Arthur Goulart

Yeah... The abyss has stared back at me, nothing I can do about it now 😆. I can already see some ways the comparison will be useful in the upcoming steps, I'll probably be able to improve, or be reassured of my design for the boat's rake, sternpost and rudder. Having those four other plans is quite the unique opportunity to understand what was the designer's process. And on the topic of Marmaduke's Naval Architecture, I'm actually kinda surprised I had no idea that book even existed. I had a quick look through it, it seems to be just the thing for this project, much more complete than Steel's when it comes to whole moulding, and that plate 1 find was a great one, @iMustBeCrazy! And btw, do any of you have a pdf for The Shipbuilder's Repository? I have looked everywhere for that and found nothing but crazy expensive physical books.

It's actually 3 months of free trial, Michael. My biggest struggle was more understanding all things shipbuilding related than the program itself 🙃

Following @Waldemar's suggestion, I took to measuring. Not only I looked for proportions on our 23ft launch, but I browsed around RMG's website and found a couple more launch plans dated 25th of April 1785 by Adam Hayes, namely ZAZ7353 (21ft), ZAZ7352 (22ft), ZAZ7351 (26ft), and ZAZ7348 (30ft). I figured, if there is some proportional rule to the construction of these boats, comparing the plans would reveal it. So, I did the unthinkable, created a spreadsheet. Here are the results: I hope the measurement descriptions make sense. Everything is in inches. The "/lenght" columns refer to the previous measurement divided by the lenght of the boat. I was also curious if this exercise could help me with the question for the height at which the lower points for forming the sternpost and the rudder are set, if at the height of the base-line, or at the height of the keel's base. An example will make it more clear, the sternpost's outer edge is a line that passes through the aftmost edge of the sheer strake, and through a second point down below, that is either at the height of the base-line, or at the height of the keel's base, I don't know which. Although the spreadsheet gives pretty damn similar proportions between the different boats at both the base-line's and keel's base heights, I think those at the base-line's height make more sense, that is 1/30 of the lenght = sternpost width, and 6/100 of the lenght = rudder width, at least for the three longest boats, . What do you guys make of it? Do you see any other proportions that also make sense? -Arthur

Guys, thank you a lot for the posts. This little into the project, I already got some valuable insights! Sheeesh, those are really inconsistent gaps. Can you see some logic behind them? I like the way that sounds, Waldemar! But, how do I know which proportions to look for? I mean, any division between two lenghts will give me a proportion, how would I know what is correct? I've had a look through The Elements and Practice, in the 'GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON THE PROPORTIONAL DIMENSIONS' chapter, and I couldn't quite make out something aplicable. Maybe I can get somewhere by comparing different boat plans? Got it! Ohhh I will not indeed, Vaddoc! And drafting in CAD is quite addicting. Hours will go by and I won't notice it. I definetely will spend some time taking a good look at your longboat!!

By no means! You guys just gave me something new to fiddle with 🤣. I went with Rhino because I thought it was the best out there for our purposes, but nop. I'm sure glad I'm still just using a free trial, because Rhino is quite expensive. A free and better alternative? Count me in. By the way, those boats look awesome.

A little disclaimer at first, when measuring distances off of the plans, I'm looking for the most logical values. That means, I don't think that when setting a line someone would go with the "7/64th of an inch" option, specially because, keep in mind, these plans were drawn at scale. When two possible values get close to the lenght of a given line, I'm picking the rounder one. As a general rule for this project, 1/2 is as far as I am going when dividing inches, unless there is good reason to think a more specific value is correct. Onto the first steps. The first view of the ship to be drawn is the sheer plan, that is, the side view. We start off with the base-line, which coincides with the upper edge of the rabbet of the keel, on ships, it ends perpendicular to the fore and aftmost edges of the lower deck. On boats, however, it stretches from the aftmost edge of the sheer strake to the foremost edge of the stem, and represents the lenght of the vessel, so, in our specific case, 23ft. From both ends of the lines, two perpendiculars are drawn, these are important references for other lines to be set. Next up, to set the midship perpendicular, which not always is precisely amidships. Here it is 10'10-1/2" from the foremost perpendicular. From it, the other, evenly spaced, perpendiculars are drawn. For our launch, they are a weird 1'2-3/8" of one another. I came up with that for two reasons: that value aligns much better with the H and 9 perpendiculars (the outmost ones) of the original plans than a 1'2-1/2" spacing; and, because the plans for a 30ft launch (ZAZ7348), by the same author and date, show, again, the same 3/8" spacing, 1'3-3/8", in this latter case. I wonder the reason behind the odd choice. The stem is mostly formed by arcs centered 3'4" up from the base-line and 3'10" aft from the foremost perpendicular. That point is reassured by its correspondence with a little dark spot on the original plans, that I assume is where the point of the draftsman's compass laid. From it, with a 3'5" radius the outer edge of the rabbet is set; with a 3'4" radius, the inner edge of the rabbet; and, 3'2-1/2", the inner edge of the stem. These latter two arcs, however, are fictional, they do not correspond with how the finished boat might've looked in the past, and will not stay this way on the finished 3D model. More on that later, they are good enough for now. To the keel and outer edge of the stem. I previously thought that the base of the keel was a little too wide on the sheer plan: the body plan shows a narrower version (more like 6" from the base-line instead of the 6-1/2" shown in the sheer view), and that means that a 3'10" radius from the same center already discussed would intersect perfectly with both the foremost perpendicular and the bottom of the 6" keel. But, the neat result was a bit too off in relation to the plans to my likeing. One particular detail came to my attention, 3'3" from the foremost perpendicular there is a sharp edge, that suggests a not too perfect junction between the stem's outer edge and the keel's base, a bug or a feature? I came to the conclusion that it is, indeed, a feature. Many plans and models show such an edge (the Medway longboat for example), and notably, that 30ft launch (ZAZ7348) by the same author and date also features that edge, and there it looks even more intentional. So, I now have adopted a 6-1/2" keel width, the outer edge of the stem is made by an arc that is centered on the same height as the center of the other radii that form the stem - so they end at the same height too -, but that intersects the base of the keel 3'3" aft off the foremost perpendicular. That solution is much more in line with the plans. - Arthur

