CDR_Ret

we're making masks for the medical caregivers too.  But now elastic is out of stock, so we're making them with long ties that can be trimmed to length.  My daughter creates fabric print designs and contracts with a printer to produce a sampler proof cloth for the designs.  She's now cutting up the proof samplers for masks.
 
 

Well, with the coronavirus panic-buying depleting all the dust masks at our local home improvement stores, I was at a standstill with some of my workshop projects. However, my  wife has been following some fabric arts forums where they are discussing making masks for hospitals to supplement those needed for non-critical care situations, so they can use the N-95-esq masks for critical care/COVID-19 cases.
 
So, she found the pattern, we selected a fabric, got the elastic bands, and I made a nose-bridge support out of a piece of copper wire.
 
The result looks like it will work fine!

 

Well, with the coronavirus panic-buying depleting all the dust masks at our local home improvement stores, I was at a standstill with some of my workshop projects. However, my  wife has been following some fabric arts forums where they are discussing making masks for hospitals to supplement those needed for non-critical care situations, so they can use the N-95-esq masks for critical care/COVID-19 cases.
 
So, she found the pattern, we selected a fabric, got the elastic bands, and I made a nose-bridge support out of a piece of copper wire.
 
The result looks like it will work fine!

 

That looks like it will work fine. I bought a pack of N-95s about 3 weeks ago. Good thing I did too as I've been power carving basswood which is really dusty. Also I gave two to some friends who have been cleaning out an old house and a shop that were mouse infested. You can geet the Hanta virus from mouse waste. Anyway good on your wife. I see mostly women doing this around the country where they can get the material.  Bill

Well, with the coronavirus panic-buying depleting all the dust masks at our local home improvement stores, I was at a standstill with some of my workshop projects. However, my  wife has been following some fabric arts forums where they are discussing making masks for hospitals to supplement those needed for non-critical care situations, so they can use the N-95-esq masks for critical care/COVID-19 cases.
 
So, she found the pattern, we selected a fabric, got the elastic bands, and I made a nose-bridge support out of a piece of copper wire.
 
The result looks like it will work fine!

 

Well, with the coronavirus panic-buying depleting all the dust masks at our local home improvement stores, I was at a standstill with some of my workshop projects. However, my  wife has been following some fabric arts forums where they are discussing making masks for hospitals to supplement those needed for non-critical care situations, so they can use the N-95-esq masks for critical care/COVID-19 cases.
 
So, she found the pattern, we selected a fabric, got the elastic bands, and I made a nose-bridge support out of a piece of copper wire.
 
The result looks like it will work fine!

 

Living a couple of blocks away from her last resting place, I watched the tides wash over Galilee's keel for many years. I should have taken a closer look, but it's too late now. (Her transom is (was?) preserved at Ft. Mason,  Golden Gate Recreation Area, San Francisco.) 
 
I'll offer a few observations, 
 
1.   How could those DTM guys know the keel to garboard faying surface was pointed, unless they pulled the garboard, which they wouldn't have done because they had no need to do it if they were only looking to identify the fastenings. Turner's own yard built the ships he designed and he personally supervised the building. I would hazard to guess he did not draw any design details remotely close to what the DTM guys drew. His crew knew how he engineered his vessels and didn't need to be told how to lay out a garboard seam. Ergo: It's a pretty safe bet that aside from the placement of the keel bolts visible to the DTM surveyors, the rest of the drawing depicting what they couldn't see is likely some lubber's fantasy.
 
2.  No self-respecting wooden ship builder would drive keel bolts any closer to the garboard seam than they absolutely had to. That arrangement looks to me like it's sure to leak in short order. It's clear from the DTM drawing that whoever drew it didn't know shipbuilding because all of the drifts were drawn as being driven straight down. Drifts are always driven at opposing angles so as to lock the timbers together. 
 
3.  It's very hard to believe any wooden ship builder of that time, and particularly one as practical as Turner, would ever find a justification for building a "pointed" garboard and rabbet. It would be difficult and expensive work for no benefit, for all the reasons you noted. For what it's worth, this old wooden boat guy has seen more garboard seams and rabbets than he'd like to remember, "in the flesh" and on paper, and I've never, ever, see one a "pointed" one.
 
