Jim Lad

Love that detail work, mate. If no one else sees it, we know it's there.
 
John

Nice to see her progressing, Mark.
 
John

Just catching up with your log, Chris. You're making a very nice job of that dory!
 
John

Beautiful work in the hold, Gary.
 
John

Beautiful work in the hold, Gary.
 
John

Beautiful work in the hold, Gary.
 
John

1 The beginning   
 
This part of a build tends to take the longest time.  I have been mulling over modeling this schooner for at least 5 years.  Where to begin?   My introduction to her was seeing two pictures at our local Boothbay Region Historical Society. One view was of her launch and a second of an accident later in the same home harbor. 
 
 
 
1      launch day  
2    oops inexperienced crew perhaps better said " from away" anchored over a ledge, and we have 10-foot tide.    
 
The story and other images are in our local newspaper as a history article.   It was January 1919, and she was full of fish.  They pumped her out, took her to town, unloaded the fish, and raised her on the railway.   All was well so then back to work. She was more of a hauler of mackerel than a fisherman in those days. 
 
 
Having recently completed my big Bluenose I moved onto other builds.   Then a few years later I learned about her racing history….wow and from Maine too!
3.     great view as she completed the Lipton Cup race in 1923 with Ben Pine at the wheel. this image came from Facebook site for the Fisherman Festival in Gloucester  
I then fell into an article from NRJ vol 46 starting on page 12.    A member, Daniel Turner, did yeoman’s work to uncover the story of her mysterious length.   Unfortunately, there are no surviving records from the Adams Shipyard here in Boothbay.  Paul Adams, a grandson to the last builder is past 95.   Sharp as a tack, he came to my talk a few years back on the history of the Boothbay Shipyards and sat in the front row.  He corrected a spelling in one of my slides but alas when talking after he had nothing to do with the yards.  As a matter of record, they had closed by 1921.
Back to the story of why this build.   I am trying to build things for each of our yards.  The Adams family shipbuilding started about 1810 and ended 110 years later.   Pinky schooners first and then many schooners, a few brigs, a ship, and other vessels ending with some tugboats and a motor yacht in 1920.  Their last sailing vessel was the 3-masted schooner, Priscilla Alden. launched in 1918.  I started to build a model of that schooner a few years back, but the records here showed a discrepancy in length of the Priscilla Alden, that I documented there and had to make a choice of who to follow. I chose to defer and build another schooner, the Ada Cliff built across town. 
 
Having recently built two steel hulled vessels I felt it time to go back in time a bit and take on another Schooner. I have about 5 of them on my to-build list and the White Ghost looks like a fun place to start.   I highly recommend any schooner lovers out there, especially any Mainers or Bluenose people to chase down the NRJ article The Schooner Elizabeth Howard and enjoyed it. Ten years ago, I built a big Bluenose [ 1:24 scale]. I went to Lunenburg twice over that build and fell in love with the saga of the Fisherman’s Cup Races.
 
In several books they talk about the challenger, but some focus was given to the field of contenders. More so when like the Starling Burgess designed Schooner Mayflower owners tried to enter. What they had built was truly a racing machine that only looked like a fisherman. She was kept out of the races due primarily to the small volume below decks set up to race and not to collect fish. It is interesting to note that one of the schooner Elizabeth Howard’s options was to be sold to the schooner Mayflower owners to use as a match boat if Mayflower ever would be qualified for the Fisherman Cup.
There is a bit of fate to this story too.   The Schooner Elizabeth Howard was bult in 1916 and was quickly followed by her 126-foot sister the Louise Howard in 1917.   To satisfy her owner, Thomas McManus took is 1908 design for the schooner Oriole and extended her bow.   As said above…she had to be fast!  In her early years she was known for speedy long runs full of fish that she typically bought in Nova Scotia to race south. She was reported to do 16 knots in a good blow.  When the Fisherman Cup races became popular in 1920, her owner wanted to get involved.
 
