Kenchington

Ouch!

Bumpkin: Townsman's insulting term for an unsophisticated countryman, without whose labour the townsfolk would have starved. Possibly from a Dutch word with similar meaning. Modern Dutch has Boerenkinkel, literally "Farmers kink" or "twist". Boomkin, commonly pronounced Bumkin: Literally "baby boom" or "child of a boom", used of a spar projecting from the hull of a boat or ship. And yet both Smythe and Paasch, in the 19th Century, offered the "p" spelling as an alternative for the nautical meaning. Falconer and Blanckley, in the 18th, did not.

Leatherwork project completed yesterday, so I could turn back to the pram today. Before tackling the gains, I tidied up the moulds, the bevels of the bottom planks and those on the transoms which, together, must take the garboards. At first, I thought that I would have to sand a lot off one of the moulds but then realized another detail of the geometry of this build: There is no problem with the mould (shown below in tan) projecting beyond the edge of the bottom plank (orange), provided that the garboard (brown) sits on the bottom plank's bevel. The remaining gap (blue) will be an air space. The same will be true between the garboard and second strake or between the second strake and the sheerstrake. However, that is not true at the transoms, where the blue would a route for water to enter. So the moulds can (and do) project beyond the edges of the planks, before angling away to take the next plank, but the transom bevels must be sanded until they meet the edge of the previous plank. (Then the upward step shown above in orange is accommodated by the gain cut in the brown plank.) Maybe everyone else saw that long ago but it came as new understanding to me! With the existing structure of the model as good as I could get it, the time had come to nerve myself to cut gains in the planks. In the end, I hardly used the miniature chisels but (almost) only the little blocking plane. I did not attempt to follow the kit instructions, except in making each gain an inch in length, but rather custom shaped each one to suit the place where it had to fit. Each of the four was quite different in width and/or depth. At the bow, I could have carved away the garboards to nothing, so deepened the bottom-plank bevels instead. Only afterwards did I think of developing those bevels into rabbets (as Chapelle explained for full-size boat building). If I had to do it again, that is what I would do. With the bow-end gains cut, the point along the garboard where it would cross the stern transom could be found and marked, then the gain shaped, starting one inch back from there. As the gains can barely be seen, even with a magnifier, I did not attempt to photograph them. With the gains cut, it was time to glue a garboard into place, let that set, then glue the other one. I did not attempt to do both together. The instructions suggest gluing only from the bow back to the forward mould, letting that set, then doing the next length and so on. The trouble with that is that you may need to adjust the forward part of the plank a little in getting it to fit further aft. I glued and clamped, then glued further and clamped further etc., but did not wait for one length of glue to set before continuing. I did use a lot of pegs to ensure that the joint was tight, without placing too much pressure on any one point. I found that the clamped plank wanted to flare outwards, away from the moulds. Bands around those cured that tendency. Otherwise, all went well, except that the first garboard fitted drifted off position at the stern. I delayed fixing that in case I had a similar problem with the second one, when they could have been cured together. In practice, a clamp on the transom tamed the trouble: Tomorrow, I will let isopropanol work its magic and re-set half the length of the one plank. meanwhile, it is just nice to see a model begin to look like a boat! Meanwhile, I checked the two second-strake planks, which were nicely symmetrical, without the problem with the bevel line seen in other planks. So char could be cleared off, bevels shaped ... and the last task tonight was to wet those planks and mount them to dry overnight. More tomorrow.

