Roger Pellett

Our men’s book group just read and discussed the Caine Mutiny in memory of its author Herman Wouk who died earlier this year at age 103. It is an excellent piece of naval fiction as well as a fine portrait of life on a small combatant, in this case a minesweeper built from a converted four stack destroyer. If you have seen the movie, the book adds a lot that was cut and Queeg is not the same character as the one that Humphrey Bogart played. Wouk served on one of these ships and writes from experience.

At an NRG conference several years ago there was a presentation from the US Navy’s David Taylor Hydrodynamics Lab about building a model of one of the steam powered cruisers built by the US Navy during the Civil War. This vessel had a copper sheathed bottom. The model’s builders used 3M transfer tape to stick the plates to the hull. This transfer tape comes on a waxed paper backing. When the backing is peeled off only the adhesive remains. There are many different strengths of adhesive available. I tried this technique on the hull of a Great Lakes freighter model except that I used brass instead of copper. The adhesive from the tape was not strong enough to prevent the brass from curling up and I set the model aside. The idea is interesting enough for me to try again with softer copper. Roger

Stein, There is an active about similated rivets below on the forum under the “modeling tips” category. What adhesive a re you planning to use to glue the copper to the. Hull? Roger

That’s a shame. Roger

Back in the mid 1970’s Robert Caro published a lengthy series of articles in the Nautical Research Journal about sailing navy yard craft. Somewhat short on text but nice redrawn drawings, British, American, and Danish including one, I believe the first of the crane barges shown above. Lots of unusual subjects. Roger

Amazing! Literally a forest of timbers. Roger

An RIB? Things change. During my 1964 summer tour on Loyalty she was still equipped with a trusty 26ft motor whaleboat, probably the plastic, non magnetic variety. My best memories were being in the motor whaleboat, probably because I was out from under the captain’s thumb. I spent one day aboard a Japanese minesweeper. At the end of the day, the Japanese squadron commander sent Loyalty a signal “send your boat to pick up your officer.” I felt like a big shot! While sweeping (practice) mines we went back and forth like mowing a lawn. Since there were four vessels in the squadron ships would be moving in opposite directions in adjacent lanes. It was essential for the OOD and in my case the JOOD to understand the actual width of the sweep gear as it was possible to hook the gear of the ship coming in the opposite direction. On one occasion, the captain came boiling out of his sea cabin behind the bridge concerned that we going to do just that! Brian, a nice “first scratch build” of an interesting subject. Roger

Metal working unfortunately takes a backseat to woodworking here. Please expand on your techniques, and thank you!! Roger

Many many years ago, a work colleague told me that he was going to remove a pear tree from his property and he would give me the logs. I found a local saw mill that was willing to cut them up and wound up with a stack of boards. When I moved from Southeastern, Ohio to Duluth, MN the movers moved them. They then sat in a “cool dry place” for many years until I finally cut them into blocks. Jaager is right, I was amazed at the amount of waste just to get clear blocks from rough cut boards. One of the problems of using a professional saw mill is that you have little or no control how the logs are sawn. Knowing what I know now about the structure of wood I probably could have had the logs milled to reduce waste. You are fortunate to have access to this wonderful modeling wood. Roger

Gregory, In my first post I misspoke. The drawing th today you show, actually shows planking covering the deadwood. I was trying (unsuccessfully) to explain my concerns regarding the model’s hull form. I have tried to better explain my criticisms in my second post. Roger

Ships boats were designed for different tasks and hull shape reflected this. Longboats were intended as the heavy lifters with large heavily built hulls for hauling water, setting out anchors, etc. British Longboats were designed with relatively narrow sterns with graceful “wineglass” shape. Bows were bluff at the shear strake with a modified wineglass shape providing a finer waterline below. This design reflected the fact that British longboats in the mid 1700’s usually lifted heavy items like kedge anchors from the bow. The bow shape would have gained considerable buoyancy as immersion increased when lifting a heavy weight and the fine lined stern would have reduced resistance at rowing speeds. In the late 1700’s longboats began to be superseded by a different boat called a Launch. Launches had wider, fuller sterns with a much more abrupt transition between the hull and the deadwood. In some cases the transom was U shaped with the deadwood forming a vertical fin below. Launches were provided with stern davits to allow heavy weights to be lifted from the stern. The wider, fuller, stern provided needed buoyancy as the heavy weight immersed the stern. In short, the model described by this kit looks more like a Launch than a longboat. Roger

Hans, Nice work and an interesting project. A question. Does the ANCRE monograph include an lines drawing of the vessel? I believe that some of their monographs include only lofted frame shapes but no complete lines drawings. Roger

In the wet blanket department- This appears to be a scaled up version of their 1:48 scale longboat. At any rate, the body plan shown on the drawing above looks more like a late Eighteenth Century Launch than a mid Eighteenth Century Longboat. Specifically, Longboats had planked up deadwoods. This model has an unplanked deadwood. Compare this with Syren’s much more accurate 1:24 Medway longboat and you will see the difference. Roger

Interesting video! Unlike modern “high tech” rowing, this appears to be all arms and backs with short strokes and no feathering. Maybe there is a rower on the forum that can enlighten us on ancient rowing mechanics. Also, does anyone know what the slots in the looms of the oars are for? Roger

Picture below of an American Schooner with sweeps stored in bundles ootboard on each quarter. Antoine Roux painted vessels that he saw in the Mediterranean from life and his work is generally considered to be highly accurate. Roger