catopower

Thanks John, Grant. It's a bit of a brain stretch to go back and review the issues I had at the start of the build, but it's also kind of nice to revisit it. There's a lot I need to look at again to rebuild my analysis (reprogram my brain really), so it may be slow going at least at the start. Clare

My old build log is gone, but progress on the model continues. So, it's time to get the log going again. A Brief History The Saginaw was the first ship built at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard on San Francisco Bay. She was launched in 1859 as the USS Toucey, in honor of the then Secretary of the Navy, but was commissioned as the USS Saginaw. The last paddlewheel steamer built before the American Civil War, she was specifically ordered for use in the shallow waters of the China station where she operated until she returned home to be refit and relaunched in 1863. She served in the Pacific Squadron during the Civil War, being on the alert for Confederate activities and for the Confederate raider Shenandoah, whose captain, James Waddell had originally served aboard the Saginaw as one of her officers. Among other activities, the ship charted the coastal waters of the newly acquired Alaska Territory in 1868. In 1869, after the US Army's run in with the Tlingit Indians (apparently following several incidents over the years), she was ordered to destroy three evacuated villages on an island near what is now Saginaw Bay. On October 29, 1870, following the support of dredging operations at Midway Island, she was returning to San Francisco by way of the rarely visited Ocean Island, where she went to check for stranded sailors. She arrived ahead of schedule, but struck a reef in the process, which doomed the ship. While her hull was pounded by breakers, her crew abandoned the ship, taking as many supplies as possible, and went ashore on the desert island. In mid-November, one of the ship's boats was built up and a small group of volunteers sailed for 31 days and 1500 miles to the Hawaiian islands. Sadly, in the breakers off Kauai, the boat overturned and only one member of the starving and weakened crew survived. As soon as his story was relayed to authorities, the king of Hawaii dispatched a steamer to rescue the stranded crew. This model represents the ship shortly before she was lost in 1870. At that time, she was equipped with two 30-pdr parrot rifles on pivot mounts, four 24-pdr boat guns, and I managed to discover from Mare Island logs in the National Archives that she also carried a light 12-pdr gun, though the mount is unspecified. While she was originally rigged as a fore topsail schooner, which is illustrated in the plans in the National Archives, I believe she was probably rigged with topsails on both masts by 1870. This is how she appears in the only known photo of her and I believe this is from later in her career, as I found one reference indicating that for at least one year late in 1860s, she operated almost exclusively under sail. I would tend to suspect that this was during a period when she was a little more heavily rigged. There are several other small structural changes between her original 1859 configuration and that following her 1863 refit. These include the removal of her original pilot house, the rearrangement of her boilers, coal bunkers and forward hold, a change in the appearance of her decorative work on the wheel houses, and the relocation of some of the deck hatches. The Model and Initial Research The model is being built at 1/8" scale (1:96) as plank on solid hull construction. The solid hull is built up from basswood lifts and is planked over using holly. Keel, stern and stem posts are beech and the deck planking is boxwood. This is actually a prototype model that I'm using to work out various details since Civil War period ships are somewhat out of my area of knowledge. So too are steamers and, in particular, paddle wheel ships. My plan is to build a larger version, probably at 3/16" scale (1:64), though I expect that I'll probably build that as plank on bulkhead. I was originally inspired by a photo of a custom Saginaw model that BlueJacket built for a client. I've always been somewhat intrigued by the ships of the sail and steam transition and then some simple online research turned up the fact that the Saginaw was the first ship built at Mare Island Naval Shipyard, which is just about a 30 minute drive from where I live. My normal suppliers for ship plans showed no sign of Saginaw plans, so inquired with BlueJacket about their source. But, when I asked about the plans, they told me that because their efforts were funded by their client that they couldn't share any information with me. After a while, I sent an email to one of the librarians at the J Porter Shaw Library at the San Francisco Maritime National Park. My main contact there is always very helpful and she again showed her worth when she did some searching and found that copies of the National Archives plans were available from Maryland Silver Company. I ordered these plans without delay and, while I was waiting for those, began researching what I could. I discovered that a book had been written about the Saginaw called A Civil War Gunboat in Pacific Waters: Life Aboard the USS Saginaw, but it's an expensive one, and the local library's inter-library loan system had no access to it either. I discovered that there was a copy at the UC Berkeley library, but that is a real pain to use unless you are a student or faculty. But, fortune was smiling on the project and it turned out that the author of the book, Hans Konrad Van Tilburg, had done some of his research at the Vallejo Museum and gave them a copy of the book. So, a trip to their research library gave me access to this and some other records on the Saginaw. Though it was a pricey book at about $70, I found that it had enough information in it that I was compelled to buy a copy. In the meantime, the plans from Maryland Silver Company arrived and I had also discovered that there was an article in the Nautical Research Journal regarding the construction of the Saginaw and that I had it in their back issues CD. Clare

Hello Robert, You've done a really fine job on the model. I'm very impressed with how well your lapstraked planking looks. Are you using the Ancre monograph (Boudriot and Berti)? I ordered my first Ancre plans set on the Cutter Le Cerf, which also has lapstraked planking. But, I was thinking about also ordering the Le Coureur also. I'm not sure why, but I really like the look of the lugger rig. Or, maybe it's just the look of this particular vessel. However, Le Coureur is only available in French and my French is not so good. But, hopefully, I'll just watch your build log and maybe I will be able to figure out the plans. Clare

Wow, Karl, this is an incredible build. I don't think I saw this the first time around. It's going to take me a while to absorb all that detail on your model. Do I understand correctly that this is 1:36 scale? And, my apologies if I missed the information, but what wood(s) are you using? Wonderful and inspiring work. Ausgezeichnet! (Admittedly, I had to look up the spelling) Clare