Capt. Kelso, I saw your fabulous dory diorama while scanning build logs, before starting my own Model Shipways kit. Left me wishing I had a fraction of your skill at weathering! Since I don't, I went for a different representation. There's a couple of other aspects to the question that PqLear posed, though. For one thing, unless a ship is shown on the building ways, in dry dock or (for some) dried out on a beach somewhere, all realistic ship models should be waterline models. The underwater bodies of ships are simply not visible under normal circumstances (not even by SCUBA divers, as water is too opaque for an observer to take in a whole ship in one view). So, unless we are content with the waterline option (and few are), then any model can only be an unrealistic abstraction. That's even more true if we want to represent two or more ships, because those who operate real ships make sure to allow plenty of searoom between themselves and anyone they might collide with. Consider a squadron of five Jutland-era battleships steaming in line-ahead, with a cable-length between ships -- very close for ships at sea. The squadron needs nearly a mile of ocean, about 5 ft at even 1:1200 scale, so we either model single vessels separated from all others or else place them far too close together. 1:1200 enthusiasts often go for dioramas but, at larger scales, those are hardly practical for ships at sea and a ship in harbour rather loses her point: Ships are essentially seagoing. Then there is the problem of any static representation of the fluid medium. It can be done but it is not encouraging to most ship modellers. So we generally accept that our models cannot really look like their prototypes. That being so, presenting them as pristine piece of technology makes sense. Not that it diminishes the alternative option of weathering in any way. Secondly, we do have "traditions", or at least expectations, of a sort. Some 350 years ago, the "Navy Board" models set a standard that later generations have tried to emulate. Yet those models showcased the work of the shipwrights in the Royal dockyards. The early ones were not rigged (which would have emphasized the work of other men with other skillsets), nor were they armed -- guns being the responsibility of the Ordnance Board, not the Navy Board and certainly not the shipwrights. The ships were represented in pristine condition, for who would want to display their product in a damaged condition? So the gold-standard of ship models was set as a whole-hull, unweathered, unmanned (hence quite unrealistic) representation. Skipping forward to the 20th Century: Shipyards had enormous models of their prouder creations in their company offices, as advertisements. Naturally, those models showed the ship as the yard would wish it to be seen, with everything perfect and the whole of the hull represented. The passenger-liner companies used the characteristics of their ships in advertising too and had models built. Naturally, they showed everything in idealized form, for who would want to pay for tickets on a rust-bucket being tossed around on a stormy sea? I suspect that a desire to follow those precedents leads to a common (though not universal) expectation of what a ship model should be. Though I still wonder whether they touch something deeper in at least some of us. Trevor

I suspect that, in real real life (meaning excluding museum ships), ships rarely had all of their spars aloft but no sails bent at all. Why would anyone want the added maintenance burden of the rig, if there was no intention to get under way soon? Even if the higher yards were left crossed, much of the running gear would be sent down, if only to get it out of the wet. But a sailing ship laid up for more than a few weeks would be more likely to be stripped, at least of the gear needed to set the light-weather "flying kites". If the question is what would be done when a single sail was sent down, pending its replacement: Unfortunately, full-size practices have changed over time and sometimes have varied from sail to sail. To give just a few examples: Darcy Lever (in 1819) illustrated both a damaged course being lowered to the deck and its replacement hoisted up to the yard with the buntlines being the principal ropes used in both operations. Presumably, if a sail was to be replaced soon, the bunts would be left rove with both ends reaching the deck. On the other hand, he shows replacement topsails and topgallants send aloft as bundles. Whether the bunts were bundled up with the rest or attached after the sail was stretched along its yard was not stated. Brady (in 1849 and writing of warship practices) had all topgallants and higher sails bent to their yards on deck and sent aloft as whole units. Presumably, the bunts were tied off to the yard and rove through their blocks on the mast after everything was aloft and in place. Dana (in 1845 and more for merchant ships) repeats the notion of courses being sent up by their buntlines. He also mentions stopping the various lines to the shrouds -- probably topsail buntlines to the topmast shrouds, where they could be reached by a man in the top. Maybe that's a useful reminder that the real-life version was for practicality during a labour-intensive evolution, not for display to an outside audience. For the upper sails, he gives both Brady's bend-on-deck-and-send-aloft option and Lever's sending of the sail aloft as a bundle. Only for the latter does he say that the bunts (and other gear) should be attached after the sail is bent to its yard, meaning that they were left rove when there was no sail on the yard. "Eagle Seamanship", the USCG's manual for cadets aboard Eagle, has all square sails made up as though furled (hence sausage-shaped) while on deck, sent aloft like that and the bunts (and other gear) attached after the sail was bent to its yard. It does not say how they were arranged before the sail was brought to them. The one time that I had a share in changing a squaretail (aboard Stad Amsterdam in 2006), I think that's what was done, though my memory of it doesn't really stretch beyond the problems of getting the head of the sail stretched along the yard, with only human muscle for the pull. Not sure whether any of that will be helpful! Trevor

