Jond

This build is to be a prototype for potential group of RC boats to race at the Boothbay Harbor Yacht club. First let's discuss why this might be a fun and useful project. LOA:21' LWL:18' 9" Draft:3' 6" Beam:5' 6" Sail Area:227.00 sq ft Displacement:2,100.00 lbs From Wikipedia "..Geerd Niels Hendel (14 January 1903 - 30 March 1998) was a naval architect and native of Germany. He found success in the United States becoming a prominent yacht designer who had a hand in an America's Cup victory in 1937. In 1935, Hendel became chief draftsman for the legendary naval architect Starling Burgess, who at the time was living in Wiscasset, Maine, and working on various projects for the Bath Iron Works, in Bath, Maine In 1936, Harold Stirling Vanderbilt engaged the Bath Iron Works to build the America’s Cup Defender Ranger, the greatest of all J-class yachts. Geerd Hendel worked with Starling Burgess and a young Olin Stephens on putting together the working drawings (see Olin Stephens’s book, All This and Sailing Too). From his work on Ranger’s aluminum masts, Hendel became one of the early advocates of the use of aluminum in yacht building. That summer, Hendel became a US citizen. In 1938, Hendel designed the 21-foot fin keel sloop known as the Boothbay Harbor One Design, the culmination of almost a decade’s work of designing, building, and then testing his ideas for fast racing sloops. Geerd Hendel and Starling Burgess actively raced the Hendel Racing Sloop during the years leading up to World War II. ......" There is more history available through the Boothbay Harbor One Design association, which is hosted on the web site for the Boothbay Harbor Yacht Club.. http://www.bhyc.net/bhoda.html The short version is the wooden boats were built in the local area through the 1940's and 50's. In the 1970's fiberglass hulls were made. My understanding is they were using cork within the glass element instead of cold forming method . Starting in 2007 two wooden 'original' design were built through the Brooklin boatworks. They took the original design and rebuilt the documents and molds. The first build boat was named Eight Bells and she is in Boothbay Harbor. the second build included much work at wooden boat school. She is named Osprey and is easy to find on the internet as it is looking for a new home. Since 2009 a few wooden boats were skinned with two coats of 1/8 cedar veneer and resin. There is a practicum on this process for the boat Bittersweet, No 20, done by the Brooklin boat yard. Finally David Nutt has built a few cold mold form, [4 layers[, at his boat works in Edgecomb Maine. All together there are between 50 to 60 of these boats still sailing and many are still here. There are also several very similar ' sister' boats including the Hodgdon 21 [built by Sonny Hodgdon] also wood hull keel boats, and the Christmas Cove 21 all fiberglass. A similar 21' boat class also the Great lakes 21 lives in Ohio. I am now the proud owner of Bittersweet No 20. I am hoping to learn more of its History. I am told it was owned for many years by the Reed family. . I found this photo on line and see the extra long fore-deck and after deck, an option in the 1938 design, that matches Bittersweet, so I think this is the same boat. ...Here are before and after images by Brooklin boatworks showing the 1941 built Bittersweet getting her new skin. Note the white transom? Part of my research will be to understand when was that changed from the original Mahogany design. ...Here is the post skinning look at Bittersweet. Still lots to do. The new owner decided to make her a beautiful dark green. He sailed her a bit but she currently is in a barn ready for more work. The plan is by next summer we shall see a new white interior and rigging all ready to resume racing. Modeling As to modeling, this project is not a complicated whaling ship, bark or multi-masted fishing schooner, but it is a real classic Maine sailing design. There are many families with long histories of this boat and a thriving youth sailing program all in the same place. Races are Wednesday afternoons and 5-6 weekends through our short summer. They are perfect for fun sailing in this great harbor. My goal is to show up next June with two working radio replicas to race at the club. The first two will be proto types. Ultimately I need to have a choice of either a wood design with wood mast or the fiberglass [ same lines] with an aluminum mast. For now that is shape the spruce and paint "aluminium" but we'll see when we get there. They are also great for a foggy day dockside. The first step in the build is to get plans. Fortunately the Maine Maritime Museum in Bath has a complete set dated 1938. I am aware that new drawings were created for Eight Bells a few years back and I am looking for them too. I also have Bittersweet and a dozen others to photo and copy. A big challenge for Radio sailing is the fact the jib clews trail aft, past the mast and shroud. Most radio sailors are modified and jibs are redesigned to be a ' self tacking' style so like the Main sail it is only in and out, geared by one pulley to be 50% of the main and can therefore share the same servo. We shall get into that as I have the same issue on the other boats I am working on, Charles Notman a 4 master with a flying and outer jib and the Dancing Feather a Boston Pilot schooner with Jib and flying jib. I took the plans to Staples to get scanned into PDF's. I then took the image I want ....say station lines .. and saved them as a jpeg. I can then open it in Adobe Photoshop Elements where I can rotate by fractional degrees and using the grid get a plumb image. I then save as a new PDF. I open the new PDF , take snap shot image and paste that into Turbo Cad Deluxe 20. To build the model, I take the section lines and tweak them to align with the Keelson / side view section lines. I then added the detail framing section and align it below to take on the detail and better understand the build. Similarly I include the framing sections in scale to the lower right. Now I need to build the ten station sections and transom. I go to the station lines and add layer by layer, tracing the line and then using mirror copy to complete each station mold. I then add common legs to attach to the building board and cut outs for the keelson. I set up a page for each station with its unique named view in the model and viewport on each page. Finally I offset inward the equivalent of the planking so when I finish the planking, we are back to at the final shape. Here is what gets printed out and glued to the luan plywood. Keelson assembly planning Now we have all the stations we need a keelson assembly. This approach takes us away for scale modeling replication to building a model that will sail. To understand please look at the image of the boat framing including the 'floor' sole and keel attachment. One can see in this framing section there is nothing but bilge under the floor except for the floor timbers. For building a static model there is no problem, but to sail we need to transfer to load from the hull into the keel. It might work but since we can not see below the floor, we shall use that space for structure [ nee the keelson]. We will discuss more as we build out the detail in the open cockpit. The keelson assembly.... We need floor timbers to support the flooring but also we need to add and extension to the keel.....keelson.. that goes stem to stern. due to scale and size of printer we need to make this in three printouts and then attach. here is full scale of the aft section of the keelson we are ready to start the build