The problem she had at first was that she was not associated with the Gloucester in-crowd.  With a New York owner, and having been built in Maine, she was not accepted to enter the races.   After the 1921 loss to Bluenose the Americans were scrambling for the next year rematch.   The top two schooners to contend amongst four were Henry Ford and Puritan.  The Puritan, designed by Starling Burgess, was launched in March 1922.  As part of her prequalification, she was off to the grand banks to fish.   Disaster struck and she was lost in her first summer. Ben Pine [ future Columbia and Gertrude Theobald skipper] was preparing to race her so now he was looking for help. After Elizabeth made a reported amazing fast sailing return trip to Boston from the banks and the schooner Puritan was lost, Ben Pine, made arrangement to get Elizabeth qualified. He then took her on and in 1922.   In the best 2 of 3 series, she raced but broke a topmast on the first day and was beaten by the schooner Henry Ford in light air on the second day.  The Schooner Henry Ford competed for the Fisherman’s Cup but lost to Bluenose. 
 
Elizabeth won the Lipton Cup races  in 1923 but after that win, Ben Pine moved on to the new Starling Burgess designed Columbia.   There is a large collection of photo images of these races on the Boston Library website.  Elizabeth’s distinct white hull surely makes an impression, and it is easy to see how she got her name…the White Ghost. The unfortunate end of her story connects her fate to the schooner Puritan. It was later in the fall of 1923 when just like Puritan, she was lost off the coast of Nova Scotia. 
 
What was her length?
 
Let’s look at her lines for a moment.   Daniel’s NRJ article touches on the racing and then proposes a solution to the length mystery saga of the Elizabeth Howard.  She was designed by the renown Thomas F. McManus.  Howard Chapelle includes the lines of Elizabeth Howard shown annotated over the lines of an earlier 1908 schooner Oriole.   The schooner Oriole was 127 feet at the rail.  The only change was to push the bow forward [ in scale] 6.5 feet.    The only reason to do this would be for speed. she started as a knockabout [ no bowsprit]. The confusion comes from a note on the Chapelle document stating the length at the rail being 148.  
 
The short version of Daniels work is a follows.
•    A Fisherman Cup racing vessel must be less than 150 feet.
•    The reported bowsprit added to Elizabeth was 14 feet long.
•    If one scaled the Chapelle drawing showing the extension one gets 133’6”
•    Add the bowsprit and you are under 150 at the recorded 148 feet.
Go with the 133’6”.     I think that is more than good enough and it is what I will try to build.  
 
 All for now
 

Very nice looking sails, Steven.
 
As for the historical accuracy of the model - "based of the best available information at the time of building." 
 
John

Fascinating experiments, Nils.
 
John

A tricky job, Nils. I'm sure you're up to it.
 
John

'Just like a bought one', as the saying goes! 
 
John

What a great colour, Nils! I'm sure you'll find a solution for your little problem on the starboard side.
 
John

Very nice looking sails, Steven.
 
As for the historical accuracy of the model - "based of the best available information at the time of building." 
 
John

Your giant jigsaw puzzle is looking superb!
 
John

Amazing work!
 
John

Fascinating experiments, Nils.
 
John

Fascinating experiments, Nils.
 
John

Very nice looking sails, Steven.
 
As for the historical accuracy of the model - "based of the best available information at the time of building." 
 
John

Nice to see her progressing, Mark.
 
John

Nice to see her progressing, Mark.
 
John

Hello Pete, and a warm welcome to the forum from 'Down Under'.
 
John

That looks like a great project John. 

A  (very) long introduction to my latest project – the repair and completion of a model of the barque ‘Herzogin Cecilie’ for the Australian National Maritime Museum. I will be working on the ‘Duchess’, as she was known, in my time at the museum, while the ‘Meteor’ model will come home, to be worked on when I can.
The Story Of The Ship

