Kenchington

Looks like the answer is "sometimes". Crothers ("The American-Built Clipper Ship 1850-1856", published 1996, p.484) said: "the belaying points --sometimes as belaying pins, sometimes as cleats-- followed a loosely similar pattern" He meant "similar" among the various ships. Crothers had done a vast amount of research but he was not as careful as he could have been about citing evidence, so I do not know where he got his information about the use of cleats for belaying lines. Also, his use of terminology was a bit off sometimes, which does not inspire confidence in his interpretations of documentary sources. For example, he mentioned what he called "cavils" (my "kevels", which I think is the English spelling, though I ought to check), which he describes as "large, wooden cleats" used for "mooring lines" (when "mooring" involved lying to two anchors, a quite different process from "tying up" alongside!). Functionally, a cavil/kevel does serve as a giant alternative to a horned cleat but it is only a "cleat" in the sense employed by ignorant yachtsmen, who use the term for any belaying point (including cam cleats, clam cleats and any number of later do-dads). American clippers had "cleats", so called, on every yardarm, to stop the rigging sliding inboard along the yard, but those were not horned cleats and they weren't belaying points. So it is easy to get confused and I can't be certain that Crothers wasn't. Still, if you use some cleats for belaying lines on a model clipper, you could cite good authority! Without detracting from that, I'd advise keeping horned cleats for the lighter lines. Ensign halliard, for sure, but not the topsail halliards! It is almost impossible to make a horned cleat without some part of the strain coming into line with the grain, where wood is weak. Belaying pins and cavils/kevels avoid that by employing two or more pieces of wood, with their grain perpendicular. Light lines bearing light loads are OK with wood cleats and they are fine for small boats. The large ropes and heavy strains on a sailing ship demand something tougher -- including the iron cleats on mast bands seen on later ships. And, as you started this thread asking about cleats around the deck, I'd say a definite "no" to any belaying point set at the feet of the crew. Nobody wants to be down on his hands and knees when belaying a line. Nor do you want the coil of surplus line where it would be walked on, kicked around and washed about by seas breaking aboard. Come to that, wet rope is a bad thing to have on deck planks, while water on deck is a worse thing to sit natural-fibre rope in. So a line may be rove through a turning block hooked to an eyebolt in the deck, and hauled from there, but the belaying point will be roughly at waist level for the crew. [Hardly a concern for models but I have known lines faked out on decks. The only ship with deep topsails I have ever sailed aboard, "Rose" (later of "Master & Commander" fame), had such long topsail halliards that they had to be coiled from the free end towards the belaying point, which meant figure-of-eight fakes (that looked like two coils side-by-side) if tangles were to be avoided. Also, the captain of "Stad Amsterdam" liked to have his mainsheet free to run in an emergency. It was faked along the deck, fore-and-aft by the lee bulwark. Got into bit of a mess when she dipped her scuppers under but nothing serious. Would have been impossible in a deep-laden cargo carrier, with her main deck awash much of the time.] Trevor

The Danish and English/Scotish Royals were playing out a friendly rivalry with prestige ships. Kristian IV of Denmark had Tre Kroner built in 1602–04 by (Anglo-Scottish) David Balfour. In 1606, Kristian sailed to London in her, to visit his brother-in-law, James I & VI. The English monarch decided that he wanted one too and had Prince built during 1608-10. Some have said that she was a direct copy of the Danish original, though she proved far less effective -- maybe through being overloaded with too great a weight of guns. Caught up in his war against Sweden, Kristian next went one-better with Stora Sophia, launched in 1627. James had died two years before, leaving the English and Scottish thrones to his son Charles, aged 24. His brother-in-law, Louis XIII of France, was a year younger still. The latter had La Couronne built, very slowly, during 1629–36. Sovereign of the Seas was, in part, a riposte in the on-going ego contest amongst the monarchs. Kristian did not immediately respond to being upstaged by the young kings but Stora Sophia was lost on active service in 1645. Kristian then ordered a replacement – and specifically one designed to surpass his nephew’s Sovereign. She was built in Christiana (now Oslo) under the direction of an English shipwright, James Robbins, who had been recruited by the Danish king in 1641. By the time that she was finished, Kristian had died and was succeeded by Frederick III, who named his new ship after his queen: Sophia Amalia. Above the waterline, she looks to have been a close copy of SotS, aside from stylistic differences in the artwork. However, the Danish ship saw war service in the Baltic, which SotS in her 1638 configuration could never have done. (On her one cruise, that year, she had barely more than 2 feet of freeboard when her lower-deck ports were open -- leaving her very vulnerable to the fate of Vasa!) Thus, the Danish ships seem to have had fuller underwater bodies than their English contemporaries, allowing them to float higher. Perhaps the shipwrights recruited by the Danish kings were men who had escaped the hidebound rules that constrained the Petts through the decades before the Civil Wars. Whether the Danish experience then fed back to the younger Pett and hence to the (successful) design of Speaker seems to be unknown.