Ok here we are for our second sailing. To get ready I did a shake down of the running gear. My focus was first time issues with the sheets coming loose. I secured them all and got them all acting right. Thus I felt more confident that I could pull them in tight and possibly get to go up into the wind. Well here we go all stuffed into the car. Somewhere in this operation we lost one yawl boat davit and the head stay...oh well This is a great place to sail. It is less than 100 feet from the car to the dock. We attached the keel and then lifted her up and into the water. It definitely takes two people to do this. She took right off and after a cheer I got quickly into the chase boat. On with the joy stick and wow she turns Ok fine for this maneuver and now the sails came right in like they should. This point is as high to the wind as we can get. After several tries she would not come about, so before hitting land we jibed giving up some turf. We went back and forth about 4 times. It was always nice to watch but each time we had no ability to come up into the wind and each time slipping down the lake as we jibed around. This clearly was my favorite shot as she is coming toward you. A little photo shop with this image could be great fun. finally back at the dock. the rear admirals are adding up style points. They approved and a cold beer was enjoyed. This time I gave my camera to my rear admiral. All I can say is video is not in our immediate family arsenal. Some day we may get there but there are so many other things to do. I have been thinking a lot this past month and through this sailing experience as to what level to take Charlie now we coming out of sailing season. It truly is a joy to watch her go, but it takes two or more people and chase boats, she won't come back to the dock on her own.......yet. My current plan is to fix all the minor damage, add a few more missing details but not go to the next level that would prohibit taking her out again. Next year I will be getting smarter with radio sailing in general. I have three other projects now starting and I need to have several boats " more practical" to sail. Then I can better tackle options to get her balanced. example...remove the jibs and see if that helps come into the wind. I will be doing some other projects and open a new building log for them. I will make a post here after I start them. I will update this log less frequently through the winter as I shall continue to fix things [ I have 6 more turn buckles to make , need to fix up all the rigging etc. part of the struggle this summer is that it takes a bit to organize where to go and sail. I need other people and access to a chase boat. I can always go to our yacht club, but it is better with a radio boat that with sail away and back to the dock. Also let's face it; we all underestimate the number of things we must do in the summer and these are the fasted months of the year. I will need another sailing season to try to sort it out before I finish this one up. cheers

