Tomculb

The foremast standing rigging is now complete, with the addition of three more shrouds on each side of the mast. With my attention focused on securing these shrouds to their deadeyes, and then lashing the pairs of deadeyes together, I wasn’t paying much attention to where I had wrapped each port and starboard pair around the mast. The lower pair was run through the top, no problem there (and no picture). The middle pair was secured to the mast just below the mast cap, and somehow the lashing slipped and it got twisted off center a bit. At this point I don’t think there is any way to remedy the problem. Fortunately it is not as evident to the naked eye at a viewing distance as it is in a close up photo. The pair secured at the top of the mast is much better, although the several lines secured there are a bit messy (again, worse in the photo). I also finished installing the braces; that is, the running rigging attached to the ends of the foremast yards and running back to double blocks on the mainmast, from which they run down to the spider band at the base of that mast. As I have mentioned previously, I have chosen not to put sails on my Endurance, and I am not installing running rigging that would be attached to those sails, which leads to a cleaner look (but not as accurate). You can also see the standing rigging described above in first picture below. OcCre has you secure the end of the lower braces, and the double block they pass through, to the stay running from the mainmast top to the deckhouse roof just aft of the foremast. When I rigged the jib halyard/downhaul lines with blocks attached to the forestays (again, as OcCre directs), I was unable to do it without distorting the run of the stays, as can be seen in the first photo immediately above. To avoid that, instead of attaching the lower braces to the stay, I looped them around the mainmast and through the top, and I attached the double block directly to the mast at the height of the gaff gooseneck. I have no idea which is more historically accurate, but I like the look of how I did it better. Taking a needed break from rigging awhile, I’ll next start working on the forward pair of ship's boats.

The foremast ratlines are finished! Slow patience was the trick, never doing more than three on each side at one sitting. As I expected, the most difficult ratlines were nearing the top of the lower shrouds, finishing at the futtock shrouds. Tying knots with tweezers has never been my strong point. As you can see, I have also completed the pair of lower shrouds (on each side) which parallel the ratline shrouds.

Thanks for the kind words Mike and Jeff. I hope you find my log to be helpful when you get around to your Endurance builds. I have gained immensely from what I’ve learned from the logs of others, so it’s nice to hear every so often that there’s something to be learned from mine.

Random progress report . . . I don't know why I didn't think of this before, but to help with visibility in doing all of this rigging, I created a screen behind the model, by opening a manila folder, taping some of the same material to the back for stiffness, and taping it all to a 2 x 4. That has helped immeasurably. I love the view out my window, but it can be a major hindrance when it comes to seeing what I'm doing with my Endurance. The ratlines on the upper foremast are nearing completion. I have installed the lower shrouds which will support the lower ratlines, and I'm off to a good start on those. The ends of those shrouds will be clipped off only once I have finished all the ratlines. Tying the ratlines sometimes results in unintentional and careless jerking of one of the shrouds, which last fall resulted in a main mast shroud coming apart at the deadeye. Hopefully this will reduce the risk of that happening again. Finally, I have installed the ratlines on the futtock shrouds. That proved to be a major test of my patience and my clumsy arthritic fingers, and somewhat to my surprise I did it without any major mishaps.

Fun to discover another Spray build Jeff. What you have done in about six weeks probably took me at least that many months. I like your weathering of the hull. Happy to see your Nantucket log, as that model is rising to the top of my list of next builds.

Slow progress, and only one picture of that progress. The mainmast standing rigging is now complete, including ratlines and all shrouds. I also drilled holes for the remaining stanchions, but I have not glued them in place yet. I have also started on the foremast standing rigging, wondering again why I didn't do this before rigging the yard lifts. In addition to the usual distractions this time of year slowing things down, for the first time I can remember I've found myself frustrated that it's taking as long as it is to finish this model. A year ago I thought I would be finishing about now. That's led to some rushed work, a few mistakes* and do-overs, and the occasional sense that I needed (not wanted) to get back to work on my model. So I'm now intentionally slowing things down (somewhat counter-intuitively), getting my mind back to recognizing again that it's all about the journey, not the destination. And it's working; the last couple of sessions in the shipyard were shorter and more enjoyable. So if a month or more passes before my next post, you'll know why. *The most obvious (but not the only) big mistake was running the middle stay from the main mast to the foremast top rather than to the mast cap. What should have been incredibly obvious is that running that stay to the top meant it interfered with the main mast gaff's peak halyard. Live and learn 😵‍💫, and correction made.

