ClipperFan
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rwiederrich Rob, once again, thank you again for your very generous gift. Boy I hate throw water on another man's work, especially an experienced draughtsman but here goes. The Bow and Stern as depicted just don't match what I see in the various paintings and the 1900s broadside photo or even the most recent discovery that we shared in this forum. First painting is by Samuel Walters, widely reputed as being one of Britain's finest nautical illustrators, meticulous in his accurate depictions of every detail of sailing vessels in the minutest details. His glorious painting, featured on Michael Mjelde's first 1970s book, shows a more pronounced Bow than either the first endpaper or this latest effort. Look closely you'll see he has included the Naval Hood as well as the Carved Arch beneath and her white figurehead. Second oil painting is by Charles Robert Patterson, one of America's finest sailor marine artists. Just like Walters' work, Patterson is renowned for his accurate Ship's portrayals. It's remarkable how consistent these two artists are in their depictions of the exact same vessel "Glory of the Seas." Third is a rare photo of Glory's Stern while she's being towed to Alaska. Her stern looks much lighter than how it's depicted in the newest lines plan. Finally is the first large illustration I did myself, maybe 5 or 6 years ago. This is a poorly lit image. I include it because if you look closely there's a graph inside the Hull. I used every specific measurement taken from a reproduction of a contemporary account, probably Robert Duncan McLean, Boston Daily Atlas, which is available in one of Michael Mjelde's publications. I realize I'm not a professional nautical draughtsman but as I've said before, I can clearly see what's in front of my eyes. For instance, the latest image of Glory grounded also suffers from what I've labeled "perspective distortion." While it's a good broadside picture, old "Glory" is clearly listing to Port. Adding to distortion is the location of the photographer who's far below her waterline. Both of these issues exaggerate shortening of the bow and thickening of the stern. Perhaps the one that is clearly the most accurate of Glory's Hull is the Starboard Broadside when she's docked at San Pedro, which I've shared with this group already. When you consider that her figurehead is 7 1/2 feet, she's apparently projecting about 15' from the Bow. I've included a close up of her Bow. Compare it to the new revised Bow. At least to me, they still don't match. Again, I absolutely don't mean any disrespect to the hard work of another man but my fealty is to Donald McKay's impressive creation and this still doesn't match what I see.
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As for locating the missing 1st Glory model, if you can locate the name of the buyer, it should be possible to get probate records. All decedants possessions are usually listed and in a will it's also stipulated to whom those artifacts are supposed to go to. Assuming the buyer knew the value of what they had, it should be fairly easy to identify. Then it's a simple matter of contacting the new owner. If that doesn't work, contacting the probate attorney would also be a good start. The attorney can't give out personal info but they can probably pass along a word to the right party to contact you.
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rwiederrich Rob, I'm still stunned that you're being so considerate to me, a fellow Glory fan who you never met before. I'll let you know as soon as I receive it. Please extend my thanks to Michael Mjelde for his courtesy as well. I found the magazine article with the description of Glory's figurehead being 90" tall. When I get home I'll share that with a few others. Even with the limited images available, it's possible to do a very accurate reproduction. Of course at 1:96 she's just shy of an inch tall!
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I doubt that my sleuthing has unearthed anything new but just in case I may have, I'll dig them up and share them here. I learned from a magazine publication that she was 90" tall which is 7 1/2 feet. I'm going to concentrate my efforts on recreating her as well as her impressive gilded carved nautical hoods and gilded carved arch pedestal which she so gracefully resides on. A magnificent vessel deserves her glorious figurehead.
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TheAuthorsDaughter I do hope your younger sister is fully recovered now. Your dad sacrificing a rare artifact to help save her life is a testament to his caring, concern and selflessness. If Mr Mjelde has any additional pics of Glory's lovely Figurehead still residing at the top of the double staircase at the old India House, NYC I would love to see them. The devil's in the details and my goal is to be as painstakingly accurate as possible.
