Doreltomin

Thank you very much for showing us this lovely yacht! As I have mused through the plans there are some interesting details on it, for instance the deck which curves down to the stem to allow for the cables of the anchor to come up smoothly. A little yacht worth of being considered for a nice model, which at 1:64 would be of just the right size. I also completely agree with you that dividing modeller's attention to several subjects at the same time is a good way to never finish anything. However, I know modellers which work just like that, taking small steps to several models in the same time. Also unlike the girlfriend, a ship model is never jealous of being left some time on the shelf for another ship model! 😉 Also you did a very nice job in cutting these pieces and putting them together. It seems it takes much less time to project the cut on a computer and then laser it all in a single pass than it would have to cut them by handsaw and then smooth them one by one! Nice one!

Hello again, very nice structure on this one! Definitely better with thinner mdf and also I like that you put three longitudinal members instead of just the keel - makes a nice strong structure, ready to be planked over! Also however "hukkert" I don't believe can be translated with "cutter". Just look out, we have a Dutch friend named Rik Buter here on the MSW which currently builds an 82 feet long hooker ship model and he says the name comes from the fact it was originally a fishing ship using many lines with hooks. Anyway, it's a ship type different of a cutter!

It largely depends on how you feel secure with your modelling skills in continuing the model! You can abandon this and start anew or continue that one. For instance I would simply fill in the void between the frames with blocks, (probably rather linden than balsa wood, which is too soft) and then I would round them to the shape of the ship thus you would have a solid block base to glue your outer planks on it. If only when doing the body lines you took into the account the thickness of the planks, otherwise the size of the model would get slightly out of scale!

Just came across this one! That's a very nice ship and also a very good model taking shape, congratulations, will follow with much interest! As for the name of the pieces which keep the windlass to roll back under traction, you may try "pawls"!

Hello, just came across your build log. Very impressive, clean and crisp work, congratulations! Also came upon your mystery photo regarding channels and it reminded me of a photo I had from the training ship "Mircea" of the Romanian Navy, built in 1881 by Thames Iron Works and Shipbuilding Company in London/Orchard Yard, Blackwall. The photo is from around 1940 with the ship already in conservation (it was set afire by Russian bombers in 1944) and you can surely see she had normal deadeyes with three holes, but the ropes were protected by wrapping a canvas around them. Also there seems to be an iron bar which keeps the upper deadeyes in line and the wrapping goes above this bar. To my eyes it looks like your photo shows the same arrangement, only in a tad bigger scale as Loreley was certainly bigger than Mircea! Hope this helps!

A really interesting project! Unfortunately much of this rich heritage of the Baltic trade is almost lost so you surely will do them some justice by drawing attention to these ship types. Also I must add a special mention to these wonderful pictures which you amassed here to illustrate the ships. A big thank you for the thread, will surely follow with much interest!

Steven, nice add with those crewmen tightening the shroud... but allow me to disagree there! I remember having seen a photo from the early fifties of the last century with two people doing this job on a small English schooner, much smaller than this one, and they used a small lever to tighten the shrouds. If you have the book "Schooners" by David R MacGregor just look on page 93, down right. I mean, the tension on the shrouds is such that you can't properly do it by hand, and surely not by merely pulling it down with his hands as your guy is doing it! More likely they had the upper pulley attached to a lanyard and used his weight on a strong lever propped to another lanyard tied to the lower pulley to pull it down!

Maybe TMB comes instead from "Too Many Boxes" (Kits in the stash)? 🤨

Excellent model! As for the tendency to turn after you start going straight, probably the steering oars will help to correct that too.

Excellent looking model, if it weren't for the support would say a real plane! Also it was much feared by the Germans during the war, which called P38 "The two-tailed Devil".