Merry Christmas to you too Jim and glad my research was of some help. I too have been sidelined a bit, slow progress and even slower posting to this blog. Hope to do so within the next week or so. Your James Caird build looks really great!

I have now glued the mainmast in place and rigged the three stays running from that mast forward to the foremast. I have also rigged the pairs of lower shrouds, port and starboard, that will be home to the ratlines. While securing the lanyard above the upper deadeye on the final one, I managed to pull that deadeye away from the shroud to which it had been secured. That meant I had to do that pair of shrouds all over again. To reduce the risk of bringing on that calamity again, I left the bitter ends of the shrouds untrimmed, until after I have rigged the ratlines. As can be seen in the first photo below, the upper part of the lower shrouds don’t align with the futtock shrouds very closely, and I was concerned how I was going to tie them together as they should be. But when I tied the lowest ratline onto the futtock and the lower shrouds together, they came together quite well, distorting the straight run of the shrouds only slightly. Up next . . . too many more ratlines.

Amazing work on the 3D printer! It's going to be really great seeing these features when they become an integral part of your build. As you may have seen, I've been working on my Endurance for about 20 months so far and estimate I have 3 to 6 more months to go. I'm finding there is a lot to like about OcCre's kit, but also lot's of potential to make corrections and to add details that are not part of the kit, planking the sides of the deck house (as you have done) and the bulkheads being prime examples. I'm looking forward to following your build.

Jim, here's one of several Frank Hurley photos showing the opening in that bulkhead. The anchor windless was in there (as you probably saw in my log), probably linked to the captain above, with the chain locker immediately below.

Next project was upper shrouds and ratlines on the main mast. As @theoracle09 pointed out on his log, and as can be seen immediately below, the upper shroud ratlines go only a little more than half way up. Aft, between the shrouds, is a ladder, the ratlines on which overlap the other ratlines part way and continue on up to an opening in the bottom of the crow’s nest. I attached the ladder to two eyebolts extending out from the back of the maintop, visible in the closeup photo of the bottom of the ladder and the futtock shrouds. The top of the ladder is attached to two eyebolts extending out from the mast at 45° from astern, not really visible in the attempted closeup of the top of the ladder. Ratlines are seldom easy, but I found these to be more than a bit of a challenge. I think the thread I used was too stiff, making it definitely uncooperative. But I got it done. What has me concerned though is the shrouds and ratlines on the foremast. I have no idea why I installed that mast's running rigging first, rather than doing its shrouds and ratlines first. To give me a little practice I’ll do the main mast standing rigging first (with little running rigging in the way), then tackle the counterparts on the fore mast.

Hi Jim, welcome to the group of Endurance builders. While your approach is different from mine, I think yours is a beautiful build. Both Keith and Josh @theoracle09 stopped posting quite some time ago, which as far as I can tell, leaves me as the only Endurance builder still posting. A year or two ago there were quite a few. I would love to have some company if you want to start posting. Or add whatever comments you want to mine. The link is in my signature block below. Tom

I have built the mainmast and installed the gaff, crane and crow’s nest barrel. One of the pictures below shows the mast installed on the ship, but it hasn’t been glued there yet. Among other things, I will probably rig the upper shrouds, futtock shrouds and ratlines with the mast temporarily installed in a 2x4, which makes it more accessible. The only thing deserving comment at this point is the crane/boom, which I thought seriously about not installing. I think I’ve only seen one or two photos in which it appears, and I’m guessing it would be used only when loading things on and off the ship. It might even have been removed except when needed. The lower stay between the foremast and the main mast would have to be unrigged for the crane to be useful. As you can see below, I chose to rig it pulled up tight against the mast. I have two sizes of photo etched hooks left over from prior builds, I feared the larger ones were too big, and I used one of the smaller ones. Now I think that was a mistake as it can hardly be seen, but not important enough to redo. OcCre has the loose end of the hook’s tackle tied to an eyebolt at the boom’s inner end, a place which probably couldn’t be reached by anyone. I ran it through a block on the inner end of the boom, then down to the forward cleat on the spider band at the bottom of the mast. That’s also where the working end of the boom’s peak halyard is secured. There’s really no other good place to secure it. There are 8 cleats on that spider band-- one for the gaff peak halyard, six (three on each side) for the foremast braces, and one for the crane rigging.