OK here we go First up is to get the radio on and the chase boat ready. Our new Catspaw sailing dingy is just the thing for this small lake. it takes two to lift her into the water. Off she goes! Unfortunately the wind we had yesterday afternoon is not here yet today. We must recall though I have read that the difference in this scale of speed is about 5 times. Therefore perhaps light air is safe and good thing for the first time out. With light air she drifted a bit south along the shore. Here we are chasing CHARLIE away from the shore. Our Catspaw dingy is 12 feet long, so the size of CHARLIE is easy to see and enjoy. Who is chasing whom? This is one of the photos for my shop. She jibed and then worked a bit off into the wind. we got out a bit and she looked a bit better. wow she got going a bit. I was trying to do video so not so many pictures. we tried several times to come into the wind and she would not do it. She did jibe well and quickly. Today the light wind is not a good test of pointing. We must remember in truth the bigger 5 and 6 masted schooners would sail one tack to Bermuda and then jibe 270 degrees [ ware around] to get on course for the Norfolk Virginia coal docks. Ok shake down went sort of OK. We could not come about or point very well and had to tow back up wind. More work on the radio-servos to trim up. On the dock we ran out of juice playing to see how to improve the jibs, but I suggest that was due to not changing to fresh batteries before launch. I had pared two together, these servos require 6 volt batteries, and in the shop they last for a few days of testing. damages:​ one sheet came off each the main sail and the foresail. those were unglued knots. I had removed the Bousies at the last moment and simply tied them off. some how while grabbing the stern, the wheel box and wheel broke loose. fortunately they stayed on board. one turnbuckle came loose, but I saw it was not properly attached. [ it had broken loose the other day and I rushed the repair] we took some video but are worse than amateurs in that area. We will be on a friends dock in a few weeks and hopefully find more wind and be able to take some video worth sharing. The focus of that next sail will be to point up a bit and hopefully come about. My wife caught this image of the carry back to the house. My conclusion is that this boat [ ship] is not meant for sailing off our dock. I am not saying no but probably unlikely. In conclusion: we need another test with more wind and to be sure we are getting sail trimming. We shall continue to accept damage, but after a few more times need to decide the purpose of the boat. I would love to finish the rigging and all the lines, and then windows and stove pipes etc., but that will end the sailing days. The servos, sailing keel and stuff are the only added features, and once they are removed they can go into another boat. That was my son's recommendation. Make this one a good one to look at, that could sail and then make a more practical sailing schooner. I have to think about it as I plan my next winter builds. cheers

this is a test posting to see if new windows 10 plus its browser edge work we are loaded up and ready for the woods Here we go into the "improved trail" Here the trail gets a bit steeper Ok lets carry up and over the ridge wow that was fun......I slipped once on leaves. well here we are at a rest stop. I can see the lake We made it to the dock and attached the keel we are ready to try sailing the tension is building...right? cheers

Well it is finally time to sail. Before we do however we need to test out logistics and tune up the radios. To do this I have waited for my son's vacation. He and I build hulls for classic pond yachts in 2001. I was able to take them out and finish the radios, servos, buy sails and rigging and get them done last summer before starting the big schooner. First of all we shall use them as the trial test. trail test of sailing in our local pond here my son holds up one of the pond yachts. we have trimmed the radios...he showed me how to both trim and reduce the rotations. here we are off into the woods. The trail is about 800 feet to the dock. stage two is successful and I say repeatable as walking with these boats to the dock went OK the first boat sailed successfully. We chased it in our boat but actually were able to control it quite easily. The second boat worked well too, and with a little added wind we were able to get it to sail right back to the dock. final set up for the schooner While trimming the servos and making final checks we found the loops failed as they should if overturned. I raise here a couple of issues. I was using rubber o-rings as I felt they would be weaker than rigging and better to give than a stay. When several broke earlier, I upgraded to carbone rings made of soft plastic. They are stronger than the rubber but fortunately broke before rigging. In the photo both the black rubber ring and the white plastic ring are broken. Unfortunately, however the sheets for the flying jib sprung and went deep into the boat. As also seen in the photo, I have undrilled the three sticks holding the forward pulleys [ that make up the servo loops] to get all the way in to retrieve the sheets. This can not be done in the field, and it took an hour or so to complete. I am embarrassed to admit this but all these months and not a few dollars into this, I added a safety line through the mid cabin port holes and around the mast below deck. I attached 50# test fishing line and a few floats. Our pond gets up to 50' deep and well...you know. [ as a follow up she sailed really well and I did not need and shall likely not include in the future with light wind.] just to share more examples of oops. For a moving model, the light rigging is so fragile. Here the chain on the jib boom and martingale broke while the cart [ shown in early photos ] was moving too quickly and I reached out to stop it. well next post will be the successful sail. we have celebrated. cheers

