Kenchington

If it was me, I'd decline to get mixed up in the paperwork. Who can know, from day to day, what might be required at the border? For a small company, the hassles simply would not be worthwhile, when we in Canada only comprise a tenth of the North American market. (A tenth of the population. I don't know whether ship-modelling is more or less prevalent north of the border.) Sure it's limiting for us and, when (if?) some stability returns to trade arrangements, Model Expo will find that they have lost some market-share. But, in the interim, I'd not fault their decision. Maybe the medium-term answer would be for a Canadian company to import for re-sale, making each delivery large enough to justify the complications. But who, this side of the border, would be willing to take on the risk of purchasing multiple kits, when direct supply from Florida could re-start at any time? Trevor

There's another layer of complication here. Many people suppose that, if they own an original artwork, they also own the copyright. While laws vary from one jurisdiction to another, generally that is false and everything is copyright-free once beyond some set age (25, 50 or 75 years, perhaps) or if the creator of the original died more than some number of years ago. However, large organizations that hold original artworks, such as art galleries and museums, look to cover their expenses through fees for re-use of their images. They get around the problem by making images available for publication subject to limitations to specified uses and contractual terms that forbid other uses that have not been paid for. Thus, somebody might find a published reproduction of an 18th-Century painting (hence long out of copyright) but it would not necessarily be legal to scan that image and re-publish it, outside of the "fair use" limits. Then again, if the museum took its image-reproduction fee and failed to ensure that the licensed user included the appropriate wording in the published image caption, the image may have entered the pubic domain -- with the museum left to sue the licensed user for failure to follow its contractual obligations. Commercial publishers presumably employ lawyers who understand this stuff and keep them on the legal side of the limits. Then again, they make enough money from book sales to pay those lawyers. People posting things on Pinterest most likely ignore the rules, while the image-owners ignore the violations. MSW falls somewhere between the two and I can see why our moderators are concerned. Trevor

Photographs of Bluenose in her racing days show her cap rails as pale from bow to stern. The images were in black & white, of course, so I cannot say whether the rails were actually white, though that is very likely. In the same images, her bowsprit appears in a medium grey, so definitely not painted white. Most likely, it was finished as oiled wood -- hence a light brown stain in a model. Trevor

Only one-third as long as my pram has sat waiting to be finished! Hope to be back at that before too much longer.

Try Rodger's "The Wooden World" for an authoritative explanation. He is explicit that his book deals with the RN of the mid-18th Century, and the social structure of the navy had certainly changed by the time of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, but the seniority of captains and admirals had not. Another complication, which may account for your cases of individuals "skipping colours", was that the number of admirals in each rank and colour increased over time. In the 17th Century, with three colours and three ranks (full, vice and rear), there were only nine admirals in all. By the mid-18th, there were 30: one Admiral of the Fleet, six Admirals (three each White and Blue), eight Vice (not sure why that wasn't nine!) and 15 Rear (five of each colour). By the end of the long wars, in 1815, there were, by one claim, 219! With everyone stepping up according to seniority, each expansion of the total number will have meant a lot of officers skipping steps in the hierarchy. I can't immediately find any source that says when the RN changed to merit-based promotion of Rear, Vice and full Admirals. The final advance to Admiral of the Fleet (which very few achieved, of course) was mostly by seniority as late as 1914, though there were individual cases of exceptions from the 1890s. Trevor

Not so in the Royal Navy through to Nelson's time and beyond. The last promotion any commissioned sea officer could have was to Post Captain. Thereafter, everyone moved up by strict seniority, based on the date of being Made Post. Hence, a Rear Admiral of the Red was always senior to a Rear Admiral of the Blue because the former had been Made Post earlier. Likewise, any Vice Admiral was senior to any Rear Admiral, by date of being Made Post, besides the difference in their ranks. Commodore was certainly a temporary appointment but it did not give the individual authority over more senior officers. Instead, Admiralty had to go to some trouble to ensure that all other officers in a fleet or squadron were junior (in the date of their having been Made Post) to the chosen commander. If the latter had already achieved his flag, he served as Admiral. If insufficient vacancies had emerged at the top, the Captain chosen to command was appointed Commodore. It was a cumbersome system, that only worked because pragmatic adjustments were made to get around a rigid tradition. But it did work, more often than not! Trevor

Some are models of Bluenose II and, though she was launched before the Maple Leaf became Canada's flag, most of her long career has been after the adoption of that one. As for those kits which place the Maple Leaf on a Bluenose with fishing gear aboard: I'd just blame the arrogance and ignorance of kit manufacturers who can't be bothered to get the details right. I wonder how many kits of USN sailing warships (aside from Constitution, when portrayed as a museum ship) come with 50-star jacks and ensigns? How many representations of 18th-Century RN ships have post-1803 jacks and ensigns? How many have white ensigns when on a station where the C-in-C was a Red or Blue Admiral or when in independent service? There's more than enough kits sold with instructions calling for a jack at the main truck or the ensign staff! Sad. Trevor

