Roger Pellett

Ancre recently published a monograph about French Longboats between the late 1600’s and early 1:800’s. The publication includes a section on use of ships’ boats to set and weigh anchors. Steven Luce’s “Seamanship” first published in 1866 included a lengthy section on the same topic that can now be found on the Internet. The fact is is that a large sailing ship without sails is essentially imobile, and at the mercy of wind and tides, so boats were used often to handle anchors, particularly in crowded anchorages where it was necessary to set out and recover more than one anchor. While the first anchor could be dropped as posted above, the second would have to be carried out and recovered by boat. Once one or both anchors were set there were a number of mishaps that could occur requiring use of one or more boats, one being a “fouled hawse” where the ship swinging around its two anchors twisted the cables together. With the use of chain cable this problem could be avoided by shackling the two anchors to a common swivel, but this too required use of a boat. Some naval bases, particularly those with small harbors moored ships to permanent moorings. I have read a fascinating account of HMS Hood securing to one of these in Malta Harbor in the late 1930’s a complicated procedure that again, required use of one or more of her boats to first land men on the mooring buoy. Roger

Welcome to MSW! A bit of philosophy. You’ve already spent the money with the whole fleet of kits that you have bought. Pick one, read the instructions, and get to work building the model. Work as slowly as possible. If you think that you have messed something up, don’t try to instantly correct it. The next day you’ve had time to think things over to come up with a correction. It’s also possible that you have two different styles of model kits. The European kits are what are known as plank on bulkhead kits and require planking, twice, once to establish a smooth foundation, and a second time to look good. On the other hand, if it is packaged in a yellow box your Dapper Dan is a solid hull kit, entirely different. This requires finishing the “precarved” hull but no planking. Dapper Dan is Model Shipways interpretation of one of the famous Baltimore Clippers and should make an attractive model. Pick the model that you feel matches the skills that you already have and get busy. If you ruin the model to the point that you can’t repair it that’s ok. You will be better prepared to tackle the next one. We’ve all been there. And remember, drug store isopropyl alcohol dissolves hardened yellow wood workers glue. Roger

Shipman, Thanks for your post. The longboat in question is featured on a full page of May’s book making it somewhat larger than other illustrations. I expanded it on a copy machine and then took off body plan offsets. I used an Excel spreadsheet to convert offsets to compensate for planking thickness. I used the offsets to draw a 1:16 lines drawing, reduced on a precision engineering copier to the final 1:32. With my Naval Architecture background, my interest is producing models that demonstrate characteristic hull shapes and the way that these evolved over time. I have written several times on this forum about the difficulty if not the impossibility of reproducing exact hull shapes of old vessels due to minor changes introduced by the lofting/fairing process each time plans are or were redrawn. Despite concerns about copier distortion, etc., I believe that the model that I have produced accurately represents an early/mid Eighteenth Century Royal Navy longboat. My career involved significant international travel that allowed me to visit many maritime museums. As a member of a group visiting a “trash to cash” power plant in Hamburg, I extended my stay and visited the Museum at Bremerhaven. My interest was the Bremen Cog, unfortunately when I visited still in its tank of PEG. All in all, 33 years ago, it was an excellent museum, well worth a return visit especially now that the 4 masted Bark Peking will be in Hamburg Nearby. Hopefully the museum directors have resisted the temptation to turn it into a theme park. Metric/Imperial is like understanding a foreign language. I think Imperial. If I see a metric dimension, I need to mentally convert it to feet or inches to give me a sense of size. Two late October snowstorms have turned Northern Minnesota into a winter wonderland so it looks like we’ll have slippery surfaces for the next six months. Roger

If you don’t have a mill, the backwoods solution would be a rat tail file. It doesn’t look like a precision machining job is necessary. Or, perhaps Sherline would be willing to do it for you.

The reason that I posted is that from reading the current Sherline literature I agree that the adjustable back tailstock chucks have very limited range. The adjustable chuck that I remember them selling would have had to had more range to effectively turn a taper. Perhaps they still make it.