Weathering, sails but human figures too. Ships can't go to sea without people aboard and, even when in harbour, there is often an anchor watch, maybe people doing maintenance work, loading cargo or whatever. Yet most ship models are presented devoid of any human presence. When there are any figures, there tend to be one or two for an indication of scale, rather than the dozens or hundreds aboard the full-size prototype when she was in service. That's quite unlike plastic models of aircraft or military vehicles, which usually provide for a pilot in a cockpit, a tank-commander's head emerging for his turret or whatever. For any one ship model, those are matters of individual choice of the model builder, of course, with the complexities of the task being major considerations. Weathering is an art, sails are hard to represent realistically at scale, while creating miniature human figures (in appropriate clothing and postures) needs a whole other skill-set. Yet the presentation of ship models as miniature ships in pristine condition, with the underwater body visible (!) and nobody aboard, is so frequent that I have to guess that our choices are being shaped by our expectations --which amount to what PqLear called a "tradition"-- or maybe by something deeper in our psyche. "Untouched", yes: The essence of the ship in a pure, unsullied form. And yet any ship is, of course, the product of human hands and could not exist otherwise. To be human is to be a toolmaker (that's what sets us apart from other life on this planet) and throughout history, down to the 1940s, watercraft have been the most advanced tools made by man. Maybe capturing their unsullied essence in miniature meets some need in some of us? Maybe I am just over-thinking answers to a simple question! Trevor

Hi Mark, That plan (Chapelle's from "Search for Speed Under Sail") does have a counter, its shape where it crosses the centreline here marked in red: The German deck plan certainly looks nice but I wonder whether it is anything more than a re-interpretation of Chapelle's version, in "Baltimore Clipper". They all rely on the 1816 draught, prepared in Portsmouth, because there is nothing else specific to this one vessel. You have posted part of that draught and (as expected) it had internal arrangements shown on the longitudinal drawing. Whether it also had a deck plan, I cannot say, though I think that would have been unusual at the time. If not, all reconstructions must take the locations of hatches etc. along the midline of the deck and infer what, if anything, was placed outboard of those. Trevor

That's a good point, Allan. Contemporary accounts go on about catting and fishing bower anchors but nothing (that I know of) on how a sheet anchor was got outboard when needed in a hurry, how the spare bowers were got into their positions, a little abaft the best bowers, nor how the kedge and stream anchors were moved about for stowage. I suspect that the answers lie in experienced seamen being very inventive in how they used the many spars and tackles in a ship's rig. With a tackle from the foremast head, another from the end of the fore yard, plus the stay tackle (on the main stay) that was used when hoisting out the boats, heavy weights could likely be moved around, a bit the way that ships were loaded and unloaded using union purchases (back before the coming of the "box boats"). Not something to be done every day, perhaps, but anchors other than the best bowers, stream and kedge did not need to be moved every day. Somewhere, I have seen a series of engravings showing a vessel sent up the Adriatic to load large marble slabs from a quarry there. The artist showed how the rig was partially disassembled, then the spars and tackle arranged to get the heavy lumps of rock down from the hillside and onto the vessel. It was a lesson in the adaptability of the technology, when handled by men with knowledge and practical experience now lost to us. Trevor

Many years ago, I did a lot of book reviewing for a maritime-history journal. As they came out, the editor sent me each of the Anatomy of the Ship series that addressed sailing ships (not the ones on 20th Century warships). After a half-dozen of them, I had to ask him to stop as I couldn't give any of them a positive review and it didn't seem fair to the publisher to keep slamming the errors in the series. Some very skilled draughtsmen who are also enthusiasts for historical nautical technology have done their level best with those books and I don't like to put their efforts down. But the end results are commercial products, not academic tomes incorporating the expertise of multiple specialists. Use them, of course, and learn from them -- but my advice would be to not rely on them as some sort of ultimate, unchallengeable authority. Now, by trying to reproduce one particular detail in three dimensions, you have discovered an error in the Endeavour book that might easily have been missed until someone tried suspending a model anchor from a model cathead. So we now know that the book is wrong on that point, however right it is about other details. One thought: What if the bumkin went over the cathead, instead of under it? The cathead could be flat on the deck, such that the weight of the anchor was transferred more readily to the ship's structure. The bumkin, which does not need to bear anywhere near as great a load, could be arched over the cathead, such that its outer end is in the same place as in your present modelling, while leaving plenty of space for the cat-tackle falls to pass under the arch. That would need the least modification to the AotS draughting. Trevor