Rvchima: No questioning the beauty of Bluenose! Maybe one day I'll have paired models of her and Puritan and get to study their differences. Ahh!!! Just what I needed this evening: An excuse to explore some vexillology! I've thumbed through some of MacAskill's photos of the racers. Curiously, the Canadians seem to have followed yachting etiquette and hauled down their ensigns when racing, while the Yankee schooners appear wearing the Stars and Bars. Odd. There is, however, at least one photo showing Bluenose when out for a sail with a crowd on board (some sort of outing for someone, I guess) and she then wore, as expected, the old Canadian ensign -- the defaced Red Ensign that later became a national flag. According to Wikipedia (OK: Never the most reliable source!) that was approved for use on British ships registered in Canada from 1892 (when there was, in law, no such thing as a Canadian ship). However, there was no official, nor standard, form of the defacing until one was adopted in 1922. Still, unless you wanted to be pedantic about showing Bluenose as she was in the first months of her life, the 1922 ensign would be the best one. Again following Wikipedia, it looked like: Note that the maple leaves were then green, as they remained until 1957. Trevor

Here in Nova Scotia, I'm likely to get burned in effigy (if not in person!) for admitting it, but Bluenose did not win every race she was entered in. She did not even win every series of races, though she did win every International Trophy series, from 1921 on. Besides, Puritan would have left Bluenose astern in anything but a hard blow, if Ben Pine hadn't run the big halibutter onto the Sable Island bar before she could race. No shame in that: The halibut fishery landed their huge flatfish fresh (on ice) and the schooners had to get their catches home to Gloucester before they deteriorated. The Lunenburg salt-banking fleet had to lie on Grand Bank, slowly filling their holds with split and salted cod. The two fisheries needed different schooners and, when racing-fishermen were developed from the two types, the one led to a light-weather flier, the other to a powerful vessel better able to use winds that were uncommon on the summer-time racing courses. Trevor And a P.S.: Please don't use either of those crude parodies of the modern Canadian flag! Bluenose never wore the Maple Leaf, which was only adopted many years after she was lost!

Last year, I got to drive 12-inch bronze carriage bolts lengthwise through 4-inch square teak sheet bits. The bits were glued from separate halves (4 by 4 teak being unobtainable here), so I started the bolt holes on the router table, making half-round grooves before gluing, then cleaned them up with an auger bit before trying to get the bolts through. It was still terrifying! What if the bolts stuck when half way through? There would be no way to get them out again. Fortunately, with the right lubricant and the capability to screw the bolts through, all went OK. But compare that to the drift bolts (no screw threads) that MacKay's men drove! Worse, consider Great Western, the first of the big purpose-built Atlantic steamers. She had four rows of iron bolts driven fore-and-aft through her floors and futtocks, the bolts in each row overlapping one another. Each bolt was 1.5 inches in diameter and 24 feet long. How on Earth did they bore the holes precisely enough to be sure that the bolts would not bind long before they were driven home? Come to that, how do you pound the end of a 24 ft bolt with a sledge hammer and drive it into its hole, without the exposed part of the bolt bending? And yet the job was done. Trevor

Sorry, ClipperFan, but I don't agree that the published dimensions are inconceivable. I'm not saying that they were correct, just that they could have been correct. A 46-inch total depth of keel, with 7-inch thick garboards and 39 inches of the keel outside those garboards would mean that the floors sat flush across the top of the keel. That wasn't the universal way of building a wooden ship but it was one way. The other option was to notch the floors so that they hung over the sides of the keel as far as the inboard edge of the rabbet (either of which options could have the added complication of a deadwood between keel and floors). Notching the floors meant starting with a very deep, very expensive piece and then cutting away strength where it was most needed, so there was a major incentive to lay the floors flat on top of the keel, if that could be arranged without either critical weaknesses in the structure or extra costs elsewhere. Note that the published report says that the garboards were through-bolted (each bolt passing through both garboards, edgewise, and the keel between). Thus, there was no need for solid timber to take fastenings driven from outboard, through the garboard and into the keel -- though I don't doubt that the garboards were trunnelled (from outboard) to the floors, which themselves were bolted to keel and keelson. Then again, all those copper bolts will have been expensive, not to mention the labour for boring the bolt holes and driving the bolts. Trevor

March ("Sailing Trawlers") detailed what was lashed to what else in the smacks of the early 20th Century (i.e. several decades after Ranger) but said nothing of what knots were used. His photographs are not clear enough to deduce how things were tied. Ashley (with a focus on practices aboard larger vessels) gives three alternatives: his #2119, #2120 & #2121. All of them require an eye of some kind in the end of the boat gripe (the strap, sennet or other broad material that contacts the boat without digging in to its gunwales). The lanyard is attached either to that eye or else to the ringbolt in the deck, then a bight of it is led through the other of those, the free end passed through the bight, forming a crude tackle, and heaved tight. The end is secured with a half-hitch or two, often slipped so that the boat can be freed swiftly when needed. I'd not want to suggest how to replicate that at 1:64. The simple thing would be to tie off at the ringbolt with a round turn and two half hitches, but that wouldn't look much like the full-size version. You could try a trucker's hitch: Tie an overhand loop in the rope at about the right spot, pass the free end through the ringbolt, then through the loop just tied and tighten up. (It's a brutal way to abuse rope but that's not much of a concern in a model.) Trevor