Unrelated, but my wife and I just returned from a trip, and I posted here about the amazing ship model collection at Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum. I mentioned previously that I intend to place the forward ship’s boats on racks inboard from the bulwarks, instead of outboard hanging from davits as OcCre intends. The ship’s plans I refer to and a number of the Frank Hurley photos show the forward boats stowed that way. Before leaving on our trip, I built the basic frames for this stowage, and I partially assembled one of the boats to see how everything would fit. I had already determined that the smaller boats fit better forward, with the larger boats aft, the opposite of the way OcCre places them. Neither these racks nor the deck gangways are glued in place yet. I will assemble, rig and install the mainmast before these things are glued in place.

Thanks SHJ. I wish I was smart enough to deserve the credit you gave me. Actually I didn't paint those lines at all. What I did is find some grey thread which I used untreated, then mixed some white and grey paint to give the brass stanchions a color that is at least close in color to the lines. The goal was to have the lines look like wire cable.

At long last the time has come to glue the deckhouse in place. As I mentioned in an earlier post, OcCre shows a stay running from half way up the main mast down to an eyebolt at the front of the deckhouse roof/deck. Stays are frequently rigged with a lot of tension, they should be fixed to something having plenty of strength, and what could be stronger than the base of Endurance’s foremast? I stared at it for some time, trying to figure out how I was going to get my big clumsy fingers in there to wrap the thread around the mast a couple of times and then using thin thread, tie half a dozen or so half hitches around the two parts of the stay, all without disturbing the lines tightly secured to the mast’s spider band and the bulwark pinrails. Eventually I decided that it can’t be done (only barely acknowledging that it can’t be done by me). So I installed an eyebolt to the deck of the deckhouse as instructed and secured one end of the stay to it. I then loosened the gaff sheets to make room, applied glue to the bottom of the deckhouse, gently slid it in between all the running rigging, and glued it in place. I was then able to tighten and secure the gaff sheets to the pin rails and glue the remaining ladders in place.

After some delays, I have now finished rigging the headsail halyards and the downhauls. There are four headstays. OcCre has you install running rigging and sails on the inner three, consistent with plans and some photos I have. Other photos show running rigging on the outer three. For no particular reason, I chose to do the latter. In each case, OcCre's instructions show a halyard and two downhauls on each designated stay. One downhaul is attached to the head of the sail and one attached to the tack. I have been on many sailboats but never one with a downhaul attached to the head of the sail; the weight of the sail was always sufficient to bring it down when the halyard was released. Also, the tack was secured to a fitting on the bow (on the bowsprit here), and the purpose of the downhaul was to adjust the tightness of the luff (leading edge of the sail). As such, the bitter end was attached to the bow, and the line ran up through a grommet a short distance up the sail and then back down to a block and then aft. But then the largest sailboat I’ve been on was about half the size (by length) of Endurance and about half a century newer, so what do I know? In any event, I opted for one downhaul and linked it to the halyard. Keep in mind that I decided not to install any sails. The loose ends of the downhauls and halyards were then secured to the forward pinrail and the foremast’s spider band respectively.

Putting aside the things I was thinking about in my last post, I installed the head stays between the bowsprit and the foremast. For thread I used a very dark brown by Gutermann that I ordered online. It turned out to be too dark, brown instead of black only on close inspection, but I used it anyway. In the photos below it certainly looks black. The OcCre supplied thread is a mid brown color; not dark enough in my view. It is also half a millimeter thick, which translates to almost 1.4 inches thick on the real ship. I doubt that Endurance’s standing rigging was that thick. I’m not sure what the thickness of the Gutermann thread is, but it is something less than half the thickness of the OcCre thread. OcCre has the lowest stay secured to the mast at the mast cap. As can be seen in the second picture below (from the rigging instructions), that would put the stay right smack in the middle of the topsail. You would have to cut a hole in the topsail for the stay, which makes no sense. I ran it to the mast at the foretop.