guys thanks for your comments on the radio. I am definitely over my head here. My son is coming from Arizona this week for the big sail. In Phoenix they use radios for RC tanks. They shoot each oher with infared....I think! He rewires everything and looses me with the vocabulary, but I am using the first of his fixes I bought on line a camera position controller made by Dionysus Design. This little device plugs into the servo line just before the receiver. the spring toggles are now track-able. So the rudder is left and right and the flying jib is up and down He said the toggle that "slides" for the throttle is a "lkjljkhlh". He will bring one and show me how to change the other so both work the same. I will still need one circuit on the controller if I use three controls. and two if i disconnect the foresail so it can have its own. Anyway as I wait for the sail I have been adding lazarets and things to busy up the deck a bit and make it better for the photos. I also solved transport by stuffing it in my SUV and building a frame to cover the protruding bowsprit as I bungee cord the hatch down. Fortunately I only have to drive about a mile or so depending on where I plan to sail. I took the ship to our yacht club men's sailing lunch to recruit interested folks to build some models. I hope I caught some interest. I was competing with the real thing though. again thanks for tips

well to all you computer guys out there.......I had an interesting problem this last weekend with my computer. I caught that encryption virus. It went through McAfee like butter..... it locked all my data files. Unfortunately my back up drive was connected to the computer and therefore the virus took it out too. It even went into the drop box account I have for sharing and infected shared folders generated by others. I hope I deleted them before anyone else went to get files. I think all is well there. Today I reformatted the computer and am starting over from scratch... I wonder if I will start getting notices again for the logs I am following. I stopped getting those notices months ago. I learned from searching this forum site I am not alone with that problem I lost all my pictures, pdf or ms office files for the last few years. as luck would have it i cleared out my two cameras last week so no back up there either. Fortunately for this build I have this log with selected shots and that is all. Oh well many things in life are much more important. It means I am starting again.....that has to be good . Now to Charlie Notman more time seems to be fixing than building these days as I build up nerve for the water. Moving the boat the starboard bow sprit chain broke. several clew lines and sheets all ripped off their pins retesting the servos and lines has been troubling, but I am pushing through. The rudder just would not work, one sheet tie ring came off its loop below deck, haven't got the fix yet I did get the final top mast says inplace As RC folks must know, radios are made for planes not sail boats. With two joy sticks one could have 4 servo actions but only one is slider [ the throttle] I have made that the main sail control. I then spiced the lines so the foresail and jib are now a loop, so they move in theory half of the others. 3 inches vs 6 inches That leaves the flying and outer jibs. My plan today is to leave them on a third control only for coming about if required. They will be fixed for most sailing pulled in a bit. The action will be to take the right joystick which is up and down sliding for the throttle [ main sails] and then swing it either left or right to pull sail from one tack to the other, but the sails will not be trimmed, as when I let go the stick goes back to neutral. Not sure that this will work. more next week

Hi Walter I am in later stages of struggling with same scale 1:48 to make a radio sailing 4 masted schooner. I will enjoy watching and learning from your log. I see you are talking 3D ..... wow. I have switched to Turbocad which is relatively easy to learn and not expensive. However i stayed in 2D for my build...the comfort zone I hope to learn from builds like yours so I can go to 3D good luck....i will be watching cheers