I don't think so. What looks to have been the upper edge of the angled strip is still p[resent and outside the lower edge of the plates on the garboard. Could be. I was looking at: I think that's one of the staples (is that the right term?) holding the false keel. The copper plate on the side of the keel looks to be overlying the staple, while there seems to be a break in the nailed strip along the lowest edge of the keel, where the staple passes. But, even if I am interpreting the image correctly, the bottom of the keel could have been coppered, then a rabbet cut (so that the staple would lie flush) into keel and false keel, cutting through the copper in the process, with the coppering of the side of the keel following. There's probably multiple other examples along the surviving keel remains, so whoever is working on the material may be able to figure out the sequence. Trevor

Thank you for those images! I think they will help lot of us. Back in the day, I and many others picked over the wreck of the frigate Tribune -- ex-French but captured, refitted and in RN service when lost while entering Halifax in 1797. I think (though I'm not certain) that I have some bits of her copper kicking around, if anyone wants measurements of distances between nail holes or the like. Interesting that Braak had the nails in the midst of each plate set at the corners of squares, rather than diamond fashion. It's been a long time since I paid much attention to the detail but I remember a diamond arrangement as normal. Maybe I'm wrong on that or perhaps there was a change over the decades. That's how it looks to me. Yet the narrow strip is gone, presumably from being more vulnerable to long-term corrosion. I wonder whether bending it to fit the angle between keel and garboard introduced micro fractures, which then promoted corrosion. Or perhaps the narrow strip came from a different batch of copper and electrolysis across the dissimilar metals attacked it. Yes, it looks that way. And the copper on the keel seems to cover the (bronze?) staple that held the false keel, where that lay across the keel but not where it lay on the false keel, so the copper plate was presumably trimmed around the staple. Yet that would mean that the false keel was in place when the coppering was done, so the edge of the lowest plate would have been pushed in, between keel and false keel, then nailed. A detail I would never have guessed! Always good to learn something new every day 🙂 Trevor

There's an embarrassing story to that one. For one thing, it was supposed to be the first of a series, each exploring one of the English texts. Then I found paying work in my own field and never did get the second paper finished. The one manuscript that I did submit was a complex tangle, as any account of shipwrightry must be. I was expecting to get an amended typescript back from the editor, after which I could find a third set of words that would express my meaning, while accepting his amendments to my poor expression. Instead, he went straight to typesetting and sent me proofs of a paper, with all of his amendments incorporated -- amendments which made the text much easier to read but introduced many, many technical errors. I had to scribble suggested changes into the margins. I was so disappointed that I have never been able to face reading through the published version to see what was finally produced, whether unreadable, wrong or both! I'd like to be able to offer copies of my original submitted text but I doubt that anything of that vintage is readable with modern software versions. As for Pepys: You are probably familiar with the published version of the so-called "Admiralty Manuscript" from the 1620s. When Salisbury edited that for publication, he was confronted with a difficult manuscript and made an excellent job of correcting problems and inserting missing words. Back in the 1990s, I was in regular contact with David Roberts (translator and publisher of Boudriot's books). Around that time, he was looking through the library at a large country house in England (a still-private collection) and came across what at first seemed to be two unknown manuscripts of shipwrightry. On closer inspection, he saw that they were versions of the "Admiralty Manuscript", so he photocopied them and was kind enough to send me copies. I never completed the task but I started on a three-way comparison of the versions. It was immediately clear that the problems confronting Salisbury resulted from phonetic spellings by clerks who did not understand the technicalities. I could not be sure whether all three versions were produced at the same time but they were very obviously created by one person reading an original (perhaps the now-lost 1620s manuscript), while another (or others) wrote out copies of the dictated words. I forget the details now but at least one version had the initials of the man who wrote it out and they corresponded to one of Pepys known assistants. My guess is that Pepys (who took his position on the Navy Board much more seriously than many another did) gathered what old manuscripts he could get his hands on, while also persuading Deane to write out the then-modern design methods, the better to understand ships and shipbuilding. I like to think of the man himself reading a borrowed anonymous manuscript aloud, while his clerks made a copy for Pepys own collection and perhaps others for presentation to patrons. In contrast, Pepys seems to have acquired Baker's papers, so the originals survive amongst his other material (now in Cambridge), rather than copies. All that was likely in the 1670s (late '60s to mid '80s, anyway), when Baker's work was already nearly a century old -- hence "ancient" to Pepys, though to us innovative new ideas of the very late 16th Century! Trevor