Dr PR

Three plank benders should be enough!

Mark, Good choice for a subject to model. I almost bashed my Albatros build as the Lynx/Mosquidobit. However, the picture of the model you posted has a lot of errors. Whoever built it knew nothing about the topsail schooners of the early 1800s! The rigging of the fore mast yards is just weird! The spreader yard (course yard) lifts are tied to the mast about halfway up the mast??? The topsail lifts are tied to the base of the topmast??? There are stunsail yards on the topgallant yard! The main gaff topsail spars are totally wrong. The jackyard on the gaff didn't appear until the late 1800s or early 1900s. The vertical spar for the head/luff appears to be tied to the topmast and not suspended by a halliard. The peak halliards are rigged incorrectly (not far enough out to the end of the gaffs). The pin rails on the bulwarks are in the wrong places and I don't see the stays for the bowsprit and jib boom. I would also check the hull dimensions. It looks to be too narrow. The beam was about 1/4 the length of the hull, and on the American two mast topsail schooners the widest part of the hull was forward close to the position of the fore mast, and not midships between the masts. This was because the square sail and fore sails rigging added more weight on the foremast than on the main mast. A caveat here is that some schooners also had topsails on the main mast, so the widest part of the beam would be closer to midships.

Richard, How deep into this rabbit hole do you want to go? For an extremely detailed rigging plan for British clippers see Harold Underhill's Masting and Rigging the Clipper Ship and Ocean Carrier, Brown, Son and Ferguson, Glasgow, 1972. Everything you ever wanted to know and a lot more! He describes every bit of the rigging in detail.

John, I was pretty nervous when starting my first plank on bulkhead model back in 1969 - the Billings Santa Maria. The instructions were very sketchy and I didn't have the Model Ship World Forum for advice! But I got the job done and it still looks pretty good today. Here is a tip for planking - go down a bit to see my "plank bending" tool in action. https://modelshipworld.com/topic/37060-uss-cape-msi-2-by-dr-pr-148-inshore-minesweeper/?do=findComment&comment=1075263 The little Mini Iron II (Clover No. 9100) is a quilting iron for seams. I saw it mentioned in another post on the Forum as a plank bending tool. But it is also perfect for ironing sail tablings, linings and bolt ropes after they have been glued. It is less cumbersome than a large iron and the small tip gets into tight spaces. It is basically a 40 Watt/120 Volt soldering iron with specialized ironing tips. It has three heat levels, low (200F/105C), medium (390F/200C) and high(580F/295C). They recommend the low setting for silk. It is on sale on Amazon for $19.00 right now (normally $25.00). You get a plank bender, sail making tool and a quilting iron all for the price of one! It is well worth the money!

There are several ring lights that are made for macro photography - I posted a description of one here: https://modelshipworld.com/topic/36412-ring-light/?do=findComment&comment=1040024 They have a variety of controls to dim/brighten the light, and I have seen at least one that allows the light color to be varied. But most of them are battery powered to be used in the field. You could modify one to be powered from an AC "wall wart" power supply, or just used a rechargeable battery to eliminate extra wiring. I once bought a cheap USB powered ring light that was large enough to fit around a cell phone, complete with a phone holder. It was intended to illuminate a person taking a selfie or on a video conference. You could vary the colors and brightness. There are all sorts of ring lights available on the Internet. **** No Idea - Pulse width modulation just means turning the light on and off quickly, with a variable on/off timing. The longer the light is on (with shorter off times) the brighter it is. The pulse timing is very short so you can't see the flicker, just brighter or dimmer light. The advantage of this is that the light is operated at full power while on, always producing the same color light whether bright or dim. Some lights change color between high power (bright) low power (dim), and that isn't good for many applications.

Keith, We tend to have high security around nukes - either the power plants or the bombs. On the Oklahoma City our nuclear spaces were locked and alarmed except one passage into the missile house. There was a Marine guard at the door. He had a list of people who were authorized to get in, and a set of ID badges that were issued to us when we entered. The Marine carried a 45 pistol and was authorized to shoot anyone who tried to get into the space who wasn't on the list. One day the 7th Fleer Chief of Staff was escorting a visiting Admiral around the ship and he saw the "Restricted Area" sign on the door. The Admiral decided to go in an have a look. Well, the Marine was a Private and not accustomed to greeting Admirals. He jumped up and saluted and the Admiral barged right past him. He was half way up the ladder into the missile house when he heard the guard shout "Stop or I will shoot!" He turned around and found himself looking down the barrel of a cocked 45, with a very nervous Private's finger on the trigger. So far, so good. The Private did exactly what he was trained to do, and fortunately the Admiral was smart enough to not try to bluff his way out of it. But no one had told the Private what to do after he caught an Admiral!