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rwiederrich Rob, that is just so thoughtful of you! As per your instructions, I sent you a PM (at least I hope that's what it was). This is so exciting, I never expected it. Thank you, thank you, thank you! Your interactions with Arina and her Renaissance Man dad Michael Mjelde have inspired me so powerfully. After we conclude our work on McKay's magnificent last Medium Clipper, I plan on furthering my studies on Donald's other wonderful vessels, starting with his initial effort, Extreme Clipper "Staghound." Ultimately, I want to write to the Peabody-Essex Museum, Salem, MA. According to Richard McKay's book on all of his Cousin's ships, there is a "treasure trove" of illustrations that Donald personally sketched in anticipation of a long, lost book that was never published. Apparently Donald McKay was intending to bring the published Manuscript with him on a European tour to develop more business for his then struggling Boston Shipyard. Twin Hulls of "Chariot of Fame and Star of Empire" are just one example of roughly 100 similar sketches sent to the Peabody Museum. Wouldn't it be wonderful if someone finally finished Donald McKay's book???
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TheAuthorsDaughter Arina. on behalf of our entire group, I want to express my deep appreciation to you for your efforts to coordinate a meeting with your dad and Rob. Your father's two books have been such an inspiration to me personally for decades. Like Rob, my favorite ship's mechanic has always been Donald McKay, Scottish Immigrant and later American citizen. Besides patiently reconstructing Glory's lines it has been a personal goal to capture her lovely carvings and magnificent ship's figurehead Goddess 'Athene.' I've attached a quick sketch of her done a few years ago while at work, to give you an idea of my progress. If at all possible, I would love an opportunity to correspond with your dad about his incredible research on Glory.
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Rob, Thank you so much for sharing this amazing visit with Arina, theauthor'sdaughter and her dad, Michael Mjelde, the inspiring nautical historian and author himself! To say that I'm green with envy is an understatement. However, I can't think of anyone more deserving of this honor then you. It must have felt like an almost out of the body experience to meet with the two of them for several hours. The balsa wood creation of the modeler who created Glory's lines 20 years ago is a lovely piece of work. My hope is that you took many more pictures of her. Perspective distortion aside, she is a magnificent piece. Then to discover that Mr. Mjelde has yet a third manuscript ready to be published with a more accurate reproduction of Glory's lines to be included is quite an exciting revelation too. I noticed that Glory's wonderful Goddess "Athene" and her magnificent carvings are missing on Mr. Mjelde's impressive large scale model. Besides doing as much possible to accurately reconstruct her Hull lines, I've spent the last decade carefully recreating Glory's Figurehead (widely recognized as being the epitome of the ship carver's art) utilizing limited images available. If there's any way I can make a contribution just to that area of Glory's reconstruction, it would be my honor. Finally, please let us know how we can secure advanced, hopefully autographed copies of book 3 and as large a scale sail plan of Glory's new reconstruction once available. Thanks again for sharing this wonderful development. Meanwhile this has given me further inspiration to continue with the seemingly endless pursuit of perfection of a large scale accurate plan of my own.
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I want to belatedly wish everyone a safe Happy New Year 2021. For the first time in decades, I slept through New Year's Eve. It's been a challenging year and our family was just too tired to stay up. I hope everyone had a safe and restful New Year's day holiday.
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Druxey, Rob, Keith and Banyan thanks guys for the encouraging words for healing. I appreciate it more than mere words can express. Rob, you may already know this but just in case, I discovered that Glory's underwater Hull was sheathed up to 22 feet. I also learned that her individual strakes were not 1 foot, like I first thought but 6 1/2". That puts her upper Hull at the Starboard Hull Main Dock closer to 17 feet. 9 strakes just below her Dock equal 4' 10 1/2", her Dock height at 4 strakes equal 2' 2" and 7 strakes above are 3' 9 1/2". Total height up to Main Rail are 10' 10". Main Rail height is 5' and her Monkey Rail is 1' 6" added to that. Combined with height below Sheer Rail, this brings her Hull height to 17' 4". When combined with 22' lower Hull this brings her revised total to 39' 4". I'm still trying to get accurate dimensions for Sheer Rail, Main Rail and Monkey Rail. I think 6" might be accurate, which would add another 1' 6" to her total Hull bringing her up to 40' 10".