Ouch! I don't have specific drawings for Endeavour, so I must leave the solution to others, but I do see the problem. There must be a clear run for all parts of the cat tackle to lift the weight of the anchor. If any part rubbed across the bumkin, it would swiftly fail under tension. Worse, that tackle must remain clear of obstructions as the anchor is fished and its ring pulled aft. For all I know, the bumkins were unshipped when anchor work was going on. If not, either the bumkin or the cathead is in the wrong place on your model. When the anchor is down on the seabed, its cable must lead forward from the hawsehole, so between the stem and the forward bumkin shroud. So, once the anchor is up and suspended from the cathead, the cable must pass outboard of that shroud in reaching from the hawsehole to the anchor's ring. However, the cable would be slack then, so no problem with cable and shroud coming into contact. The bigger problem with the shrouds would be with the one angled outboard. Would it even be possible to pass the anchor between that and the ship's side? The geometry looks very tight. But without details that I don't have, I can't advise on how to solve the riddle! Trevor

Looking good!

Rounding up into the wind to drop anchor on the banks, headsails clawed down so she will lie head to wind, foresail and main still set and sheeted in hard, until the men have time to lower them properly? Looks technically correct to me! Trevor

Good to see you working on this! I finished my dory two weeks ago and am now progressing with the Norwegian pram. They are working for me as learning experiences, so I hope they will for you. A few points: First: Be careful when you take things out of the sequence in the instructions. That can be done but could get you into trouble at times. At least read through the booklet, cover to cover, so that you can figure out what steps, if made too early, might block others. Next: Yes, the stern cleat has to be wider at this stage. Later, both will be bevelled for the planks to lie against. The aft side of the transom will be narrowed, the forward side of the transom and aft side of the cleat will have the transom's existing width and the forward side of the cleat must be wider. You are on track so far! Third: You are OK with the position of stem and transom, relative to the bottom planks. (The instructions are not as clear as they might be. I put mine where you have and it worked out.) In truth, it may not matter that much as you will be sanding both areas to make a good fit for the garboards and it wouldn't be a big deal if you had to take off a little more of one or another piece. And lastly: If you haven't worked through the MSW build-logs for the dory kit, I would encourage you to study them all. I found a lot of wisdom there: Both the good ideas and the pitfalls to avoid. Best of luck with your build! Trevor

Thank you for the approval, Mark! My progress has slowed but not stopped. It's not only the gains that need attention but also the bottom-plank bevels, transom bevels and even the moulds -- all to be shaped so that the garboards fit nicely. I found that I could not so much as check what needs work while the garboards were straight, so last night I bevelled them, soaked them and set them to dry: They were looking nice by this morning, but I had a day in the city and have not yet proceeded further with them. I have been practicing at cutting gains too. It has gone much better than I expected, mostly because the grain of basswood is so agreeable. (Quite unlike the bloody-minded bit of sapele that I am trying to turn into a small table for my wife!) One example: As ever, it does pay to have the right tools: Yes, that's a standard cutting board with a one-inch grid marked. The chisel is great for making a first, careful cut, creating an edge for the blocking plane to run down. Then the plane develops the slope of the gain, while making it a straight slope. Those are Lee Valley miniatures. I suspect that they sell more as collectable novelties than for practical use, but they are ideal for this task. Now I have hope that I can justify the extravagance by using them on other models. My trip into the city yielded the dye needed for a leatherwork project that was always supposed to precede construction of the pram, so that must now take priority. My updates to this log will slow down but (hopefully) not stop. Trevor

That's a beautiful illustration, Alpayed! In my own defence, however, I'll just note that how gear was handled on a collier serving the regular trade down the coast from Newcastle to London and how it was handled on an ex-collier leaving the Cape for a long voyage into an unknown ocean were not necessarily one and the same. Given the prominence of Cook's voyages, I'd not be surprised if the officer's journals have been published. I wonder whether any of them happened to mention specific details? Trevor

