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ClipperFan
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As a way of evaluating Donald McKay's continuing nautical design evolution in his developing pursuit of the fastest hull, here are 1928 Flying Cloud plans. Besides dropping her angle at half-floor 10° it's clear that he widened her overall profile. In fact, it's quite likely that Staghound was McKay's slimmest, most aggressive vessel of his entire California clipper fleet.
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Damn straight!
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@rwiederrich @Luis Felipe and @Vladimir_Wairoa here's the actual pdf plan images from Staples. I noticed that the grid lines on the previous plans are slightly skewed. That's due to my cell phone not being precisely above when I took the picture. These are more precise. The only mistake I see are slightly misaligned fore halves of the Chappelle.
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For the next step in ensuring accuracy of the Staghound deck, Dan at my local Staples digitally matched both 1881 Hall diagram halves and all four 1967 Chappelle sections to create two equal 1:96th scale 28" enlargements. Hall is on left in vertical image, Chappelle on right. And Hall is on top while Chappelle is on bottom in the horizontal one. Despite the odd somewhat pointy stern which doesn't match McLean's description at all, the Hall profile is the more graceful. Meanwhile, Chappelle offers a good deck layout, other than the inaccurate forecastle arrangement.
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Rob, If you don't realize it by now, I border on anally retentive, obsessive-compulsive when it comes to wanting to make sure everything's perfectly accurate. Makes for great, meticulously accurate plans but it probably explains why it's been decades since I've built anything myself. You're the veteran modeler with 50 years' experience, I'm sure you'll make it work.
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@rwiederrich Rob, I took another glance at your portico and realized to move it back would require you to rework both sides to have narrower doors. Doing that would no longer have it be square. I suppose you could cut out part of the front portico roof railings to make room for the mizzen mast or cheat and move the mizzen mast 2 scale feet 1/4" forward. Unless of course you can back up the poop deck bulkhead.
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Rob, if your poop deck is 46 scale feet instead of 44 that pushes the 8' scale portico 2' feet closer to the mizzen mast making that distance 5'. For some crazy reason, tolerances in this area were designed tight by McKay. If it's not possible to push the poop deck bulkhead back 1/4" to make it the correct 44 feet, then you might want to move your portico back just enough so that the rear raked mizzen doesn't hit the portico rail.
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Rob, Butterworth's works are undoubtedly gorgeous but he does have some faults, especially when he tries angle perspective images. His Flying Cloud piece has her aft poop deck too short, her mizzen mast is too far back making distance between main and mizzen too short, while distance between fore and main is too great. In addition, her small portico is too large as well. I love his atmospheric beauty and his broadside depictions are first rate but from a modeler's viewpoint, you simply can't rely on this particular depiction to create an accurate. replica.
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@rwiederrich Rob, as I mentioned, that deck sketch is a preliminary effort. To fit onto an 11" space I used 1cm to be 10'. Working at such a tiny scale made it very difficult to be fully accurate. However, my 8/27/2024 poop deck sketch is correctly scaled at 1:48th. As for Buttersworth, he did magnificent Staghound, Flying Fish, Sovereign of the Seas & Great Republic works. I don't recall him doing a piece on Glory of the Seas however. You might be thinking of Samuel Walters for that one.
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@rwiederrich agreed Rob. These early vessels were definitely leaner and narrower. Still, with a maximum 40' beam Staghound was only 4' less wide than Glory of the Seas which also was 40' longer than Staghound. I immediately noticed that my initial attempt to match the Hull diagram is too stocky, while it appears at first glance that Luis' deck profile is just a bit narrow. I've shared these because by matching halves we can finally generate a whole profile. It appears like grid lines on both Hall and Chappelle are 10 scale feet apart. My next step will be to combine these pieces to create wholes and then get those precise dimensions.
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@rwiederrich Rob and @Luis FelipeLuis after our discussion about relative deck dimension issues, I used a photo app to realign the few deck sources available. Both the 1881 Hall and 1967 Chappelle copies we have were slightly out of true. I have corrected that as best as possible. The same process was applied to the sole deck image supplied by Luis. Finally, I've included my own beginning deck sketch. By comparing each of these, we can more accurately nail down this portion of Staghound.
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Rob, I understand. As there's no documented proof specific to her decorations, that's open to interpretation.
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Rob, at the rate we're going, it's already apparent that this clipper Staghound is another unique tribute to Donald McKay's creative genius. My only other request about the current cutwater decorative treatment is to add a single curved molding at the base of the cutwater, similar to what's seen on Glory of the Seas. It strikes me that this embellishment was added to minimize the wedge shaped appearance of this particular piece resulting in a more graceful appearance.