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Rob, Your Glory of the Seas hull is looking quite beautiful. As usual, your construction pace is breathtaking. I have to admit too, I've never seen such a unique approach to miniature Ship building before Unfortunately I've been sidelined with a serious illness. For the last month, I've suffered from mysterious stomach pains, which I attributed to a stomach cold. Last week it all came to a head when out of nowhere I had gut wrenching gas pains. My wife rushed me to the ER. Two hours after fortunately testing negative for Covid-19, I was immediately rushed directly into the OR. There they performed laparoscopic gall bladder surgery. I'm slowly getting better but it's been a rough road. This has severely impacted my ability to contribute to a revised Hull design, my apologies for the delay. I'll try to make up for this when I'm better.
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As promised, I've gone "back to the drawing board" to recapture the feel of "Glory of the Seas." This is a small sketch, based on the San Francisco dockside photo. Much smaller than the others. However this feels right when compared both to that image and the other broadside one. The masts are all arrow straight, the curve is actually in the paper itself. For this sketch, since I was so slavish on trying to reproduce precise dimensions, in the large work and completely lost the feel of the vessel, I completely abandoned that approach and just did this by eyeball. It just looks right to me. Now I need to reconcile this with her known dimensions. I went back and used a ruler to hold down the upper edge. As you can see, this is 8 1/2" wide by 5 1/2" deep, as it's a regular sized paper folded in 1/2.
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Vladimir_Wairoa I agree entirely. She must have been quite a spectacle when first launched. Her dazzling white lovely figurehead, perched serenely atop shimmering gold leaf carving, contrasted by cabinet smooth freshly painted black siding with glimmering yellow gold metal below. She was huge too. Her Depth of Hull was 28'6", 3 decks with 8'2" of height for the two lower decks, 140' long at the Keel, 165' length from Taffrail to Knightheads, 44' width. At her Starboardside Docking Port, I've been able to count 9 strakes below, 4 besides and another 7 above. Using 1' for each strake puts her height above the waterline as 20 feet, with approximately 7' Sidewalls above her Main Deck. Now take into account that her highest portion of Hull is clearly at the Bow and it was about 7 feet higher still, as her Sheer is reported to be 7 feet, you get a vessel that is about 34' above the Waterline. Even without her towering masts, she must have been a truly impressive sight!
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Unfortunately, her beautiful, elegantly carved scrollwork on her Cutwater arch has been all but washed away by decades at sea. Glory's carved naval hoods however remain intact. As eerily described in the contemporary newspaper article about the sad loss of the beautiful S Boston female model who posed for her figurehead, the Grecian Goddess Athene is missing her entire right arm up to her shoulder. Still, there is a serene loveliness to her which is unmistakable. Glory's Bow still has an imposing beauty to her, as well.
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In further efforts to locate as of yet unseen images of "Glory of the Seas" I found another image of her Bow, the same one from 1900 but this allowed me to do a compressed jpeg file, which yielded a larger, more clear picture. The other Clipper is a Starboard view of William Webb's most famous Clipper "Young America." This particular scene I've never seen before. It clearly shows her unique trailboard of a seated Lady Liberty resting between two furled American flags at her Starboard Bow. Her Port Bow had an entirely different trailboard design. I just thought you guys might appreciate seeing these.
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Druxey Good point! I think Glory may be just slightly Bow down, which would naturally make the Stern a little higher. I think I have to not follow this so slavishly and go back to utilizing all views in order to more accurately capture the true beauty of this vessel.
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From "Some Famous Sailing Ships and their Builder Donald McKay" is an authentic Builder's Model of 'Stag Hound' Donald McKay's first Extreme Clipper Ship built in 1850. Cornelius McKay states that he built this particular Half Hull Model personally, taking offsets directly from the Molding Loft as the actual vessel herself was being built. He admits that there may be a few other 'fancy' models around but that all of the authentic Builder's Models have been lost. One fascinating aspect I've noticed when viewing McKay's own work is that the length to depth ratios of his works, especially his Clipper Ship Hulls is very reminiscent of... Canoes.
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Keith Black, I have to double check my dimensions one more time, as I wrote, the Hull depth is a guesstimate and it looks like I made the Hull just a little too deep. The sheer just doesn't quite look right either, especially if it's compared to the San Francisco image where you can clearly see her quite graceful curving sheer. The Hull gradually curves down to the front of the Main Shrouds, appears to level a short distance after that and gently rises up the the Stern, which is noticeably lower than the Bow. My latest attempt just doesn't seem to fully capture those elements. One particular element I did finally appear to capture is the Bow rake, naval hoods and figurehead. Oh well, as they say... back to the drawing board.