4.  With a nod to Howard I. Chapelle's tremendous contributions to the preservation of the American maritime heritage, the HAMMS lines are notorious for errors. Don't forget HAMMS was a WPA project designed to make work for unemployed architects, surveyors, photographers, and draftsmen and not all of them had specifically maritime trade skills. We can't be too hard on them, but we have to remember they are "secondary sources" and not primary historical records.
 
I'd say you'd be safe in using "common practice at the time" to "fill in the blanks" where there are gaps or "inexplicables" in the available record. Chapelle was quite forthright about doing the same in his work. Sometimes one has to extrapolate.

It seems very atypical the way it was drafted. I'd concur with Mr. Cleek. And wrestling a 6" thick plank bow and stern would be a mighty task: it would have to be tapered in thickness.

Thanks, Bob.
 
I'm in complete agreement with your assessment of the DTM draftsmen. During the field assessment, the engineers may have been able to obtain some verbal description of the hull's construction to add to what could have been visually verified from inside the hull. But trying to put all that together into dimensional drawings may have included some guesses.
 
As I noted in several posts in my Galilee thread, Berger's plans, or at least the subject, seem to predate the HAMMS project, which occurred in 1936–37. That idea may be in error. Berger's plans show her as a brigantine, but by the early-30s she was a an aging three-masted fishing schooner and had many alterations to support the fishing industry. According to her history documented in R.A. Stradford's Brigantine, Schooner, Houseboat: Journeys of the Galilee, the vessel was purchased by an ex-pat British captain named John Quinn, who with his wife used it as a houseboat, beached in the Sausalito mudflats from 1934 until the late 1950s.  
 
The Berger plans include a note thanking J. Quinn as the last owner of the Galilee (as well as Ray Bowes) for assistance in the production of the plans. However, the plans show the ship as a brigantine, so he must have used the ship-as-houseboat mainly to confirm her overall dimensions and arrangement. His plans, which are now part of the HAMMS archive (and are copies of copies of copies ...) look very similar to C.G. Davis's Rudder magazine drawings from 1899, including the erroneous transom shape.

With the ship moored and/or in the mud, I'm not sure how Berger could have validated much of the keel configuration.
 
So, I think I will do the best I can to map out the rabbet assuming a more-or-less rectangular garboard strake that tapers from 6" to 3" thick in the vicinity of the bow and stern.
 
Terry

Thanks, Bob.
 
I'm in complete agreement with your assessment of the DTM draftsmen. During the field assessment, the engineers may have been able to obtain some verbal description of the hull's construction to add to what could have been visually verified from inside the hull. But trying to put all that together into dimensional drawings may have included some guesses.
 
As I noted in several posts in my Galilee thread, Berger's plans, or at least the subject, seem to predate the HAMMS project, which occurred in 1936–37. That idea may be in error. Berger's plans show her as a brigantine, but by the early-30s she was a an aging three-masted fishing schooner and had many alterations to support the fishing industry. According to her history documented in R.A. Stradford's Brigantine, Schooner, Houseboat: Journeys of the Galilee, the vessel was purchased by an ex-pat British captain named John Quinn, who with his wife used it as a houseboat, beached in the Sausalito mudflats from 1934 until the late 1950s.  
 
The Berger plans include a note thanking J. Quinn as the last owner of the Galilee (as well as Ray Bowes) for assistance in the production of the plans. However, the plans show the ship as a brigantine, so he must have used the ship-as-houseboat mainly to confirm her overall dimensions and arrangement. His plans, which are now part of the HAMMS archive (and are copies of copies of copies ...) look very similar to C.G. Davis's Rudder magazine drawings from 1899, including the erroneous transom shape.

With the ship moored and/or in the mud, I'm not sure how Berger could have validated much of the keel configuration.
 
So, I think I will do the best I can to map out the rabbet assuming a more-or-less rectangular garboard strake that tapers from 6" to 3" thick in the vicinity of the bow and stern.
 