Well another week or so has passed and a little more progress has been made. I worked on readjusting the rigging toward sailing and then logistics for transporting. rigging I realized that for the topsails to ride the gaffs, both the fore and aft mast head bracing [ horizontal] and the top mast fore stays [ both in photo] needed to be removed. I have removed, tagged and taped them for eventual reinstalling. I then added the metal band connecting the cross tree tips. This detail reinforces the installation in real scale, but here also creates a seat for the spreaders. I made up the spreaders and added them, so far on the foremast. You can also see here where the outer jib halyard started out as a tied bass wood block and quickly failed. I have replaced it just like the main gaff halyards. I have taken the Bluejacket stopped blocks and used 24 gauge copper wire shackles to connect directly to the wire bale. Here you can see my scheme [ remember trial and error scheme] to sew one end of the shroud or stay and then slipknot the other end with a pair of surgeon knot ties. After a trail sailing if all is well, I shall sew and seize the second end. Please also note I chose to direct tie the sheet to the forestaysail boom and not use a bousie like the other booms. We'll see how that goes. I measured a 4 inch mid point here for this and the jib on a common servo. The other booms are all set at 6.5 inches. i assume that shall be reduced int he field and thus I used the Bousies. Thus the sail is midway out at rest. I can either pull it in or let more out with the servo........sounds good anyway much more work to go here. I have tried to do the flying and outer jib sheets a few times and will make up my mind how to do before the first run. My problem is there is about a two inch overlap of this sail and I need to figure if simply adding 2 inches of slack in the leeward sheet is the right amount, so the servo does not snag and pull on the stay. transport I went to the local farm and garden store and bought a wagon with 10 inch wheels. I put a plywood bed inside and will attach the strapped stand to it for transport. here it is just sitting int he wagon and we are pulling in a simple grass yard. I now keep the model in this wagon as shown in my walk out study. It is a good height for work and the handle helps keep one away from the tip of the jib boom. So as long as the wagon stays clean it is just great. i took many shots and share this one, a fun image in front of old glory taken on the 4th of July. here my pal and I are leaving the yard for the 800 foot trail up over a 50 foot high ridge to get to the dock. My daughter is visiting and followed to .....comment. this is a nice part of the woods and all is good. we tipped over twice going down some tricky parts, so there is definitely a need for a full crew to include enough hands to get there. fun I can't stop myself sometimes. I realized that someday I need a yawl boat. Most available views [photos] and designs are based on 1915 and after. Thus gas engines etc.are part of the deal. I am not focusing on making this model 1894, and will eventually have one with simulated engine etc. For now I chose to carve a block and cover it with canvas. I am not sure that a cover is accurate but I felt I needed to respect the need of a yawl boat and a wood block would have looked..... dumb? Here the assembly is roughed in. I likely shall not sail with the yawl boat and therefore save the lines and lashing until later. cheers

I wanted to give a brief update showing a little progress. It is summer here and time is quite pressing..... Here I have added the flying jib. that means 11 sails on and four to go. Here a half day later I added the outer Jib. that means 12 sails on and three to go. I have started fore and aft standing rigging with the key spring braces between the top masts. This set snugs up the mast a bit as they are loose in the stepping. The aft end is tight connected by sewing a splice to a shackle and using a seized knots at the forward end shackle to allow tightening. Eventually that will be sewed as well. I decided not to glue the masts in. One never knows what the future repairs may entail. Finally here we are. Obviously I am ahead of myself as so much undone. Note again the fun of the strapped stand gives the ability to set a tack. It is practical for moving sails out of way of deck work but also photogenic. Here we are on starboard tack and headed for the window. The spanker sheet is attached using a Bousie [ pekabe]. It's big and ugly, so if possible a slip knot for the smaller forward sails that have a common swing radius. Here is real trial and error. I should probably sail with this configuration. The three remaining sails are the top staysails. They are attached to the topmast stays and have sheets below the brace stays [ needing trip lines to raise for tacking]. I am not sure of the impact as I do not currently have plans for a 5th servo to trim them. They shall definitely be on the model post sailing, so we shall see how this goes. Perhaps if sailing is good, we can add them in the field so to speak and see how they work on a fixed set. Another big question is timing on all the standing shrouds. Once they go in place, access is extremely difficult. The masts are plenty strong, so it is an aesthetic issue. My thoughts are perhaps to add a pair [ top mast] only and try to sail. If all is good then add the rest and sail again all in place. I need to be sure i can come aboard later to add the nice things like windows and doors to the cabins, tackle blocks to booms etc. Call it shake down. Anyway I have a lot to do now to get ready for last week in July when I hope to ready for a trial run. Our summers are quite short here! cheers