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Rob, Draft of "GLORY of the SEAS" is basically done. Still, my artist's eye tells me that, while all "specs" line up, the drawing just doesn't seem to accurately capture the graceful "feel" of this lovely vessel as portrayed in the 1907 San Pedro dockside photo. Not having a complete underwater Hull, I had to estimate and now that she's complete, it looks like I may have made the Hull just a little too deep. Meanwhile, the Stern looks a little high compared to the Bow. Let me know what you think.... It's damn difficult to capture sharp details at this scale, since it's necessary to take pics from a good distance to get the entire image. Both the 1907 photo and sketch had to be laid flat on the floor to minimize distortion. As I said before, each ledger page is 11" × 17", 3 laid out together equal 41". The 4 sketch pages are roughly equivalent.
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Since McKay's Clippers were often favorably compared to Man O War Naval vessels, it's reasonable that his Shipyard would follow similar construction practices. A contract dispute he had with the US Navy also contributed to his financial woes. During the Civil War, he had contracts to build Naval vessels. During construction the US War Dept, kept continually revising their requirements leading to cost overruns. McKay and some other contractors eventually won their legal battle but it was years later and it was at considerable hardship. Another Clipper Captain, possibly Andrew Shewan of the lovely 3 Skysail Yarder 'Norman Court' in his book "The Great Days of Sail" told of Chinese thieves who would secretly strip sheets of metal from the hulls of Tea Clippers as they were anchored waiting to be loaded. Apparently they would use driftwood logs to swim up to the ships at dusk. Then under the cover of darkness they'd pry as many plates free as they could. Tea Clipper Captains would order their sailors to shoot at any 'driftwood' that approached their vessels. Often these sailors would be rewarded with the sight of the flotsam changing direction away from their ships. Still, many a Sea Captain would later discover that their ships were missing random plates after a stay in Chinese Harbors...
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Here's the original source for the colorized photo of Glory on the Ways. A pipe ad from 1946. This probably came from a Life magazine, which back then was huge (11" x 17") compared to today's much more modest productions.
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Druxey, I have no idea about coppering process of either merchant or US Naval ships. It was just my layman's observation that the majority of Glory's Hull is already coppered while she's on the Ways. The forefront of the ship appears to have a dark covering which blurs her strakes, while further back they're visible again. I've read that there was an underlay, kind of like tar fabric which was intended to form an additional barrier between the muntz metal and the underlying wood.
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Rare port side of Glory's Grecian Goddess 'Athene' figurehead. From the article on the transformation of McKay's last Clipper to a Salmon Cannery. Here you can see the iron support rod has been relocated from further back and inside the carved naval hood to further up and now outside. The shackle connection is now apparently on both ends of this reinforcing bar. From her dark hair and possible lipstick, it appears some bored sailors sadly "dolled up Athene."
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I actually have the original glossy photo of Glory near the Glacier Fish dock which I managed to score off e-bay years ago. By the time this impressive picture was taken, her Goddess figurehead had been removed. It adds to her forlorn situation. The image courtesy of Michael J Mjelde shows her with her figurehead still in place. All images do reinforce that below the waterline her Hull is practically verticle.
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In regards to "Glory of the Seas" on the Ways, I agree that this is most likely not her launch day. More likely as others have described as an Open House to "bring your family to view the latest McKay Clipper" Day. Compare images of the Clipper "Great Republic" launch, where there are hundreds, maybe thousands of people surrounding the massive vessel, with clearly a mere handful of dignitaries on board to the crowds of people on board Glory with only a handful of spectators on the grounds. As to her yet incomplete coppering process, that too contributes to a sense that this isn't her launch day. Towards the Bow just above the coppered area, there appears to be black felt underlay. Farther back, just behind scaffolding it looks like this material has yet to be applied. My guess is that this particular vessel's launch didn't occur until after the entire underwater Hull had received all her copper plates (actually called yellow metal).
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