Not quite. In running rigging, the static end of a line (to use a non-nautical term but one that perhaps avoids potential for confusion) typically has a hard eye (meaning that there is a metal thimble in the eye) spliced in. That is fastened (by hook, shackle, clevis pin or bolt) to either the thing being pulled (if the pull is direct, as with a buntline for example), to the becket on a block (if the line forms a three-part or more-powerful tackle) or else to an eye bolt -- typically one in the deck but sometimes elsewhere. I'd agree that, at full-size rather than scale, that end of a line is "never" tied to the eyebolt (jury rigging excepted) but it's the tying not the eyebolt that is never done. I'll also agree that the working end of the line is never tied to an eyebolt. But it's never exactly tied to anything. After being rove through a turning block, if necessary to allow a good pull, the working end is belayed to a belaying point -- pin, timber head, horn cleat, kevel or whatever. The important things are that the belaying point should allow for the line to be tightened as it is belayed, while not causing undue wear on the line, and that the belay should hold securely, yet be swiftly freed when needed. The classic figure-of-eight turns around a belaying pin meet those objectives, though they rely on a delicate balance of friction: Too much and the line will get worn, while you won't be able to sweat it up, too little (as with modern Kevlar and similar rope) and the line will slip. Not something we need be concerned about with models but, at full-size, there's a detail that the textbooks rarely bother to mention: Ten men haul on a line until mate or bo's'un calls "Belay!" Then they can rest their weight on the line, holding the tension. But how to transfer the line to its pin, without the line running back through the blocks? Turns out that (with the high friction of hemp or manilla rope), one man's hands can hold the parts of the tackle together firmly enough that they won't run across one another. The next command is something like: "Come up!", which tells the men on the line to take a step forward. If the friction fails and the line slips, they can throw their weight back onto the line. If not, most drop it while the man nearest to the block swiftly belays the line. I wondered about that for years, before seeing it done. Trevor

And by how often the (far more expensive) stay had to be replaced. On my one voyage aboard "Stad Amsterdam", the sailmaker moaned about how fast the (very expensive) bronze hanks wore out. But even frequent replacement of those was a lesser expense than the wear-and-tear of the steel stays that harder hanks would have caused.

You do very well indeed for someone who was not raised on English as their birth tongue! I'm sort of bilingual too but in my case it's Common English and Nautical English. They are more different than American English is from English English, in the received versions of both. Maybe more than South Asian English is from either of the others. One of the oddities of English when dealing with technicalities is that there are fewer terms available than there are things to be named, yet the few terms are not used efficiently, with multiple alternatives being applied to the same thing in different circumstances. (Look at all the kinds of fish called "cod", yet the original Atlantic cod becomes "scrod" in New England, when served on a seafood platter.) That's especially serious in Nautical English, because of the complexities of nautical technology. My favourite is "futtock" and the entirely unrelated "futtock shroud", while a futtock can be almost indistinguishable from a "top timber" or "naval timber" in some hulls. We could add a "bend", as in a shipwright's draught or its realization in timber, versus a "bend" as in a "sheet bend" or "carrick bend". There are endless opportunities for confusion until to are well immersed in the language. As for "hank": Yes, it can mean a rather loose coil of yarn or twine -- as in a coil of the material awaiting use somewhere. (When does a "hank" in that sense become a "skein"? When it is made of wool or other loose fibre, perhaps?) I don't think that the term would be used for such a coil of any cordage large enough to be called "rope". And after rope (a material) has been put to use on shipboard (thereby becoming a "line" -- not to be confused with the hull lines!) and the surplus length of that line coiled down, calling the resulting coil a "hank" would be a very lubberly mistake. Depending on how it is arranged, it would be a "coil" or a "fake" (and not "flake" -- a common misnomer). I wonder whether the early wood-hoop staysail hanks were so named because they were preceded by hanks of yarn, served over, in the manner of selvagee strops? Ain't English queer? Queer enough to drive ESL teachers to distraction! Trevor