Terry

Hi all. After a hiatus of nearly six months, I have been able to get back to working out some of the details of Matthew Turner’s brigantine Galilee.
 
While attempting to clean up the rabbet along the keel, stem, and sternpost in DELFTship, I ran into some issues that call into question the original G.C. Berger plans I obtained from the Smithsonian. This isn't the first time this has happened. Check out my research and design log on this ship. So the following is a series of technical questions about rabbet lines and garboard strakes.
 
Let’s start with a description of the rabbet at the dead flat. The following diagram was created by the scientist-engineers at the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, Carnegie Institution, Washington, D.C. (DTM) sometime around 1904–5, when they were planning the conversion of Galilee from a merchant ship in the Tahiti trade to a magnetic research vessel. They needed to know where all the ferrous hardware was located in the hull to figure out the magnetic constants for the ship. For that reason, they took fairly good measurements of the hull, though their drafting skills could have used some work … Note that the inner rabbet line lies at the point where the frame intersects the face of the keel. This is a key factor in the following discussion.
 
The back rabbet and rabbet as shown in the first diagram do not conform to the shape shown in many references. In most diagrams, the back rabbet line lies on the face of the frame, which intersects the rabbet at a right angle. Instead, in this diagram, the top surface of the garboard is beveled at the inner rabbet line, giving the inner edge of the garboard a point. The top surface of the garboard strake ends at the inner rabbet line, the “point” is at the back rabbet line, and the bottom corner is at the outer rabbet line. I’m not sure how the non-naval DTM engineers knew to draw the rabbet profile like this unless they obtained that detail from Matthew Turner himself.
 
According to the DTM drawing, the garboard is about 6” thick. However, the vertical dimension of the rabbet as seen in the side profile view from the outer to inner rabbet lines should vary as the angle of the frame increases or decreases along the keel. The flatter the frame, the closer the distance between the inner and outer rabbet lines should approach the thickness of the garboard. The steeper the frame (e.g., toward the bow or stern), the wider the outer to inner rabbet line distance should be. This diagram illustrates the geometry:

© Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, Carnegie Institution, Washington DC
Curiously, the Berger plans don’t indicate a significant divergence of the outer (solid) and inner (dashed) rabbet lines except at the extreme ends of the keel:

© Smithsonian Institution
Now, let’s consider the thickness of the garboard in the first diagram. As mentioned earlier, the garboard strake is 6 inches thick. The lower hull planking is 3 inches thick. This makes the garboard twice the thickness of the adjacent planking. According to Rules for the Construction and Classification of Wood Ships (ABS, 1921), garboards must have the full scantlings for at least three fifths of the length amidship. Granted these rules were promulgated thirty years after Galilee was built, they seem to agree more-or-less with other contemporary references I have found. So, if the garboard strake stays the same thickness along most of its length, the inner rabbet line is going to curve upward as the frame angle increases. Only if the garboard thins gradually as it approaches the stem and stern areas, will the inner rabbet line stay more or less parallel to the outer rabbet line.
 
Another factor is that several views of the Berger drawings show dashed lines inset at about 3 inches from the sides of the keel as shown below. These seem to indicate the depth of the back rabbet line. If the garboard strake’s thickness remains the same for most of the length of the ship as noted above, then the back rabbet line’s depth from the sides of the keel would also vary as the frame angle changes. (Another possibility is that the dashed lines show only the back rabbet line inset at the stem and stern, though they are visible in the plan view of the keel as well.)

© Smithsonian Institution
 
So, either Berger erred in drawing the inner rabbet line as a straight line for as long as he did along the keel, or the garboard changed in thickness as its angle to the keel changed to maintain that straight line. I'm in a quandary as to what the right answer is.
 
Does anyone have thoughts or critiques of this analysis?
 
A good resource for this question is this video of cutting a rabbet along the keel of a modern 150-foot wooden ship using traditional techniques. Also, check out the other links in the left margin of the video page!
 
Thanks for the assist.
 
Terry

Thanks, Bob.
 