Progress report . . . I installed the gaff, with a couple of eyebolts imitating a gooseneck. I then brought the gaff peak halyard, the topsail and topgallant yard halyards, and the main spar lifts down to the cleats at the base of the mast, where they were secured. I then separately made rope coils and draped them over the cleats. That’s a total of five lines, leaving three cleats available for the headsail halyards. Since none of the installed lines are attached to the hull anywhere, I was able to do this rigging with the mast off the ship, which made things a lot easier. Then after securing the mast to the hull, I brought the topsail and topgallant spar lifts down to belaying pins in the bulwark pinrails, secured them and added rope coils. As I mentioned previously, the deck cabin is only dry fit in place, and removing it made it a lot easier to secure these lines and add the coils. I installed paralls at the back of each of the yards. Had I given it any thought, I would have installed them before installing any of the other rigging; securing them with the spar lifts and halyards in place made things considerably more difficult. The gaff sheets are still loose, but they do run through blocks I installed in the deck below the aft pin rails, where they will be eventually secured. Fortunately I recognized that putting the deckhouse back in place would be very difficult with those sheets fully rigged. Same issue as to at least one stay that will run between the mainmast and an eyebolt on the deck house deck (or as I prefer, to the foremast). On the other hand, with the deckhouse fixed in place, it will be a lot more difficult securing those sheets to the belaying pins as I intend to do. Hmmm . . . Some other issues I need to think about. . . As I said it was a lot easier securing lines to the cleats at the base of the foremast with that mast not attached to the ship. Most of the lines that will similarly be secured on cleats at the base of the mainmast (that is, the braces attached to the foremast yards), can only be installed with the mainmast installed on the ship. And the bulkhead immediately behind that mast obviously cannot be temporarily removed. Maybe I will secure those lines to the cleats first (before the mast is installed), then once the mast is installed run them up to, and attach them to, their yards? Or will I attach the lower end of the braces to pinrails I could install at the aft end of the bulwarks?? Or run them to the cleats on the mast as I originally intended after the mast is installed??? As did @HakeZou, I want to build cradles for the forward ship’s boats, stowed on board rather than hanging from davits. A number of Frank Hurley’s photos show them stowed that way, as do the ship’s plans I refer to frequently. Obviously they would need to be stowed in such a way as to not interfere with any rigging. As supplied by OcCre, the boats come in two sizes, with the forward ones being larger than the aft ones. After test fitting laser-cut one-piece railings for each size boat, I think I want to reverse that, as Hake did. Regarding those boats, someone(s) mentioned that ship's boat kits manufactured by Master Korabel and available in different sizes are much better than those included in this kit. I gave some thought to purchasing four of those kits, but everywhere I looked they were out of stock. Not surprising given that Master Korabel is apparently a Russian company.

That's really interesting George. I never would have spotted those blocks in the photo you posted. I am beyond the point of rigging my model that way, but some other builder will likely benefit from your research. Thank you.

Thank you George. Your builds are really coming along nicely. How you can do two of them simultaneously (especially one that is scratch built) is beyond me! Holes in the top that are fairleads is new to me. On both my Niagara and my Constitution cross section, lines secured on or near the base of the mast went through lubber's holes. Amazing how much I learn with each new build. I'm not sure what you are referring to with regard to deck mounted tackles. Probably a good indication that there isn't any such thing on Endurance, or at least on OcCre's Endurance. Nice summer outdoor distractions are limiting my time in the shipyard . . . no complaints there. Probably another week or two before I get another update posted.

I have completed, glued in place and rigged the bowsprit. Other than blackening the chain (rather than leaving it bare brass), nothing worth commenting on that I can think of. In my last post I mentioned two things I wasn’t happy about: running rigging that rubs against structural pieces, and fuzzy rigging thread. The rigging that rubbed against the mast top was main spar lifts, and I have reduced (but not completely eliminated) that problem by running those lines down through holes OcCre drilled in the top. Those lines will now be secured on cleats at the base of the mast; previously they were to be secured on the pin rails at the bulwarks. As I mentioned in response to Gimp’s post, I have run about half of the installed running rigging through bee’s wax. That worked pretty well on a test piece of thread, but not as well on the installed rigging. You should be able to tell the difference in the pictures below (roughly the thread to the left in the pictures below have been waxed; the ones to the right have not). I know I should buy (or make my own) better thread, but the idea of completely redoing the rigging I’ve done on the foremast doesn’t excite me at all.