Very nice! You can't get too much light on the work area!!

Keith, I was in California in 1969. There were a lot of flower children around, but no so many on the Navy base! Our XO, Devine Dave, had a brother who was a Hells Angel or in some other motorcycle gang. Complete with chopper, black leathers and Nazi helmet. He occasionally came to visit Dave on the base and that drove the Marine sentries up the wall!

You will have much better success if you take the time to determine the appropriate tapering of each plank. There are tutorials for planking in the Forum's Articles Database. https://cdn.wildapricot.com/278718/resources/Documents/articles/LiningOffYourHullPlankingTutorialAndFan.pdf?version=1579727184000&Policy=eyJTdGF0ZW1lbnQiOiBbeyJSZXNvdXJjZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vY2RuLndpbGRhcHJpY290LmNvbS8yNzg3MTgvcmVzb3VyY2VzL0RvY3VtZW50cy9hcnRpY2xlcy9MaW5pbmdPZmZZb3VySHVsbFBsYW5raW5nVHV0b3JpYWxBbmRGYW4ucGRmP3ZlcnNpb249MTU3OTcyNzE4NDAwMCIsIkNvbmRpdGlvbiI6eyJEYXRlTGVzc1RoYW4iOnsiQVdTOkVwb2NoVGltZSI6MTc0MDgwODA4MH0sIklwQWRkcmVzcyI6eyJBV1M6U291cmNlSXAiOiIwLjAuMC4wLzAifX19XX0_&Signature=nZK2WLWyqAkPJ9ertf5cJiM05jcybOx8BEiVdeEf-66uM4iP~dW48h2jKOj-YSzX1yt5uyx-hiwq-TnThAs2kj6VzMj0jXrbYUDlR0ef~94Wad78dsD4VYW48xFVt9f8PFE5GhMHEV~wNguKzvh3N~dcT8gGURlZKN3kRbmlc7ZHj1hPv6mCqaGtMOqPjap-kGQ3ubh4rN49cN3W-niqdcMBJUeTs4VBW1H6pR61tNRPLiBdlM4G1BYsH-5MzAkgQe6w4DSnlnz4bruvUXk5CYgh9uTX-zeMWKwPSKX0P-mzSclKmvjswf4Kh6RRNoq5U1TrhcdiXgVgXOS82tnRaw__&Key-Pair-Id=K27MGQSHTHAGGF https://cdn.wildapricot.com/278718/resources/Documents/articles/APrimerOnPlanking.pdf?version=1579727157000&Policy=eyJTdGF0ZW1lbnQiOiBbeyJSZXNvdXJjZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vY2RuLndpbGRhcHJpY290LmNvbS8yNzg3MTgvcmVzb3VyY2VzL0RvY3VtZW50cy9hcnRpY2xlcy9BUHJpbWVyT25QbGFua2luZy5wZGY~dmVyc2lvbj0xNTc5NzI3MTU3MDAwIiwiQ29uZGl0aW9uIjp7IkRhdGVMZXNzVGhhbiI6eyJBV1M6RXBvY2hUaW1lIjoxNzQwODA4MTgyfSwiSXBBZGRyZXNzIjp7IkFXUzpTb3VyY2VJcCI6IjAuMC4wLjAvMCJ9fX1dfQ__&Signature=kFKIMB0KalfS~KkWV1pKZi8lRhpTrKYNAEwcg08LIZEfFffwOC1DfsB6hJQI6jddSNjgcKsW0FmUO14aQ7z3yCAg4PiYdvJbjIMtf5ia5qAodNGn7I~NQ91jBQgC3jKz1R6yhusUKG8jnKTtwT-SnGWKtJIz6eja9e8g5rd48X-zstxjIe960q274kiAXQ7NnGvcW9PFIEXepj-lrlbG-w1l2nflp29fCj9uuBYweaqJWiX2ED4nbo3tuUWyvav2YGkkmaYjGYW8VpXV26x9lSkT~Yck-Db1uhcdW~YQSpDqUalkfrv4Wz9UJsZjBdXj~9LNCvfOzIuqh7PdUVI9JA__&Key-Pair-Id=K27MGQSHTHAGGF