Having boldly declared that contemporary paintings exist, I figured I should produce some. No problem if we were talking of a Brixham smack, as they continued under sail into the 1930s. It turns out that paintings of Hewett's "Short Blue" smacks are harder to find. There are some by Edwin Hayes, apparently from late in the 19th Century, such as: That gives a broad range of colour tones to choose among! While I was at it, I came across a fine painting showing a "trunking" operation by the Short Blue fleet and supposedly dating from 1860. The anonymous artist showed the sails as undressed canvas, which would certainly be wrong for 1890 but perhaps was the way in earlier decades. The immediate interest for this thread is that the cutter receiving fish just might be "Ranger" herself:

I don't think you are doing anything wrong. Far from it! I think your rigging looks very fine indeed. But you are right that a lot of half-hitches and overhand knots look too bulky. First off: I'd recommend starting your reading with Ashley's Book of Knots. The first chapter contains more wisdom about traditional cordage than you'll find anywhere else, while the rest of the tome presents (literally) thousands of knots used on shipboard. There are many other works, some more practical, others more historical. But Ashley's will give you the fundamentals to build on. Next: A sailing ship has many, many knots (though pedants like to fuss over when and where a complex twisting of fibres should be called a "knot" and where it should be something else, such as a "bend"). However, full-scale rigging also uses a lot of splices and seizings, which are much neater than a bunch of half-hitches. Neater but very, very challenging at 1:24, let alone smaller scales! For anything from rope represented at 1:10 up to seizing twine used aboard a (full-scale) sailing dinghy, I find that tuck spices can be useful: Pass the full thickness of the free end under a single stand and repeat, instead of opening out the strands and passing them in turn. At 1:24, eyes can be formed by a crude seizing actually formed like a whipping, without the frapping turns of a proper seizing. (It could even be finished to look like a spliced eye with a serving over the splice!) I find it best to use a West Country whipping: Pass very fine thread where you want to seize an end to make an eye, centre the work at the mid-length of the thread, tie half a reef knot around the parts forming the eye and pull tight, then pass the ends of the thread around the other side of the work and tie another half of a reef knot, bring the ends back to the front, tie again ... and keep going until you are satisfied. Finish with a reef knot, dab of white glue, then cut off the ends of the thread. The great thing with the West Country, rather than a common whipping, when working at scale is that the first couple of knots stabilize the work, after which it is a whole lot easier to proceed. Beyond that, I'd say get imaginative. I've just represented the Mathew Walker knots on my dory's stern becket by tucking each strand once as though starting a back splice, then bringing those strands back over the knot so formed, pulling them together and cutting off short. Crude, ugly and bulky – but much nicer than the overhand knots recommended in Model Shipway's instructions, while being far, far easier than an actual Mathew Walker!

Dressed sails could show any of a wide variety of colours, depending on the mixture used to dress them, which varied from place to place -- and depending on how much weather they had seen since last being dressed. However, if you seek historical accuracy, you need to approximate the colour used in the prototype of your model. The Scots went for a very dark shade, so a zulu or fifie should have almost black sails. In southern England, shades much closer to modern "tanbark" Dacron sailcloth were more normal, though I think the Norfolk wherries had near-black and that may have been used in other places besides. I don't know of any colour photos of trawling smacks from before the few survivors were given Dacron outfits (or maybe I should say "Terylene", as they likely all have the ICI version of DuPont's fibre) and my own experience aboard a smack was long after she had been decked out in artificial fibre. However, there are contemporary paintings that you could find with a Google image search, which would give you a fair idea of how the originals looked. I'd certainly not go for Vanguard's wine-like version. That looks way too purple to my eye. Also, while dying the fabric: Flax sailcloth should be almost opaque even before being dressed and certainly after. I doubt that, even in bright sunlight, you'd see the shadow of one sail through the fabric of another, when looking up-sun. I'm not suggesting that a model sail should be made that opaque but don't worry about the dye reducing translucency. The sails should not be translucent! Trevor