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To me, nothing shows the genius of McKay's unique bow structure than actual historic Glory of the Seas pictures. When you look at those massive navel hoods which dwarf her larger than life figurehead it drives home the point that unlike headboards, these devices are integral to the hull of the ship.
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Rob, most of the darker wood can go. You just need to blend the top end of the cutwater into your original lighter stem line so that it merges just above the waterline.
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Rob, Vladimir supposedly overlaid the Cornelius McKay Staghound bow profile on my sketch in red lines. If that's true, than my sketch is almost exactly the same. Your cutwater as it is now is fine, it just appears to me that your original pencil lines look just a little closer to how it appears in my sketch. If you print out the sketch on an 8 & 1/2" × 11" paper it should be exactly 1:96th scale. Then you might be able to see what I'm trying to describe better.
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Rob, not all the way back but doing so at a gradual tapering inner curve. The Glory of the Seas picture you chose is perfect to illustrate how the cutwater blends into the stem to maintain the profile of the bow. You can also clearly see how this property accentuates projection of the figurehead as well. I've included my Staghound bow sketch so you can view how the graceful cutwater curve quickly intersects the stem. In doing this sketch, I relied heavily on what we learned in our research on Glory of the Seas as well. I also included a second curved molding as on the other clipper since in my studies I've seen this same feature consistently illustrated too. On your model, the outer depth of the cutwater is fine, it just needs to be a little trimmed back to match the photo and illustrations.
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Rob, those beautifully done navel hoods really extend the prow of your Staghound and give her a genuine clipper bow. One observation I offer is that on your original outline, the cutwater had a higher curve which appears to accentuate this feature a little more gracefully. It also more accurately reflects McLean's statement that this piece appeared to descend in unbroken curvature until it blended with the waterline. The end depth where it provides a mount for the figurehead is fine.
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Rob, that looks like a bow detail from a lovely Frank Vining Smith piece. I would appreciate seeing the entire work, as it looks quite colorful. Once again, this structural work demonstrates McKay's nautical design brilliance. It may even go back to his designing and building fishing boats in Nova Scotia. Those vessels had to be sturdy and tough for the type of work they were employed in. Here, we see the cutwater as the central backbone of the prow. Then two navel hoods sandwich this piece identically on both sides with the lower level of the cutwater extending the prow while doing double-duty as a sturdy base for figureheads. Meanwhile, the triple layered devices above provide a more than stable base for the massive bowsprit-jibboom just above while also providing a mounting point for the back of a figurehead and giving shelter at the same time. If you look at the Scottish tea clipper Cutty Sark you'll see that her bowsprit-jibboom mount above her bow and not into the built-up hull as in American clippers. Maybe that design philosophy was a difference too.
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Rob, your step by step updates really drives home what a complicated process scratch building a clipper replica really is. Staghound is shaping up to be a strikingly beautiful vessel.
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Rob, my bad. I misunderstood your picture, which made the figurehead look ridiculously small. The svelte hull of your Staghound is really beautiful and demonstrates Donald McKay's extreme California clipper true to form. It's so exciting to see you back at work on her.
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Rob, At this scale, your staghound's starting to look more like a chihuahua 😉 Either your navel hoods are too large or figurehead's too tiny. I'm resharing my sketch to aid in your scale evaluation. The staghound figurehead is 90" (7 & 1/2' like the Athene figurehead. Like her, the naval hoods terminate around the dog's front shoulders. The sketch is done to 1:96th scale with 8' verticle lines. I traced the Alexander Hall plans, which besides her bow profile was just about spot on. You can use the scale on that print as a guideline, as my trace was exactly the same.
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Rob, Staghound bulkhead height, including monkey rail was 6'6" from the deck. Main rail height was either 5' with an 18" monkey rail or 5'2" with a 16" monkey rail. While it's not specified on this vessel, other McKay clippers had a 5'2" main rail height with 16" monkey rail. On Glory of the Seas the outer sheer rail molding was about 1' shorter than the internal main rail height. For a 5'2" main rail the outer sheerline would be about 4'.
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Rob, I read Cornelius' instructions to mean, in order to get a more complete version of Staghound as he carved her, add 4" outside planking, 5" wales and a 30" keel (implied but not stated with false keel or shoe) all at his 1:48th scale.
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@rwiederrich Rob, your Staghound is shaping up beautifully. I hope this reminder isn't too late for your build. The keel was described as being built in two sections, was 46" deep, with 36" projecting beyond her hull making the internal portion just a thin 10" deep in the McLean article. However, in the Cornelius McKay letter in addition to bottom planking being 4" and wales 5" thick he stipulated (excerpt attached) that the keel section beyond the hull was just 30" deep making the other portion of keel inside a more sensible 16 thick."
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