the final image in this topic showing the capstan and windlass in the context of the forecastle space. Based on my reconstruction of the Galilee plans, there will be about 39 inches of room between decks, so I had to downscale the windlass machinery to fit. I also flipped the clutch actuator so that I could maximize the size of the rest of the equipment. The image seems tilted because the equipment rests on the extreme forward sweep of the deck sheer. There is a 4-degree slope at this point on the deck. Anchor chain comes up from the chain locker through pipes in the deck immediately below the wildcats and lead forward through chain stoppers (not shown) to the hawse pipes in the bow.

Here is my reconstruction of the Galilee's capstan, based on the DTM photo of the upper 2/3 of the actual capstan, with reference to a 1915 Hyde Windlass Company catalog and a random photo of another similar capstan I found on a photo sharing site. While Sketchup can support creating such models, there is a lot of fiddly mesh editing that is required, involving many hundreds (thousands?) of faces and edges. To minimize this cleanup, I created a clean version of a one-sixth sector of the capstan, then did a rotational copy five times to duplicate the sector, resulting in a complete model. The next step will be to marry the capstan to the windlass, then place them in context with the decks and structural members as they would have been on the ship itself. This will help me work out the details for framing in the vicinity of this machinery. Terry