You did a good job getting the planking symmetrical on both sides. However, I am not sure if any boat or ship was ever planked in the way the model was planked. usually the plans are tapered on the ends so all planks run more or less parallel to their neighbors. They don't curve up and terminate against another planks the way the bottom eight do on your model. It seems some kit builders have adopted this "shortcut" to make it easier to plank a hull. Tapering the planks the way it was actually done on most (all?) vessels is MUCH harder. If the hull is to be caulked, sanded smooth and painted, with none of the plank seams visible, I guess it doesn't matter. But with time and the swelling and shrinking of the wood with changing humidity the plank seams will become visible.

Per, Thanks. There is a bit noire progress to report. I have started rigging the fore mast, and that called for a review of the belaying plan. That revealed a few missing elements - a few eye bolts on deck, a change of a couple lines, and calculations of line lengths. I attached sheets and halliard blocks to the fore sails . The length of the sling for the fore course yard was adjusted so it didn't hang too low and ride on the parrals for the fore gaff. But it had to hang low enough for me to rig the truss luff tackle below the trestletrees. But the main time sink has been rigging 31 more hanks to the fore stay, jib stay and outer jib stay. That was tedious work. As before I put the model on its side so the stays would not be running vertical. Here you can see the last bunch of hanks tied to the outer jib stay. I needed to get all the hanks on the stays before I started rigging the fore course yard and the fore topsail yard and sail. With these in place on the mast I wouldn't be able to put the model on its side.. I slip the hank over the stay and then squeeze the legs together with forceps so the hank cannot slip off the stay. Then I tie the knots around the "X" of the hank. The long ends of the line are weighted down with small clamps. Then a drop of white glue is applied to the knots to hold everything in place. After the glue sets the clamps are removed. You can see how much the weight of 11 clamps pulls down the stay. But when the clamps were removed the stay pulled back taut. After rigging 40 hanks it became pretty easy to do each one. Still, it took 45 minutes to tie eleven hanks, or about four minutes each. There are four knots on each hank. Now that the hanks are in place I need to decide what to rig next. There are a lot of lines on the fore mast, and no matter what order I select to add the sails each one will be in the way of rigging the next one! I have decided I will not rig the fore course. I will rig the fore staysail, and that would not be flown when the course was rigged. The yard will be there to serve as the spreader for the topsail, with all the yard rigging. But I probably won't try to rig any of the fore course sail lines. That will relieve the line congestion around the mast. I did find an interesting note while researching fore sail rigging. The fore staysail wasn't used on most merchant vessels, but was mainly used on warships.

Interesting question. I have heard that also, but have never seen a reference. I have always thought that the foot of the mast rested in a fixed mast step, so that end couldn't move without removing the mast and rebuilding the step. There is some space around the mast at the "partners" - where the mast passes through the main deck. This space is filled with wedges to fix the mast in place. I suppose by using thick and thin wedges properly spaced around the opening the angle of the mast could be varied a bit, both fore and aft (rake) and side to side. I can see where this might change the angle of the rake by a degree or two. Again, I think this would have to be done in port. All of the stays and shrouds would have to be loosened and adjusted, and you wouldn't want that to happen at sea!

Another publication I have found useful is George Campbell's The Neophyte Shipmodeller's Jackstay, Model Shipways Co., Inc., Bogota New Jersey, 1962. This 60 page booklet was intended to be an introduction to ship modelling for beginners. It doesn't describe any vessel in particular, but has a lot of bits of information about things found on sailing ships with many illustrations. I have found it useful as an illustrated "dictionary" for nautical terms.