Hi Bob I am learning a lot through this project. I have two future projects to build and fortunately [ maybe] they shall be a bigger scale. I have the hull roughed out of Gerturde Thebaud in 1:24 scale and plan to build the Bowdoin a famous Boothbay boat also in 1:24. We have our windjammer days yesterday in Boothbay Harbor and I thought to add a few photos for fun showing the schooners coming into the harbor. Here are four schooners of the group all in front of us just outside the harbor. Note the Bowdoin is the larger one in the foreground built in East Boothbay in 1920 here is the schooner Ernestina-Morrissey at the Boothbay Harbor Shipyard where it shall under go a major refit. She was towed from New Bedford, Mass. a few months ago....very exciting here is a reminder of a big lesson learned for me. The mast hoops on this photo are on the LAZY JACK a day sailing schooner here in the harbor. We like to ride her and join in the parade of schooners. I add this as I am now chagrin that the little copper mast hoops I have chosen to use are just too tight on the masts. I don't plan [yet] to change them as that would be a major issue at this point, and they do work. Their color seems OK and they do slide around, but they are definitely not as loose as they should be. A few on the foremast [ which is a hair bigger than the other three masts by design] have torn in the multiple handling and I need to resew them. Once again in static modeling there is no issue I have attached my first [ large]sheet to the spanker and will be focusing on that going forward. They need to be adjustable. cheers

Thanks Patrick I appreciate your taking the time to follow and comment. I had to laugh today as I completed the rope and rings for the jib and realized it is on the port side. I thought about it and said to myself....perhaps while adding a load of lumber they had a left handed sail maker replace the jib while in port. I am going to work out side this afternoon cheers

next stage....bend the sails argh. I have found the real dilemma here as I tip toe through new territory. How to build at 1:48 but be rugged enough to sail. examples. While moving the boat in and out of car and in and out of shop for the float test....oops there goes the rail. This oops is without masts even being stepped. . as I tie off blocks for halyards, I kept pulling them off. I changed two of the throat halyards triple blocks to wire staples up through the cross beam and bent over. A little over kill. I left the others thread as they did not break....yet Yes I am using thread...not lines. mostly 70% poly and 30% cotton from Joann. I bought better for stays. There is also no way I have a vehicle that can move this boat. I do have a small boat trailer for my 12 foot sailing dinghy but really. I will need a friend with a pick up hopefully with a cover As I go forward I smile and remind myself of my goals. I want a 1:48 scale schooner in most things. I want every line that functions. Yes the major sails' sheets are a little big, but so far that is all. I just need to to do my best and get in the water. If I can build it, I am sure I can fix it, so here we go setting the sails bent. I have moved the boat to my study.....only about 10 feet away from the shop. It has nice daylight and overhead task lights that help with vision. I can work on all sides, and using the strapped stand I can also tilt either way for port or starboard tack. That way gravity helps move the sails out of the way if I need to see the deck etc. here we are starting the process. most of the work was done off board to sew the lower sails in place and trim the spars. The stay sails are held by jack stays and are done in place. before we can work forward I needed to trim out the bowsprit and jib boom details I found from the details on the CORA CRESSY plans on all block sizes, chains and lines. The light chains were either 3/4 or 7/8 and like the stays us lashing with dead eyes. i used light wire to make all the strops with shackle connections for pinning to eye bolts. the larger chains get turn buckles. This was fun for me. After turning the martingale I had to do more real soldering. The bottom cap needed a double band forward and single aft.. I also fully soldered the band holding the jib boom down to the end of the bowsprit. It worked but boy I am really new at this task. I used 24 gauge copper for the shackles and painted the chain in place to get it to look like galvanized chain. The turn buckles are a bit shorter, and the two unconnected ones needed longer clevises to allow pinning to the bees. I held up on installing their chains until I run the upper stays that hook to the sides of the martingale and run to the prepared lashing dead eyes. I just want to hand fit the line of the chain and then drill the eye bolts....yes i am chicken finally here is the attached foresail. It's a big milestone for me. The sails are threaded up the stay that you can see is lashed to the staple forward of the bitt. I found a new problem with the top sails. they each have clew lines that raise the clew up and over the brace stays [ not yet installed]. they are like the tack lines [ also up and over the brace stay] and sheets that run either to port or starboard pins. All three sets have one loose to leeward and one tight to windward. For RC schooners the stay-sail rides with the gaff and is like an extension to the lower sail. [ I shall add little lines for that function too] Thus these lines can never be tight; what to do. here you can see the clew lines that run from tack up through the the block held through ridge line boss ring through the sail [ see picture] and then further through a lizard to the peak block and down. here you see the three attachments for each side. the two lines on the side rail are peak halyard and clew line. the two lines at the mast rail are sheet through the leader block aft and the tack to the middle pin. My plan is to run the tack and sheets continuous through the rings and then leave a bit loose. the clew must just be loose because there are separate peak blocks. After sailing is over I can tighten them up. here one can see the tight fit for lines where the lower main deck carries the leader blocks for the foremast beside the forward deck house. I believe using the Bluejacket pre-stropped blocks makes this doable and rugged. finally here we are for progress.... 9 sails on and 6 more to go cheers