Shipman, Thanks for your post. The boat is based on an Admiralty drawing reproduced in the book “The Boats of Men of War” by W.E. May, page 90. In addition to hull lines, this drawing includes rigging details not found elsewhere. The rail is wider than the gunwale in Steele, but it needs to cover the planking edge and futtock heads which adds up to 3-3/4in plus 1-1/2 to 2in added for inboard and outboard overlap brings us to almost 6in which scales to 3/16in. The sails are model aircraft silkspan, also called Modelspan, painted with acrylic paint. Bolt ropes and reinforcements, and rope grommets were glued on. Blocks were made from pear wood and deadeyes were turned from boxwood- the real stuff like that that grows in your gardens. It sounds like your visit to Minnesota got you as far north as the Twin Cities. We live 160 miles north of there, a different world, sandwiched between Lake Superior, and the great North Woods. As I write this we are getting our second snow fall of the year. Four years ago we visited your part of the world as part of a small group garden tour of Yorkshire that ended up on Lake Windermere. It was wonderful, although the boat museum was closed giving me a reason to return in the future. My wife and I have made four trips to the UK in successive years prior to Covid19. On every trip we have met friendly, warm hearted people that made traveling a memorable experience. Roger

Another P-38 Ace, Richard Bong was a native of Poplar, Wisconsin not far from Duluth, MN where I live. For many years a P-38 was displayed outside in a Poplar town park. About 20 years ago it was trucked to the Minnesota Air Guard’s 148th fighter squadron base at the Duluth Airport and restored. The plane is now the featured display in the Richard Bong Veterans Museum in Superior, Wisconsin across the St Louis River from Duluth. It is a “silver” plane. Roger

I seem to remember that Sherline used to offer one of these adjustable tailstock chuck holders to be used for taper turning between centers. If available it might provide enough adjustment to meet your needs. It might pay to ask them. Roger

For a number of years, I have been building a series of small open boats; specifically those carried by warships throughout history. All are scratch built to a common scale of 1:32. So far, I have completed three models: A Mid Eighteenth Century Longboat, A US Navy 40ft Steam Cutter of 1890, and a U S Navy 26ft Motor Whaleboat WWII era. I enjoy working to the 1:32 scale as it allows a high level of detail and using Imperial (US) measurements, 1/32in represents 1 scale inch. I also like including a scale figure on the nameplate and 1:32 equates to a commercially available 54mm military miniature. The figure is the only purchased part. I build everything else. Researching these models can be difficult, but there are some exceptions. Complete design drawings for the entire series of 1900 Standardized USNavy Boats were recently published in a massive book that can be found on used book sites. Usually, however, it requires collecting data from various sources. So far, I can say that my models accurately represent the real thing. I have posted pictures of my longboat model on the forum’s Gallery and pictures of the other two elsewhere on the forum from time to time. I have also written two articles on the subject that were published in the Nautical Research Journal; one in 1990 about my steam cutter model, and one in 2013? about the US Navy 1900 standardized boats. I intend to add to this series as time and health permit. What are they worth? I have no idea. It is my hope that a museum will someday accept them as unlike the frigates, line of battleships, and battlecruisers, these are the boats that were commanded by very junior officers or senior enlisted men. I can also attest from limited personal experience that these boats contributed to the quality of life afloat. They picked up mail, traded movies, ferried liberty parties ashore, and provided their crews an escape, however short from the close quarters and routine of life aboard ship. I would be more than happy to share my knowledge of this subject with others. Roger

I am constantly amazed by what crews were expected (and apparently managed) to do 140 or so years ago. Imagine standing in a poorly protected gun tub on the foredeck of this gunboat in a seaway handling these heavy shells using a davit and block and tackle, all while being shot at. Roger

No, I don’t either. I suppose that people who pay a lot of money for them want them for decorator pieces. Serious collectors want one of a kind unique pieces. Roger

Too bad no drawings have been found. Alliance in my opinion gets a bad rap from historians due to her role in the Bonhomme Richard Serapis fight, but at the end of the Revolution she was the only Continental Navy ship to survive. Roger

Allen, Beautiful work! Are these posts real time? If so, your progress is astonishing. You must be a devotee of the old (1960’s) Navy expression, “If you can’t get your job done during the 24 hour day, work nights!” Roger