Hello, am wondering if you are still struggling to get the correct ratios for the Mataro ship? This was just a votive model with little interest to look like a real ship of that times, being meant to be hung up in the altar of a church, but judging upon its details it was built by someone with real knowledge on shipbuilding, therefore it was "selectively compressed" regarding its length. Some time ago while doing a little fumbling on the subject stumbled upon a paper which discussed the correct proportions the real ship should have had for navigation. I don't remember details but I can look after if you are interested.

Also it should be said that British railroad modelling uses 1:148 as N scale and their H0 is 1:76, while Japanese N scale is 1:150. To add more confusion to the lot, Brits also use "fine scales" which are composite, or otherwise said are defined as a relation between an imperial and a metric unit. For instance "2mm" stands for "one foot for 2mm" or 1:152,4.

Furthermore, if your question refers to the inlet of the waterways, this is solved in various ways depending of the type of ship. If the ship and/or the waterways are wood, the inlet may be made from a lead tube and is left unpainted. For steel ships, the inlet is typically made of a steel tube welded in place and painted in the same colour as the waterways.

Hi Jules, Thank you for continuing your lesson on Dutch shipbuilding techniques, it is very much appreciated! Also, while I can't really add anything on the subject as all period sources are written in Dutch, and even 17th century one, which I can't read, just a few thoughts on the general topic of "building without plans". I have seen various kinds of professionals at work, from carpenters to blacksmiths, to furniture restorers, scissormakers or jewellers. I believe any good blacksmith with good experience on it would do a horseshoe without any plan, based on his own experience. Also it takes only one master plus an apprentice to do it, so virtually everything comes of a single mind. It may also be true for cartwheel makers, who generally speaking work in a team, or even the makers of the carts themselves, when all the details are traditional and known to all workers in the shop. This may also be true even for small traditional boats. I lived part of my life in a city by the Black Sea shore here in Romania, which also used to have a small fleet of fishermen boats. I never saw one of these fishermen boats being actually built, only repaired (this is sadly a dying art) yet it is obvious they only follow a known pattern. Even more, some time ago while being in a small city in neigbouring Bulgaria I saw the structure of a traditional boat half finished and thrown away to rot in a backyard. It was absolutely the same "blueprint" so to say, despite the fact that it was some hundred kilometers south and in a different country. So these traditional makers are completely able to do a traditional thing in their own way without any plan, following only a standard procedure. The old people a talked with, which did still remember the old days when you could visit a boat shop and order a traditional boat told me the first question a boat builder would pose to the customer would have been "how many (frames) the boat you want to be?"- this is just another way to say the length of the boat, considering the distance between frames is already known and "traditional". Now, the problem is in a boat shop would probably work up to four to five people, all led by the master boat builder, which would take them a reasonable amount of time in building one boat - several weeks for instance. But this would have been not possible for larger ships, which would need much bigger teams to build them, not only because a small number of people would take a completely unrealistic time horizon to do all the tasks, but also because bigger ships would need bigger pieces of wood which are simply not possible to move and to put in the right place just by a handful of people. So, when a master builder has to lead a bigger team, he can divide the tasks and give pieces of the ship to different builders, which may then be brought together. But to make sure the pieces fit, they have to be DESIGNED in some way, otherwise they would NOT fit. This is where design becomes compulsory. You can make a perfect horseshoe with no plan, if you have already done five to ten horseshoes a day for several years. It may also be true for traditional boats or cartwheels. But all blacksmiths I have seen make a small plan, even if it's only scribbled in chalk on their table, if they want to make something different, which they have not done before. This is also true for jewellers, which usually do a small sketch just for themselves before starting to cut gold or silver. This also applies for our modeller fellows which would do a careful planning, which would often include a small sketch, before starting to cut an expensive piece of exotic wood. So making a plan is a natural thing - it comes probably of our way of thinking. Also, if a plan may not be necessary when working alone, it becomes crucial if you have to work in a team with someone else. Otherwise, how could a team member understand the piece you need? So I come here to some conclusions: Firstly, doing a plan is a natural way of our brain to imagine something new. This plan doesn't necessarily need to be done with a pencil on a piece of paper. It can be done in various ways. Remember that paper was not always as available as it is today, nor were pencils, quills, ink, rulers, compasses and various other drafting tools. It may have been that shipbuilders traditionally used wax tablets for their draft, or a flat piece of plank on which you do your lines in chalk or a piece of coal. Moreover, having a plan done on paper or even in parchment would NOT help too much if brought on the shipyard, which is usually outside in the rain and aside some water. You can imagine how difficult would be to deploy a big sheet of paper if it rains or the wind is blowing. So if the shipwright had a plan, he would jealously keep it to himself safely home and refer to it when he will need it. I don't believe there may have been a guild's rule to destroy the design after the ship was made. Yet, I believe the were rules which said the plans were private property of the shipwright and he would keep to himself. It is not different today with architects, which have to provide copies of their plans to their customers for the building permit to be issued and then for the house to be built But the originals of these plans are private property of the architect and there may be a legal bound that both the customer and the architect will not give the plans to any third party. So I believe each shipwright may have had an archive (of sorts) regarding his builds, which would jealously keep to himself as it encompassed his tricks of the trade. It doesn't have to be a large archive with carefully drawn plans of ships, it may have been just a stack of leaflets with calculations regarding the ship's dimensions. Secondly, it has been said that the shipwright was able to do the shape of the hull just by pinching the floor boards and then do some tricks with the leeboard and such. Yes, it may have been like that for the first build, but then if the ship shape went right, why wouldn't the shipwright note just for himself the shape of each frame, to easier reproduce a successful design? Moreover, how would a shipwright ensure the ship he is doing would be symmetrical on both sides, except if he has a way to "measure" the shape and replicate on the other side? Thirdly, how would you convey your design to another member of the team if you can't draft it in some way, to tell the EXACT shape of the wooden member you need for your build? So these are just some things to ponder while claiming "shipbuilders did their tricks without any plans". Also, the plan doesn't necessarily have to be done in paper. It has been also claimed that Greek temples from the classic period were built without plans, because, obviously, no plan of this survived. Yet lately in an unfinished Greek temple, a scribbling have been found on a marble wall, which proved to be exactly the plan of the said temple. After the temple would have been finished, the wall would have been polished flat and the scribbling erased, but since it was left unfinished, the "plan" survived!