We we had a great first launch and float test. I asked a friend to use their fresh water lake site for this first test and it worked out just great. here we are loaded into the car. Unfortunately this won't happen with the stepped masts and I am working on that problem. The stand carries the weighted keel and several weights if I want to try increasing ballast to get lower into the water. here we are attaching the sailing keel. it was easy to lift and carry a few hundred feet to the lake front dock. The combined weight is about 28# it takes two people to launch and comments were of concern as what to hold onto. I need to consider some easy to hook on launch lines. today there is a little wind and rip of a few inches. Looking at the action along the waterline I was very happy where at rest the waterline is about 1/2 to 3/4 above the water. this is safe for saltwater harbor sailing. turning away from the dock into the wind, the waves came above the waterline, so I think the current weight is fine. I believe adding the masts and batteries etc are another pound or so and that should be fine. here we are at rest after about 10 minutes. Inside was dry as a bone, so all is good wow what fun

Maine spring is quick and fickle. We hit a new record low yesterday 42. Anyway I need to get ready for a float test Friday so I have made progress in several areas. Sails rigging and masts For sails I simply need to continue chipping away so when the hull is ready I can put in complete masts and rig up the running rigging right away. I remain unhappy about puckering but sais le vis as I complete sails and get them sewn onto the spars I need to start the running rigging. as i said last time I take the machine sewn sails upstairs so I can work on them off hours. I find early morning works best and those in the photo are all done now. after much consideration, I now believe proper blocks would have been galvanized metal straps and oily,dark and almost black wood. As on other models for economics I have used the inexpensive bass or walnut made blocks they dont look like galvanized! I started with them and found another problem. pre-made blocks stop at triples and they are too delicate to add beckets. These schooners actually used quads with a single drop to the deck because they used engines to raise the sails. Gloucester and similar schooners had lines coming down port and starboard out of the top block and bottom. They had one direct to get close and then a whip on the opposite side with double or more blocks as needed to get it tightened up or trimmed. For this first go i decided to put triple up and double down as that what was available. I did not like this solution I started to install all of the belaying pins and deck staples. These staples mostly take stropped blocks to receive sheets that go up to pins on the rail. The open main deck has seven blocks on each side that will be very difficult to install in the narrow area beside the fore cabin. So after much thought, I decided to bight the bullet I went to Bluejacket and bought their beautiful stopped blocks all with beckets. This allowed me to correctly rig the gaffs with the becket above and triples top and bottom. yes they should be quads but I don't see any in the market at 1/4 inch. I chose black to paint out the 'wood part' leaving the side strop, sheaves and tabs galvanized. I installed all of the chain plates and have repainted this after the photo. I dry fit a turn buckle and continue the long production. After asking on this forum for feedback the responses i got were for paint as the standard galvanized solution. Model expo had a 50% sale, so I bought one each aluminum and silver paint to try them out on brass. They are very close. I like the aluminum, as there is a little more warmth to it and slightly less shine. I plan to use both. To get ready for the float test, I needed to get some more lead. amazing, I looked on the web about 3 PM Friday and ordered 20# for normal shipping.....it arrived Monday wow. I completed the sailing keel; painted it out like the hull and added two 5 pound weights as a start. Here is the hull with its new smooth bottom [ I used gloss paint to see the look and I don't like it...next coat back to satin fiesta red which is more like brick red and perhaps red lead. I made up the strapped stand that holds the weighted sailing keel under the hull. when ready it lifts up and bolts to the hull and I can lift both out and head for the water. I have several hand weights in 2 or 3 pound to use to trim. the current hull is 15#