Thanks for your kind words Chimp. It's been a fun build, and OcCre kits leave lots of room for some "kit bashing" (an unfortunate term, IMHO, but just about everyone on these boards knows what it means). I really like your Beagle. That kit is definitely among those I'm considering for a future build. If I do build it one day, I'll be reading your log carefully. Thanks for the rope walk suggestion. As a relatively quick break between this and my next build, I may do the NRG rigging project, which would be a perfect opportunity to learn to make my own rigging thread. What are you working on now?

The yards have been glued to the mast and the running rigging is in place. Both the mast and the deckhouse are still loose fit; not ready to glue them yet. Similarly the working ends of the running rigging are not yet secured. The most difficult part of this was securing the chain sling to the eyebolt in the main yard. The eyebolt pulled out twice as I was trying to tie the chain to it. The last time I glued it back in place, I used thin CA glue, and some of it got on the chain, with the result that it is not quite straight. I managed to keep the swearing under my breath, so my better half wasn’t aware of my frustrations. 😀 I have not attached parrals (the collars that wrap around the back of the mast) to the yards yet. I added a block to the topsail yard so that there would be a double purchase on its halyard. Even the smaller yards are heavy, and I felt that a single purchase on that one would be inadequate. The same could probably be said about the topgallant yard. I haven’t put the gaff together yet, but I did hang some line off the stern of the mast cap for the gaff’s peak halyard. OcCre would have you also install a throat halyard, which makes no sense to me, since the gaff is attached to the mast with an immovable gooseneck. This is the case with all the ship’s gaffs. As I mentioned in my prior post, I’m trying to keep the rigging relatively simple, and not having throat halyards helps. I have not yet determined for sure where I want to fix the running rigging; that is, how to allocate it between the cleats at the base of the mast and the belaying pins on the bulwarks. I’m not paying much attention to how OcCre does it. In the photo below I have preliminarily fixed the yard halyards to the spider bands and the lifts to the belaying pins. When installed, the jib halyards will also be secured on the spiderband cleats. If my calculations are correct, the stick figure leaning against the deck house represents a crew member about 5’10” tall. One thing I want to avoid is running rigging that rubs against anything, as can be seen in the photo below. I have to figure out how to avoid that. That photo also shows how fuzzy OcCre’s rigging thread is. I have some bees wax which does a pretty good job of taking care of that problem. I forgot to use it, but I should be able to unrig the lines, apply some wax, and rerun them through the blocks.

The foremast has three (instead of the more common four) yards: main (or course), topsail, and topgallant. If there were four, the highest one would be the royal yard. After cutting and tapering the yards, I chose not to paint them all white as OcCre does, but partially white, partially stained, as seen in the photos below. No authority I can cite for that; I just like the look better. You can see that I put a pin in each yard where it joins the mast (and drilled a corresponding hole in the mast) so as to attach the yard to the mast more securely. I then rigged footropes on all three yards, with jackstays on the main and topsail yards. Next step was attaching blocks and running rigging. A few general comments: Although OcCre has supplied them, I have decided not to put sails on my model. Personal preference. As a result, I decided to make the running rigging simpler, by not installing running rigging that is attached to the squaresails (as opposed to attached to the yards). So no sheets (lines running from the bottom corners of the sail [the clews] down to the deck) and no clewlines (running from those corners up to the yard the sail hangs from). I’m not crazy about the light color of the OcCre supplied blocks. I have quite a few darker blocks left over from prior builds, and I decided to use them instead. Also, they are slightly smaller than OcCre’s, which I think looks better. OcCre supplies a lot of beige colored 0.15m thread which I decided to use. Not bad quality, but not as nice as what’s available from Syren and other sources. I had thought about ordering some of the latter, but I hadn’t done it yet when I got to this stage of the build, and rather than wait for it to arrive, went ahead and used OcCre’s thread. Looking at the photo below, The topgallant yard has a halyard attached at the center. The topsail and main yards have blocks at each end for the yard lifts, and blocks with short lanyards at each end for the yard braces (fore and aft lines used to pivot the yard around the mast). The topsail yard also has a block in the middle for its halyard. Starting at the top, the mast has a pair of blocks for the topgallant yard lifts; a pair of blocks with lines attached for the topsail lifts and a block with line attached for its halyard; and a pair of blocks with lines attached for the main yard lifts, a chain for the main sling (no halyard), and a block with line attached at the back of the cap for the gaff peak halyard. Now I just have to put it all together.