Just one fish davit! One alone was awkward enough. Until a generation before the time you are representing, large ships had a long davit (as long as the ship's beam) that was stowed across the forecastle and lashed down. When in use, it was moved so that one end or the other projected far enough for its purpose. By the time of Endeavour, the much shorter davit that you have already modelled was preferred. In use, it was mounted on whichever did of the forecastle it was needed. Unfortunately, the near-contemporary seamanship manuals, like Darcy Lever's and Brady's, go on at length about how the davit was rigged for fishing an anchor, then go silent on what was done with it afterwards. Maybe somebody can come up with specific evidence. (Sometimes details can emerge from the oddest sources, such as an aside mention in a court-martial record. I've never gone looking that deeply for anything to do with fish davits.) All I can offer is surmise: The davit was big, awkward and heavy. Stowing it somewhere near where it was used but out of the way would be the first choice, though there were plenty of men and plenty of tackle, if it was necessary to hoist the beastly thing. If you can find somewhere on the forecastle where the davit might be lashed down, without obstructing other gear or the men's access to wherever they had to go, then that would be a likely spot. Another possibility would be the fore chains, between the ship's side and the deadeyes of the foremast shrouds. Or perhaps on the boat skids across the waist, if your ship had those. Making things serve two (or more) purposes has value in a small, crowded ship. I'm not sure what second purpose a davit might serve, other than as a place for men to sit when having yarn during a dog-watch, but maybe someone can be more imaginative. Trevor

Thanks for that, Palmerit! I'll likely put steel to basswood planks this evening and I'll need that bit of reassurance. Trevor

My understanding is that fish davits, of the era you are portraying, were stowed away when not actually in use for raising an anchor up to its stowage position. Have a good look at contemporary sources before showing your ship with no anchors on the bows. I don't doubt that there almost always some on deck but there may also have been some on the bows (unless they were on the bottom of some anchorage). If they were brought inboard when out in mid-ocean, then one would expect the sails to be set if the anchors are on deck. Not that you would be wrong to show the ship that way but it would look a bit odd to someone expecting to see the anchors outboard, if the anchors were in and all sails furled.

Glad to assist where I can!

I don't think there is any one right answer, Bill. Any ship has a lot of small, movable gear that is usually stowed away and so not shown in a model. The fish davit is one of the few big things that got moved away when not in immediate use. One answer would be to put it in its stowed position. You could show it in use but that would move your model towards being a diorama, rather than a formalized display of the ship. Or you could have it rigged but not in use. Your choice. To me, "weighing anchor" is the whole process of getting an anchor up off the seabed. There are a number of possible end-points of that process: 1: It's not often seen in models or paintings but lightly manned merchant vessels might hold an anchor on its cable, just under the hawsehole or at the forefoot, with the stock and ring awash -- at some height where it won't be banging the hull. That saves the effort of going further, while keeping the anchor ready for immediate use. Good for times when shifting berths within a protected anchorage or if creeping along the edge of a sandbank. 2: Next up is to hook the cat block into the anchor's ring and lift it to hang vertically below the cathead. In the image you just posted, you have the cattackle rigged for that, though the anchor has been moved into the third option. 3: Third choice is to bring the fish tackle into use. IIRC its hook goes around the shank of the anchor but slides as the shank comes horizontal, until the hook ends up caught under one of the flukes. (Later anchors could have a "gravity band" at their centre of gravity. A fish block hooked there would lift without the sliding.) I have never heard of an anchor being left suspended by cat and fish tackles but perhaps it happened sometimes. More often, once the shank was horizontal and the anchor up sufficiently, a lashing was passed and the fish davit and tackle cleared away. That would leave the anchor much as you have it. In the era you are modelling, ships would carry their bower anchors "on the bows" like that, at least when "in soundings" (over a bottom of less than 100 fathoms depth) or at risk of running onto some steep-sided island somewhere. 4: Later, there was a preference for getting the flukes and shank up on deck, where they could lie flat, while the stock remained outboard (and vertical). That way, the anchors were not banging around as the ship was tossed around in waves. 5: Some anchors were brought aboard and stowed entirely on deck. That was especially the smaller ones (stream and kedge) but, in earlier times, also the outsized sheet anchor -- too heavy to trouble with except in dire emergency. Stowing that aboard meant disassembling the stock, until iron anchors with folding stocks became accepted in the larger sizes. By the 19th century, ships bound on long voyages could bring their bower anchors aboard also, once clear of any risk of running onto beach, sandbank, reef or rock. 6: Then there had been a time when anchors and cables were unreliable and a ship might carry a half-dozen of each. To keep weight low down, some of the spare anchors might be lain on the ballast in the hold. You get to choose among those on artistic grounds, with nobody to criticize your choice. All are historically valid, at least for some ships and some times. If you want to get more specific, you could go in search of a log or journal of Endeavour's voyage and see what was done at some point in time. Trevor