Mark, Here is a list of the most useful books I have found for topsail schooners. Some time back I posted this list in the topsail schooner rigging article: https://modelshipworld.com/topic/25679-topsail-schooner-sail-plans-and-rigging/?do=findComment&comment=750865 1. To me the most important reference is Howard Chapelle's The Baltimore Clipper (Edward M. Sweetman Co., New York, USA, 1968). It has a lot of information about the development of topsail schooners and lots of drawings and illustrations. More importantly, it lists the dimensions of actual vessels in the early 1800s. It has many sail plan drawings, but says little about the rigging. 2. The Global Schooner by Karl Heinz Marquardt, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland, USA, published by Conway Maritime Press, London, 2003. This book is devoted to the history and construction of schooners. It has an exhaustive history of the schooner rig - the best I have seen. The book has very detailed chapters on masts and rigging with detailed drawings. Numerous tables in the appendices give rules and dimensions for mast, spars and rigging. It is the most complete text on schooner rigging that I have found. It is a large book (11.6 x 10 inches, 294 x 254 mm) with 239 pages containing many detailed drawings, full page ship plans and illustrations. 3. Lennarth Peterson's Rigging Fore-and-Aft Craft (Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland, USA, 2015) has a section on topsail schooners, and most of this also applies to straight fore-and-aft schooners. He has drawings showing just about every possible line you could have on a schooner. 4. Howard Chapelle's The American Fishing Schooners 1825-1935 (W. W. Norton & Company, New York and London, 1973, 690 pages) is a must if you are interested in these schooners. It gives the history of these ships. However, it has a 371 page "Notebook" with very detailed drawings and descriptions of just about every part of schooner structure and rigging, and much of it applies to all schooners. 5. John Leather's The Gaff Rig Handbook (Wooden Boat Books, Brooklyn, Maine, USA, 2001) gives a lot of detail for rigging modern fore-and-aft yachts and racing boats, but much of this isn't very useful for 19th century and earlier vessels. However, he does give the history of the development of different types of rigs, mainly focusing on British vessels. But the book doesn't have a useful index and finding information about a particular rigging detail is like looking for a needle in a haystack. 6. Harold Underhill's Sailing Ship Rigs and Rigging (Brown, Son & Ferguson, Glasgow, Scotland, 1969) has general sail plans for many types of ships and boats but not much about the actual rigging. But it does have a useful glossary. 7. An excellent reference for the development of fast sailing ships is Howard Chapelle's The Search for Speed Under Sail (W. W. Norton & Company, New York, USA, and London, Great Britain, 1967). It has some sail plans for schooners and a few rigging diagrams. 8. I also have Underhill's Masting and Rigging the Clipper Ship and Oceanic Carrier (Brown, Son & Ferguson, Glasgow, Scotland, 1972). It is an excellent book with a tremendous amount of detail about sails and rigging. It is mostly for British clipper ships, but it has a section on schooners. Unfortunately the drawings seem to be scattered randomly through the book and are rarely anywhere near the text that refers to them. But it does have a list of drawings after the table of contents. Most of what he writes about are rigs of the last half of the 19th century and early 20th century. If you are interested in clipper ships this is a must have! It has perhaps the best and most inclusive index of any book I have seen, with links to descriptions of every part of the ship. 9. James Lees' The Masting and Rigging of English Ships of War 1625 - 1860 (Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland, USA, 1990) is almost entirely about larger square riggers. However it does give a lot of detail about parts of rigging that does apply to schooners. More importantly, it tells how to determine the dimensions of spars, rigging, blocks and such based upon the mast diameter, and has lots of tables. But some caution is necessary because fore-and-aft rigs are much lighter than square rigs, and mast diameters are usually smaller for schooners. And the text can be confusing because he often fails to explain exactly what dimensions he is referring to. Mast and spar dimensions are usually diameters but rope dimensions are circumferences. Divide by PI (3.14159) to get the rope diameter. The biggest problem I have had is all the nautical jargon these authors use, usually without any glossary. And different authors use different arcane terms for the same things. Some authors think a work cannot be scholarly unless it is written so an ordinary person cannot understand it, and use "five dollar words" where a "nickel" word would do just as well. I have found three books indispensable for translating the nautical jargon into meaningful explanations: 10. The Young Sea Officer's Sheet Anchor by Darcy Lever in 1808 (reprinted by Algrove Publishing Ltd., Ottowa, Ontario, Canada, 2000) tells the novice officer or seaman how to rig a ship - every detail of how to put all the pieces of the masts and rigging together. It is essentially an illustrated glossary of nautical terms and a how-to book. But there isn't a lot specifically about fore-and-aft rigs. 11. The Art of Rigging by George Biddlecombe, 1925 (reprinted by Echo Point Books & Media, LLC., Brattleboro, Vermont, USA, 2016) is based upon David Steel's 1794 The Elements and Practice of Rigging and Seamanship. It has an excellent glossary and many illustrations. Again, not much about schooners. You can find Steel's original book on line as a PDF file. 12. A good general reference is Wolfram zu Mondfeld's Historic Ship Models (Sterling Publishing Co., Inc., New York, USA, 1989) although it is oriented to square rigged ships and doesn't have much to say about schooners. But it has a tremendous amount of detail about all parts of wooden ships and a lot of the history of different configurations. It has lots of diagrams and text describing the parts of ships' hulls, rigging, sails and such. The book has tables for figuring the dimensions of mast and spars. It is one of the best general references for sailing ship modelers. 13. William Falconer's Universal Dictionary of the Marine, 1769, is very useful for understanding the arcane and obsolete terminology used in many texts, especially the older works. You can find this book in PDF format on line.