I'm in complete agreement with your assessment of the DTM draftsmen. During the field assessment, the engineers may have been able to obtain some verbal description of the hull's construction to add to what could have been visually verified from inside the hull. But trying to put all that together into dimensional drawings may have included some guesses.
 
As I noted in several posts in my Galilee thread, Berger's plans, or at least the subject, seem to predate the HAMMS project, which occurred in 1936–37. That idea may be in error. Berger's plans show her as a brigantine, but by the early-30s she was a an aging three-masted fishing schooner and had many alterations to support the fishing industry. According to her history documented in R.A. Stradford's Brigantine, Schooner, Houseboat: Journeys of the Galilee, the vessel was purchased by an ex-pat British captain named John Quinn, who with his wife used it as a houseboat, beached in the Sausalito mudflats from 1934 until the late 1950s.  
 
The Berger plans include a note thanking J. Quinn as the last owner of the Galilee (as well as Ray Bowes) for assistance in the production of the plans. However, the plans show the ship as a brigantine, so he must have used the ship-as-houseboat mainly to confirm her overall dimensions and arrangement. His plans, which are now part of the HAMMS archive (and are copies of copies of copies ...) look very similar to C.G. Davis's Rudder magazine drawings from 1899, including the erroneous transom shape.

With the ship moored and/or in the mud, I'm not sure how Berger could have validated much of the keel configuration.
 
So, I think I will do the best I can to map out the rabbet assuming a more-or-less rectangular garboard strake that tapers from 6" to 3" thick in the vicinity of the bow and stern.
 
Terry

Hi all. After a hiatus of nearly six months, I have been able to get back to working out some of the details of Matthew Turner’s brigantine Galilee.
 
While attempting to clean up the rabbet along the keel, stem, and sternpost in DELFTship, I ran into some issues that call into question the original G.C. Berger plans I obtained from the Smithsonian. This isn't the first time this has happened. Check out my research and design log on this ship. So the following is a series of technical questions about rabbet lines and garboard strakes.
 
Let’s start with a description of the rabbet at the dead flat. The following diagram was created by the scientist-engineers at the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, Carnegie Institution, Washington, D.C. (DTM) sometime around 1904–5, when they were planning the conversion of Galilee from a merchant ship in the Tahiti trade to a magnetic research vessel. They needed to know where all the ferrous hardware was located in the hull to figure out the magnetic constants for the ship. For that reason, they took fairly good measurements of the hull, though their drafting skills could have used some work … Note that the inner rabbet line lies at the point where the frame intersects the face of the keel. This is a key factor in the following discussion.
 
The back rabbet and rabbet as shown in the first diagram do not conform to the shape shown in many references. In most diagrams, the back rabbet line lies on the face of the frame, which intersects the rabbet at a right angle. Instead, in this diagram, the top surface of the garboard is beveled at the inner rabbet line, giving the inner edge of the garboard a point. The top surface of the garboard strake ends at the inner rabbet line, the “point” is at the back rabbet line, and the bottom corner is at the outer rabbet line. I’m not sure how the non-naval DTM engineers knew to draw the rabbet profile like this unless they obtained that detail from Matthew Turner himself.
 
According to the DTM drawing, the garboard is about 6” thick. However, the vertical dimension of the rabbet as seen in the side profile view from the outer to inner rabbet lines should vary as the angle of the frame increases or decreases along the keel. The flatter the frame, the closer the distance between the inner and outer rabbet lines should approach the thickness of the garboard. The steeper the frame (e.g., toward the bow or stern), the wider the outer to inner rabbet line distance should be. This diagram illustrates the geometry:

© Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, Carnegie Institution, Washington DC
Curiously, the Berger plans don’t indicate a significant divergence of the outer (solid) and inner (dashed) rabbet lines except at the extreme ends of the keel:

© Smithsonian Institution
Now, let’s consider the thickness of the garboard in the first diagram. As mentioned earlier, the garboard strake is 6 inches thick. The lower hull planking is 3 inches thick. This makes the garboard twice the thickness of the adjacent planking. According to Rules for the Construction and Classification of Wood Ships (ABS, 1921), garboards must have the full scantlings for at least three fifths of the length amidship. Granted these rules were promulgated thirty years after Galilee was built, they seem to agree more-or-less with other contemporary references I have found. So, if the garboard strake stays the same thickness along most of its length, the inner rabbet line is going to curve upward as the frame angle increases. Only if the garboard thins gradually as it approaches the stem and stern areas, will the inner rabbet line stay more or less parallel to the outer rabbet line.
 