It seems that I have inspired someone. Not sure whether you or your better half! I do enjoy large-scale models of small, open boats. Every piece of wood in the prototype's structure can be (maybe: has to be) represented in the model, so the builder gets to experience the structure of the boat and not just its shape. That can be done with small-scale models of large ships but it is very, very demanding -- way outside my skill level.

I had this posting all ready to go some hours back, then my internet link went down. Fortunately, MSW has remembered my draft, so I can finish up my original digression, then catch up on other messages: The pram kit instructions call for a gain at each end of each plank. I now understand that a "gain" (in at least American nautical English) means a rabbet in the end of a lapstrake plank. I have modified a drawing found for me by Google into something clearer than the kit instruction's photo: 1 is the inboard face of a starboard strake where it nears the stem. 2 is the end of the plank, to be embedded in the stem rabbet. 3 is the end of the bevel on the outer, upper corner of the strake, shaped to receive the next strake -- though, as Chapelle made clear in his "Boatbuilding", that bevel would have had to transition into a rabbet this close to the stem. 4 is the lower edge of the strake. The gain is the sloping rabbet cut into the nearest corner of the plank. (A scribed line corresponding to the upper edge of the next strake below is just visible, extending from the end of the cut. Except for the shape of the bevel at 3, so far so good. I understand the shape of a lapstrake gain. With Chapelle's aid, I can even get my head around its normal purpose: This is my crude drafting of the junction between two lapstrake strakes, seen in section, as they should be (maybe could be?) on a typical round-bilged boat with a straight stem -- lower strake in brown, upper in tan. The left-hand diagram shows the junction somewhere amidships. In transverse section, the boat is curved there and that curve appears as an angle between the strakes. The upper, outer corner of the lower strake is bevelled, so that the strake above can sit flat and firm. So far, so good. That's the way that the pram model is built, amidships. With a straight stem, however, the boat's transverse section must transition into something near to a vertical line, as the planking approaches the stem. Continuing to bevel further and further (not shown) would reduce the planks to paper-thickness. Going the other way and mounting the upper strake on the outboard face of the lower one (middle diagram) works if you are putting clapboard onto the side of a barn but, used at the bow of a boat, it leaves a wide hole (blue) for the water to pour in. So the solution is to trim the last 6 inches or a foot of the lower, inner edge of each strake into the form of a gain, while transitioning the bevel on the upper, outer edge of the strake below into a mirror image. Then the two fit together, where they reach the stem, as a form of lap joint, while presenting smooth outer and inner faces (which fit neatly into the stem rabbet). The hood ends of the planks are nailed to the stem, so the removal of wood does not involve an unacceptable loss of strength. Nice, if not always well explained in print. Our pram, however, does not have a stem but rather a bow transom, which changes things because the angles between the strakes are carried to the transoms -- to the stern transom in most lapstrake boats, to both transoms in the case of a pram. In the case of our pram, the angles are almost constant from bow to stern. But if the structural arrangement was maintained throughout (top left) we would get a water gap again. There seem to be three ways around that. #1: With a lot of work, we could joggle the edge of the transom, so that one corner of each strake sits down in its own recess. On our pram, the junction between bottom plank and keel plank is handled that way, but I have not tried to illustrate it here. #2: We could develop the bevel until it fines away, at the transom, into a knife-edge (top right). Then the next strake could sit on both the transom and the strake below without trouble. #3: We could cut off the edge of the lower strake, perpendicular to the bevel, cut a gain in the upper strake and match them up. That's the version that the kit instructions call for. (And they call for the gain to be cut in 3/64 stock!) What the instructions do not say is that it is necessary to match each gain to the shape of the strake below. They do say to cut away no more than 1/3 the thickness of the wood but that gives no account to how much of the thickness of the other strake remains after its bevelling. I would welcome any advice or comment but I suspect that each gain needs to be individually shaped to fit with the strake below. And that's doubly interesting because the kit planks are so narrow that some transom bevels will need to be adjusted. So we have the shape of the bevelled lower strake, the shape of the upper strake's gain and the shape of the transom, all of them rather fluid, yet needing to be matched into one unit with no gaps. Interesting challenge! Separate from all of that, previous build logs have suggested practicing cutting gains on scrap. I'm going to start with scrap a lot thicker than 3/64 and see how I progress. But I just might end up sanding the transoms down until the lower-strake bevels form knife-edges. Your thoughts and comments would be much appreciated! Trevor