The four masted barque ‘Herzogin Cecilie’ was built in 1902 at Bremerhaven by Rickmers Schiffbau AG as a cadet ship for the prestigious German shipping company  Norddeutscher Lloyd. She was built to the very highest standards as she was designed to not only be a cadet ship for Germany’s most prestigious shipping company, but also a floating ambassadress and showpiece for the German Second Empire. She was met with great excitement and media acclaim wherever she went.
Her name, Herzogin Cecilie, is from the German – Duchess Cecilie – as she was named for Herzogin (Duchess) Cecilie Auguste Marie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, who was later to become the fiancée and wife of Crown-Prince Wilhelm of Germany.
The ‘Duchess’ as she was affectionately known, engaged in the wheat and later nitrate trades to the Americas prior to World War I sometimes with salt, timber, or coke as the outward cargo. She found herself isolated in the port of Coquimbo, Chile, when war broke out. This put her in a difficult position as she would certainly have been taken as a prize of war if she had attempted to return to Europe from her neutral port.
She remained at Coquimbo until June 1920 when she loaded nitrate at Celata Colosa and sailed for home. As soon as the cargo was discharged at Ostend she was handed over to the French Government as part of war reparations. The French didn’t want the ship and decided to sell her. She was finally purchased by the well-known Åland Islands owner Gustaf Erikson on the advice of his most experienced captain – Reuben de Cloux.
Thus began the final, and probably most well recorded, era of the ship’s career. Erickson sent her to Australia looking for wheat cargos – cargos that could be loaded slowly and cheaply in the small Gulf ports of South Australia – cargos that could survive the long, slow voyage back to Europe without damage and without losing value. His Master of choice for the ‘Duchess’ was the same Captain de Cloux who had inspected the ship at Ostend, a man who sailed the ship hard (and somewhat expensively as he was prone to carrying canvas too long and losing sails in strong winds). She made twelve voyages to Australia in all, mostly to the South Australian Gulf ports, but also to Melbourne – usually with outward bound cargos of timber. In between her Australian voyages she also made several nitrate voyages to South America.
Reuben de Cloux stayed in command of the ‘Duchess’ until the middle of 1929, when he went into retirement as a Ship Master and handed over command to his First Mate, Sven Eriksson, a distant relation of the owner, Gustaf Erikson. Gustaf was evidently not too happy about offering command of the world’s most famous and best loved sailing ship to the inexperienced Sven, however the very tight-knit network of Åland Islands family connections is thought to have forced his hand.
During the period when Sven was in command the ‘Duchess’ continued to regularly win the so called ‘grain races’, with the fastest voyages home from Australia, but this may say more about the speed of the other ships involved than the ‘Duchess’ as there are several extant letters from Gustaf Erikson to his Captain reminding him to always take in sail early and not on any account to risk losing sails in strong winds!
As the 1930’s advanced, luck began to run out for the ‘Duchess’. In June 1935 her donkey boiler exploded while she was discharging grain in Belfast, killing two of her crew and injuring several other people including the Second Mate. Considerable damage was also caused to the ship’s structure and rigging. Only essential repairs were carried out at Belfast, the remainder being completed in Erikson’s own shipyard in Uusakaupunki, Finland, and the ‘Duchess’ sailed on her final voyage around the world on 29th September, 1935.
The bad luck continued as she sailed up the Kattegat on her way to the North Sea. She sailed straight into the stern of the German trawler ‘Rastede’, causing heavy damage to the trawler, which had to be towed into port. The ‘Duchess’ was held entirely responsible for this collision, and it later cost her owner dearly. After the collision, Sven simply continued his voyage to Australia.
She sailed from Port Lincoln, in South Australia on 28th January, 1936, arriving at Falmouth, for orders, on 23rd April and on the 24th she sailed for her discharge port of Ipswich on what was to be her final, very brief, voyage. At 0350 on the 25th April, in heavy fog, she struck the Ham Stone in Soar Mill Cove and, leaking badly forward, settled to the bottom with her poop still above water. Several attempts were made to get her off, but it was not until 19th June that she was finally refloated and towed to Starehole Bay near Salcombe, where she was once more allowed to settle on the bottom. On 19th July Sven Eriksson wrote to Gustaf Erikson that several seams had burst and a bulge in the plating was noted on both sides near the mainmast.

Her back was broken. The ‘Herzogin Cecilie’, the beautiful ship, was now a total loss! Her rusted remains can still be seen in the sand at Starhole Bay to this day.
 