Just a guess about the holes in the stabilizers, but I would bet they are "lifting holes." On both my cruiser and minesweeper models the blueprints showed holes near the top corners of the rudders. These were where shackles or eye bolts could be installed so cables could be attached for lifting the rudders when they were being removed from the hull. I also had the leveling problem when I was using the laser to draw the waterline marks on my MSI hull. Things just didn't line up correctly. It took me a while to realize that the bench top was slightly off level!

Steve, I guess we have gotten off track here. But for all Baltimore Clipper and topsail schooner fans, I should advise getting Chapelle's The Baltimore Clipper. It may well be the definitive book on the subject. And now we return to the scheduled programming ....

Salty, Chapelle has a good description of the Lynx in The Search For Speed Under Sail (pages 215-218). There is a full page plan drawing on page 217, and a full page sail plan on page 219. He says the vessel did not have an extreme sail plan. From the drawing I estimate that the rake of the fore mast was 11.5 degrees and the main mast is 13.5 degrees, both relative to the water line.

Those hanks on the Star of India are also called "horseshoe hanks" for obvious reason. I have also seen them called "horseshoe shackle hanks" because of the loops at the ends that resemble the bolt eyes on a shackle. I have also heard of a "hank" of yarn. If you stop and think about it the "grommets" (another multiple meaning word) were coiled small stuff (what we called small line in the US Navy) similar to "hanks of yarn or line." So I can see why the later wooden hanks took the name of the earlier coiled line in the grommets, even though grommets weren't called hanks. Or were they at some time or place? Maybe a grommet was a hank that was wound around a stay and tied to a sail? Languages were not designed by intelligent thought. They evolved randomly, and words and phrases were modified by local dialects and legends. And they change with time.

Mark, I have no way to know if any other schooner did or did not have the same mast rake as the Prince. As I said earlier, I examined plans and drawings for 17 Baltimore clippers and found the mast rakes to be: Fore mast - 11.5 degrees average, with a range of 7-16 degrees Main mast - 13.75 degree average, with a range of 8-22 degrees So it is certainly possible that other schooners could have had the same rake as the Prince. The angles are close to the average for this type of vessel.

Keith, I was thinking of that. I don't recall any flowers on the USS Cape! Instead of a table we had a 0.50 caliber machine gun storage cabinet.

No rest for the weary!

Thanks!

Glad to help. I have loved schooners since I was a kid and saw Adventures in Paradise on TV. My first scratch build was a schooner, and I enjoy seeing other models being built. I learn something from each one! 7 in 36 = 11 degrees 7.5 in 36 = 11.8 degrees That's better than my measurements from the small illustrations in the books.

Keith, What are you making a model of? A pretty fantasy shelf decoration? An accurate representation of a vessel at some point in time?

Howard Chapelle has drawings of the Prince in The History of American Sailing Ships (p147) and The Search for Speed Under Sail (p230). The latter book has drawings showing many details of the Prince's rigging. The fore mast rake was about 12 degrees from the horizontal (waterline) and the main mast rake was about 13.5 degrees. There was some sheer to the deck so the angle from the deck for the fore mast is about 10 degrees and 13 degrees for the main mast. The rake of the masts caused points on the masts higher up to be farther aft. The general rule for rigging was that lines originating higher up were belayed aft of those origination lower down on the masts. The rake of the masts resulted in less "crowding" of the lines as they came down to pin rails on the bulwarks. The lines from higher up came down aft of the mast and caused less interference with the rotation of yards lower down on the mast.