Another factor is that several views of the Berger drawings show dashed lines inset at about 3 inches from the sides of the keel as shown below. These seem to indicate the depth of the back rabbet line. If the garboard strake’s thickness remains the same for most of the length of the ship as noted above, then the back rabbet line’s depth from the sides of the keel would also vary as the frame angle changes. (Another possibility is that the dashed lines show only the back rabbet line inset at the stem and stern, though they are visible in the plan view of the keel as well.)

© Smithsonian Institution
 
So, either Berger erred in drawing the inner rabbet line as a straight line for as long as he did along the keel, or the garboard changed in thickness as its angle to the keel changed to maintain that straight line. I'm in a quandary as to what the right answer is.
 
Does anyone have thoughts or critiques of this analysis?
 
A good resource for this question is this video of cutting a rabbet along the keel of a modern 150-foot wooden ship using traditional techniques. Also, check out the other links in the left margin of the video page!
 
Thanks for the assist.
 
Terry

I may have to find your hobby shop and talk to this person. Painting plastic models frightens me to no end. I feel compelled to use an airbrush but anytime I look (window-shop) at airbrushes I get overwhelmed and go hide in a corner :-). 
 
Looking forward to following along!

The stack should not face into the wind - otherwise the stack doesn't work and it gets real smokey below decks real quick besides playing havoc with the stove fire.
Kurt

Chief,
 
There are  number of issues to consider-
 
First there are loadline rules established by international agreement.  These rules assign a freeboard to a vessel based on its design, with the ship presumably in good condition.  The Plimsoll mark painted on the side of the hull defines the vessel’s minimum freeboard under different situations:  Winter North Atlantic, Summer, Fresh Water, etc.  Unless the basic design of the ship were to be changed there would be no reason to change the freeboard.  Freeboard could be changed by making what might seem to be minor changes.  For example making a deck previously open to the weather watertight by permanently closing openings might allow the load line to be changed but this would depend entirely on the vessel’s design vs the load line rules.
 
Second, most ships are insured.  To obtain insurance the owner must have the vessel surveyed by a “classification society.”  In the USA the society is ABS, The American Bureau of Shipping.  They will review the vessel’s design and its construction, and will publish a rating.  A less than A-1 rating will cause insurance underwriters to set high rates or possibly refuse to insure the vessel and its cargo.  Each classification society publishes its own rules that would cover the repairs needed to correct the condition you describe to allow it to pass a survey.
 
Third the US Coast Guard is charged with ensuring that vessels sailing in US waters are seaworthy.  They have the authority to enforce rules published by others such as the freeboard organizations plus those that they publish plus those issued by various other governmental agencies.
 
As they say, “it’s complicated,” but the short answer is I don’t see how repairing a vessel can allow its freeboard to be reduced.
 
Roger

I read the title “Professional Help Needed” and saw you were also a Chief Torpedoman so I said to self “Well at least he is asking”

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

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

Mike,
 
The attached pictures illustrates how I stowed the windlass break handles on the forward bulwark on my Maine Topsail Schooner Eagle of 1847 build.
 
Regards,
Pete

Harold Underhill has a book called Masting and Rigging the Clipper Ship and Ocean Carrier.  He describes the standard and usual method of rigging for civilian ships.  Also included is a fold out diagram of the belaying locations with a comprehensive and cross referenced index.
 
I think it is a great resource.
 
Regards,

Always check ABEbooks.com for old or out of print books.  They are a consolidator and have access to an amazing collection of book sellers.
Maury

I bought my copy on Amazon about a month ago.
 
Regards,

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.