Gains and Things: A digression here, while I figure out next steps and maybe ask for some advice. With the garboards and all higher strakes, the pram kit's instructions call for a "gain" to be shaped in the inboard side of the lower edge of each end of each plank. Admittedly, explaining a lapstrake "gain" in a few words and one picture is challenging but I was lost -- and I know others have been before me. Part of my trouble was that I learnt lapstrake (or I should say "clinker") construction in the UK, where the terminology seems to be different, so I had never heard of a "gain". (Oddly, Chapelle didn't mention them in his "Boatbuilding", only noting that the bevel of the lower strake has to transform into a rabbet as it approaches stem or stern.) I learnt the theory in the UK, I should say, as I have never built a clinker boat at full size and never want to try. (I have rowed and sailed various of them, for a time even owned and maintained one, but that's not the same as building.) And that long-ago learning drives me to digress from my digression ... I've seen lots of accounts of clinker/clencher/lapstrake boat construction but the only one that could teach me how it is done was Eric McKee's wonderful little "Clenched Lap or Clinker", published by the National Maritime Museum (the UK one), more years ago than I care to count. Druxey drew MSW's attention to that booklet near ten years ago but nobody seems to have followed up. Long out of print, it can still be picked up on eBay or through AbeBooks. The centrefold of McKee's booklet was printed on card stock and showed everything needed to build a 1:15 (or maybe 3/4"-to-the-foot) half-model of a 10ft workboat (with a very clever arrangement for setting the moulds in position). I could have sworn that I built that model as a teenager but, from the publication date, I see that I must have been on vacation from my undergrad university at the time. The little thing has been kicked around on bookshelves ever since, battered, bruised and ignored, but it is still with me: Filthy inside, breaking up, with oars that are an utter embarrassment -- but I see that I fitted it with a grating for whoever sat in the stern sheets, along with a scoop bailer and a painter on its own eyebolt. (I had quite forgotten those touches.) And, before anyone disparages the state that I allow models to fall into, that little half-boat has circumnavigated our watery world. Went around in shipping containers, along with much household furniture, but it went by sea, which is more than I have done. Aside from drawing attention to McKee's booklet, my reason for posting (other than as an excuse for showing off!) is to suggest that a 1:12 full-hull wooden version of that same boat would be an excellent next-step after the Model Shipway's dory and pram. With 9 strakes each side and rabbets at keel and stem, it would add another level of skills. Maybe that's a hint to one of the kit manufacturers? Or do I have to scratch-build from McKee's strake drawings?

A fish davit is used when fishing an anchor and has nothing to do with the ship's boats. In the era you are modelling, it did not pivot anywhere but it was kept stowed away until needed, when it was placed as you have shown. To explain a bit further: When weighing anchor, the capstan's pull on the cable brings the anchor's ring to the hawse hole. Then the cat block (lower block on the tackle at the cathead) is hook to the anchor's ring and the anchor lifted clear of the water, until suspended beneath the cathead. However, to secure the anchor for sea, it is necessary to lift its flukes until the shank is horizontal -- the step known as "fishing" the anchor. That lift is by the fish tackle, which leads to the foremast head (maybe fore topmast head: I haven't checked). There would be much trouble if such a huge strain came onto a rope that was dragged across the rail of the ship, so the fish tackle needs to be pushed outboard a bit and passed over a sheave. And that is the function of the fish davit. Trevor

Thank you, sir!