The Story Of The Model
The model of the ‘Duchess’ has a long and complex history.
Back in 2007, one of the museum’s model makers, Col Gibson, was asked by two friends if he would be interested in seeing a model of the ‘Duchess’ that was owned by their neighbour. Of course, Col said, “Yes”, and in February 2008, while he was having lunch with his friends, they introduced him to their neighbour, Vera Grainger, and her model of the ‘Duchess’.
Vera’s husband Malcolm, the builder of the model, had passed away and Vera expressed an interest in donating the model to our museum however the model couldn’t be accepted into the National Collection unless complete, and thus the “Duchess” model’s long association with the Australian National Maritime Museum and the museum model makers began.
 Work on the model had commenced in South Africa prior to the Grainger family migrating to Australia in 1978 and had continued here up to the time of Malcolm’s retirement, however after he retired the model languished with the hull and most of the deck fittings completed, and some of the spars completed but quietly resting in a box. Vera expressed an interest in the model going to the National Maritime Museum, and wrote a letter and report to the museum concerning her gift.

The model as received by the museum
 
Nothing further happened for about two years, when Col had an unexpected visit to the model makers’ bench by then Senior Curator Dr. Stephen Gapps, who was enquiring about the fate of the model described in Vera’s letter and report. This visit finally resulted in the model being collected from Vera’s home and taken to the home workshop of another of the museum’s model makers, George Bambagiotti, as he had agreed to complete the model.

George Bambagiotti holding the stripped down model
 
Malcolm Grainger had commenced the model using plans for the ship as she was originally built, but many major and minor alterations had been made to her structure over the years, even when still under the ownership of Norddeutscher Lloyd. It was finally decided that the model should be altered and completed to show her as she was when she was engaged in the grain trade to Australia, as that was the most relevant period of her life for Australian maritime history, and the way most of the world remembered her.
George started cleaning and disassembling the model while Col started on the required research. Researching such a well-known ship sounds easy – there are literally hundreds of photos of her and many books; but the books usually don’t mention alterations to the ship, and almost all the photos are undated, so trying to find out exactly what the ship looked like in early 1936 was no joke.
Progress was much slower than anticipated due to many factors, sadly including George’s increasing bouts of ill health, but he was not easily put off. I remember sitting on his bed at a Rehabilitation Hospital together with Col as we tried to work out exactly how various parts of the ship actually looked at the time of her final departure from Port Lincoln.
As time started to drag on, Janos Nemeth and I were asked to contribute to the build. Janos, because of his well-known expertise with small carvings, was asked to make a new figurehead for the model, and I was asked to build a new suite of boats. I was also asked to consider rigging the model, with Janos asked to assist with this if needed.
The two final blows were the closure of the museum due to Covid in March of 2020 and, far worse for his colleagues and friends, the death of our dear friend George on 27th February, 2020. George’s death was a shock to all his friends at the museum, but most especially to the team working on the ‘Duchess’! While we coped with our grief at the loss of our friend, we also had to consider the future of the model, as the ever-worsening Covid pandemic with its threats of lockdowns made future actions uncertain. We also had to consider relieving Lyn Bambagiotti of the worry of having the model stored in her garage.
Fortunately, the museum was able to arrange to have the model moved to the museum prior to everything locking down, but we then lost track of our lovely ‘Duchess’. She had been sitting dreaming on one of the museum store shelves while Col and I wondered what had happened to her until a recent visit to the modelmakers’ desk by one of the museum curators. Not only was the safe ‘Duchess’ in the model store, but the museum wanted the model’s status to be resolved!
Things then started moving quicky. Several of the museum’s senior staff became involved, and the project was suddenly moving again. Our beautiful ‘Duchess’ is now on the upper gallery of the museum in her own secure display case and work table, and will be starting to sort our the mess on the model and the mass of possibly relevant bits and pieces that were collected from George’s home starting next Monday.
 
Sorry for it being such a long introduction, but it's been a pretty complex story!!
 
John

Just catching up with your log, Chris. You're making a very nice job of that dory!
 
John

Just catching up with your log, Chris. You're making a very nice job of that dory!
 
John