Loracs, I'm using Rhinoceros, I found it to be rather intuitive, messing around with it a little and some quick google searchs have gone a long way for me. I have not tried something different, so I can't compare. Rhino seems to be what most folks use here too. And, part of the reason I started this topic is that I haven't found one that adresses my questions regarding redrawing plans, so I hope to crowd source some knowledge through here.

Waldemar, she looks incredible!

So, I wanted a not too complicated to learn both 3D modelling and ship construction. I decided to go with a ship's boat, because you can't get much simpler than that for a first scratch project, and because the result might come in handy in the future for ships that, well, will be fitted with boats. Imagine the designer behind the plans had access to a CAD program, that is what I'm aiming to achieve. Thus, I'm looking at understanding how ship's lines were formed, so I can reconstruct this little launch from principle, not from merely tracing all the plan's lines. With that, I hope to get a more accurate model to the original designer's vision, by mitigating the limitations of the hand drawings and measurements of the time, of the 200+ years of wear the plans have been through, and of the distortion the scanning process might've added on top of it all. On this topic, I'll be registering my progress, in a step by step manner. I insist that you guys point out where I've got something wrong, even if you're not sure of it yourself, we might learn something by looking into it! I'm expecting to make plenty mistakes, and the purpose to pick something simple is that I can start it all over again without pulling too many of my hairs off. So far, my main reference has been The Elements and Practices of Naval Architecture, from '§ 2. OF THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE SHEER DRAUGHT OF THE EIGHTY GUN SHIP, FROM THE GIVEN DIMENSIONS' (p. 242) and onwards. Steel's book is aimed mostly at full on ships, but many instructions are aplicable to our purposes, many require a fair deal of interpretation - he is not the most clear and didactic, which is not helped by my still limited knowledge of ship building vocabulary, and by english not being my first language. Why this 23ft launch was picked, specifically? I tried a couple different boats out, I made some sense of this one the faster. The stem's radii and those of the midship frame are really important dimensions that I struggled with on other plans, but that I fairly confidently figured out for this launch. My take is that ship's boats were neglected subjects in their time, at least from a more technical stand point, and that today they likewise get less attention when compared to the more complex and exciting subjects, hopefully this will be a more thorough and complete reconstruction. The next post, I'll take you back to the beggining of the model's construction, but, for now, I'll leave you with how the model is looking present-day: - Arthur

There is a very notorious reference that you might have forgotten about: Grant it, she was restored a couple of times, but Victory is some 15 years older than Perseus and, still, show no scarphs.

Incredibly neat work!

Chuck, I've been silently admiring your work over the last few months. I'd really like to build one of your kits, but I can't really justify it atm. See, I live in Brazil, currency conversion makes costs pretty proibitive, add to that 60% import tax (I mean... That's insane). That, and I'm fiddeling myself through building a MSW Bluenose, but it's more of a scratch build project at this point, because the kit is really that poor, anyways, that's a tangent. The point is, I'd definetely buy that small boat if you were to sell it as a regular project. It looks like it will be a quick, well put together, relatively inexpensive kit, and I'm all for it. Cheers!

Alex, Needless to say, outstanding job! What wood are you making the carvings out of? It looks darker than boxwood to my eyes. Is it pear? Cheers!

I found Endymion on the RMG website, gents: https://www.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/rmgc-object-81924. As per described by the Science Museum, built in 1779, 44 gunner. Funny, my untrained eyes wouldn't think such a beautiful ship came from those plans.

Too slowly, Richard 😆. I'm really struggling to find the time to work on her, but so far, I'm happy with how it's coming along. I'm modifying the the kit pieces so they are more accurate to plans, and I'm improving on its construction method, for instance, I'm making the keel/stem as separate pieces, to be fitted down the line, once the planking is already finished. I'll be posting it all on my thread, but none of it is yet finished, so...