I get a weird feeling that I am quietly following in your tracks! I'm still building the fishing gear to fit out my version of the Model Shipways dory, then it will be the pram, followed by the lobster sloop. I've already wondered about the NRG half-hull planking exercise and cast my eye over Vanguard's range of fishing craft. Something about great minds being led up the same path ... As to Ranger: I suspect that the kit is based on the draught that March took off a model loaned him by Robert M. Hewitt. March gives the 1864 construction date but the current Robert Hewett (Robert G.) has a listing of the family's vessels on his website ( https://shortbluefleet.org.uk/vessels-test-page/ ) which shows only the one Ranger: Built at Wivenhoe in 1847 and gone from the fleet sometime after 1863. I have no way to guess which is correct but March was breaking much new ground and a few mistakes along the way would not be surprising. I was in touch with Robert a few years ago and I dare say that he would be willing to explain how he came to the particular details he has listed. March provides one set of spar dimensions and the corresponding sail plan. In his text, however, he wrote of the boom of the summer rig overhanging the taffrail by 14 feet! That would make for a dramatic model, though you would need corresponding dimensions for the gaff and topmast (maybe the bowsprit and topsail yard too). They might exist. The Essex county archives hold some Hewett material, including a notebook of trawl designs from the 1890s, when they were experimenting with new-fangled otter trawling. It's unlikely but not impossible that data on the family's cutters of the mid-19th Century have survived. I'll be looking in from time to time to see your model progress but, next up, will be your pram build log! Trevor

I am not sure how "modern" you mean. Ships' boats since the turn of the millennium are often fully enclosed lifeboats or RIBs. If you are thinking of late-20th Century boats, I think the answer lies in psychology as much as practicality. Gratings on ships can be ways to permit air circulation without having dangerous gaps in the decks but they had other purposes too. They provide better grip for a man's feet than planking can and so got used where there was need for some special stance: around the binnacle on a warship's bridge or to raise the helmsman on a big sailing ship, so that a larger wheel (more leverage) could be fitted (to give two but examples). From that, gratings become associated with command and control, hence with officers, and thereby become a mark of elite status -- a role enhanced by the greater cost and more elaborate appearance. Boats could be fitted with gratings in the sternsheets, while the oarsmen had their feet on simple floorboards, for example. That notion of gratings as being more "classy" is perpetuated in the yachting world, with teak gratings over GRP cockpit soles for those so inclined. I know that the same notion was long maintained for ships' boats and probably longer for elite ship's elite boats (Admiral's barges carried aboard major warships, for example) than for run-of-the-mill boats. I'd not be surprised if models extend the fashion even longer than their prototypes. Gratings just look so nautical. Trevor

I'll echo Mark's approval of your bringing the Duchess back to life, for those lucky enough to see your restoration. What a remarkable ship she was! The second SCUBA dive I ever made was on her bones, in Starehole Bay, and I went back a few times after. It's hard to admit but that was closer to the date of her loss than from my visit to her until today. How a lifetime can slip away ... Trevor

I tend to agree on the "theoretical value" explanation. I have never heard of ships-of-the-line being rowed and it is hard to see how they could have been, with the decks encumbered by their guns. Conversely, it would not be out of character for an author of a technical treatise to want to fill a table with numbers, even irrelevant numbers. Perhaps there is another explanation, however: Using contemporary British terminology (and Steele was writing of British practices): When a ship was laid up In Ordinary, her guns were returned to the Ordnance Board's gunwharf. I think it was also normal to send them ashore whenever a ship was docked, so that the weight did not strain the hull, and docking was frequent in the era before coppering. I wonder whether the dockyards kept some very long sweeps on hand, to facilitate movement of ships under their care. The sweeps could have been taken out to a ship that had been stripped of her armament (perhaps with her rig stripped to a gantline too), the looms passed in through lower-deck gunports and men set to rowing. That would have given better control, when moving a bare hull to align with the entrance of a drydock, than a collection of boats filling the role later given to harbour tugs. I have never heard mention of such a practice, but the technical details of dockyard work got less attention from contemporary authors than did the operations of ships in commission and hence under the command of gentlemanly officers.

Fascinating! I knew of Steele's work on masting etc. but not his treatment of oars. I wonder whether anyone actually tried moving a First Rate with 52ft sweeps -- and where they might have been stowed when not in use! Trevor

I'm still working on ModelExpo's Lowell dory, so I'm some way from thinking about the Muscongus Bay sloop. However, for what it's worth: My (full-size) boat is not much shorter than a lobster sloop, though a good deal lighter. I have her rigged in clunky 19th-Century style, rather than anything sleek and yacht-like, yet the parrel beads on the jaws of her gunter spar are only about an inch in diameter -- call it 1mm at scale. Go for the smallest you can find or, like the instructions say, go without. Trevor

Thanks Andy! I was aboard Provident again in Portsmouth in 2002, when she looked much as she had when I crossed to Brittany and back with her, in 1976. Still as much yacht as trawling smack, though a lesson in working sail nevertheless, for anyone willing to look beyond the surface. In '02 she had just finished a Tall Ships "race", while I had sailed from Bremerhaven, via Rostock, on Kruzenshtern. So a purely chance meeting. Trevor