I have also slit brass tubing as small as 1/16in dia. to form a cap rail atop a metal bulwark on my Byrnes saw. This requires a simple jig- a hole on a block of wood clamped to the tabl.e top. Roger

Bob, a picky quibble. The longboat model on sale is the larger 1:24 scale model sold directly by Syren, not the 1 :48 scale model sold by Model Shipways. Roger

Congress was one potent warship! This account sets our conventional view of American privateers, lightly built, lightly armed, and avoiding battle with regular Royal Navy warships on its ear. Also interesting that she was entrusted to deliver official Continental Army dispatches to the French. Roger

I don’t remember. No one knows if Mayflower even had a capstan. I mentioned the article because it describes construction of a carefully researched Mayflower model or more accurately, Mayflower type ship, using available primary source material. People spend $100’s of dollars, pounds, euros, etc. buying model kits that when assembled will supposedly produce a museum quality result. The research, decisions, and compromises that went into producing the kit are unknown to the kit buyer. I take the opposite approach. I spend $0.00 on kits but am willing to spend money on research before beginning construction of a model. A very cost effective research aid is the library of articles from the Nautical Research Journal. The two CD set of back issues sells for a fraction of the price of a kit. Roger

It’s coming along nicely.

When I lived in Marietta, Ohio a Revolutionary War era re-enactment group visited and performed on the grounds of Marietta, College and Marietta’s historic Mound Cemetary where many Revolutionary War Officers are buried. It was very interesting. I believe that other than the leading roles, the cast of the movie Getteryburg were re-enactors. Northeastern Minnesota is off the beaten path for military re-enactments. We do have some of the voyeuger and fur trader re-enactments. Roger

I heartily second Jaager’s August 7th post above. Why build a model highlighting exposed framing if it doesn’t represent actual practice for the ship involved? An exception would be the overlapping frame convention for Admiralty style models of Eighteenth Century ships, a model of a model. In fact there was a huge huge variation in framing practices depending on where the ship was built and who built it. For example when the 1840’s vintage Charles W. Morganwas replanked several years ago at Mystic Seaport they were surprised to find many frame segments that were not fastened to their neighbors. They had apparently been added as planking went forward. Not all framing was fully lofted and assembled beforehand. BTW there are two Syren kit longboat models, the original 1:48 scale version and the later 1:24 scale Medford Longboat kit. While both kits are technically plank on frame, the 1:48 scale kit does not reflect actual framing practice for these boats. The 1:24 kit does feature the closer spaced frames and overlapping floors and futtocks of the actual boat. Roger

“Back in the day” when plastic models first came out they were considered to be little more than toys to be assembled by boys (girls played with dolls). Real modelers built balsa and tissue paper airplanes and wooden ships. Issues like scale, viewing distance, could be subordinated to market appeal. As late as the1990’s the Nautical Research Guild ignored the existence of plastic models completely. Times have changed and the level of realism and accuracy now incorporated into plastic models can be astonishing as demonstrated by projects on this forum. Many of these efforts feature a lot of aftermarket parts but if you are building a “vintage” kit out of the box correction of these old mold features will be required. Roger

Allen, Several year’s ago David Antscherl published an excellent article in the Nautical Research Journal about a model of Mayflower that he built based on original period shipbuilding documents. If you have not already done so, I suggest that you order a reprint from the NRG office. Roger

There was a book published here in the states several years ago by a guy who traveled through our Southern States reporting on vestiges of our Civil War that still remain 150 years after the fact. The title of the book is Confederates in the Attic. During his trip he met a number of re-enactors. Some were experts at playing dead. These guys had the ability to lay on the ground looking like a corpse. Roger

Rob, Very nice! I’m curious your method. Once you have put the Dental Stone on the hull, how do you control the hull’s shape while sanding. Templates? Roger

Ken, I just looked in on your build for the first time. Very nice! Regarding crane irons- In this context, I believe that the phrase “crane irons on the quarters for oars” refers to U shaped brackets either bolted to the sides of the hull or set into holes atop the rail to store oars when not in use. There are numerous contemporary drawings of small sailing vessels with oars suspended outboard from the quarters with rope slings but Katy apparently had iron brackets for this Roger