Hello Jules, Thank you for appreciating my post, and also your invitation to continue posting on your topic - so you do not consider comments to "pollute" your topic! Also yes, it is important to put your lessons on Dutch shipbuilding of the 17th century into the right context. Also, about your lesson on drawing the proper arc to close between the large sweep and the floor, I can't read Witsen's text to know how he does it, but this is a simple geometry problem and can be easily solved. Many geometry problems can be done in more than one way so the trick is to find the easiest way and I would simply drop a perpendicular to line eg from the point g until it intersects the floor line. Then I would take the compass, put the needle in that point of intersection, let's call it x, and would draw an arc from point g to the floor line, called y. Thus, segment gx and segment xy are of equal length. Then I would rise a perpendicular to the line of the floor in point y until it intersects line eg. Let's call this new point z. We now have two new segments of equal length, zg = yz and the needed connecting arc can be drawn from point g to y by simply putting the compass needle in point z. But I can't say how close this outcome gets to Grebber's list of parameters. I would consider the height of point g given and the geometry procedure will give the rest of the points. But he may have worked backwards, starting from the given point y and determining the g, which may be complicated. Also we must keep in mind that today we can do these drawings using vectorial softwares of unprecedented precision, while in the 17th century they only had basic tools and probably couldn't measure everything too precisely. Also I cant't say about Dutch shipbuilders, yet English shipbuilders of the time spoke of a "rise of floor" which meant the angle the floor did from the horizontal. It was given as a fraction like "one foot of rise for every eight of length" and can be easily connected with our way of telling a slope in percentage. Thus, a slope of 100% would mean an angle of 45°. Best wishes, Doreltomin