Well I am finely back at it. Spring clean up does take away lots of our time! I am now focused on production in two areas, sails and fittings/ turnbuckles as well as general progress on the hull, spars and deck Sails: I continued the trial and error process and made all four sails. I then decided that three of them are for the trash bin. The best approach to the puckering I found is to stretch the cloth while sewing the seems. I learned to tolerate reality when I remade the spanker. It was my best sail yet and looked great with very little puckering. I set it on the table ready for applying the rope etc., and after one night it looked like all the others. Of well. the color and texture are OK, sailing quality of muslin is likely down a bit I am sure, but I need to move forward. Remember this is a proto type For the production cycle on 16 sails I have decided to do one step on each sail each session, so that I have many activities going on. The list includes, turbo cad drawing and trial design of each new sail; layout and marking for first machine sewing; gluing and machine sewing bands; hand sewing the rope and rings; hand sewing to the mast and spars. Here I am laying out the spanker Here I have glued on all the bands [ bias tape]. I since learned it is better to sew the seems and then add the reef bands over them. Here I took the dimensions from the small scale sail plan and plotted it on my 1:48 plan. It printed it out and actually came pretty close. I did have to move the clew a bit forward and raise the tack. Here I took the completed new foresail, laid it out and placed the cut out gaff topsail to trial fit before machine sewing. Here I have accumulated a back log of three sails ready for hand sewing on the ropes and rings . I am doing that work upstairs while watching night time TV. The Red Sox , however are not doing very well. Here is the foresail sewn onto the spars. It took some time to go through and trim out the spars. I needed to make the bands, add on the blocks and get everything ready to go. I hope to have each one fully complete before installing. This also gives me more time to work on the hull and deck fittings. Here I am ready to sew the main sail to the mast and spars. note the topmast shrouds are in place. Here I have cut out and have waiting 2 gaff topsails. It is now two steps to sew seems and the add reef bands over the seem lines and machine sew. here each session I need to draw another sail. I have conflicting information on the seem direction for the staysails. I chose the Bertha Brown design with the seems parallel to the luff. I need to add reef bands. Fittings: I mentioned above lots of work making many eye bolts and bands for all the spars. I also taught myself how to blacken as an alternative to paint. I asked for outside advise and found paint is the only likely way to simulate galvanized metal where applicable. It is possible that the change over from dead eyes to turn buckles was coincidental with this schooner. There is in fact a drawing that shows 8 foot chain plates and dead eyes on this early 1894 design. However they would not have been very practical and typically all schooners of this era used turnbuckles and steel cable. Therefore as I have stated before I am using 5 foot chain plates and 4-6 foot turnbuckles as this represents the era. I experimented with using silver paste to connect several 3mm jump rings to the heads of the cap screws. I had beginner's luck, but quickly found my process not giving me the strength. Here I went to the old fashion flux and silver solder process and got a stronger joint, Unfortunately only 2 at a time. for the rest of the turn buckles, I make 4-6 pieces at a time. My small drill press is priceless to drill all these many holes in the 3/16 brass for clevises and the 1/16 brass for spar bands. We all know that drilling brass is tricky and with a hand held dremel would be very difficult. other stuff: I went to our monthly meeting at Downeast Shipmodeler's Guild and learned several things from a real fiberglass expert. As a result I went to the local auto parts store and got Ever glaze finish putty that fills in the pit holes form Bondo and other minor defects. I was also advised to not fear and be rougher on an under sanding. After rougher sanding use the filler putty and get a smother finished hull. The result is learning how to make a better finish and even though that means a step backward, this is be the last real time to do it. I will try to get that done in the next several days. part of the recommendation was to also use auto body filler primer. Unfortunately it only comes spray. I need to go all brushed paint from now on and especially in the future any damage would be repaired by brush. so no filler primer on this model. I will next lay out the 60 ish chain plates and other connections for standing rigging and over 100 belaying pins for running rigging. I have chosen brass 5/16 belay pins as I have so many lines and need to actually connect them. I am not sure if I should paint them silver. I need to think about a float test. the sea water is only up to 50 degrees, and our pond a little warmer. I am thinking the first week in June I should sneak it in to make sure she floats. The lead keel... i really need to get this figured out. I think for this year it will be temp until I really know the right weight. then next winter I can consider to get a nice cast bulb. So there it is. I wish a session was each day but too many other things. I will be lucky to get the sails done in June. I suspect more than that as the weather warms. To get a sail in this year I need to leave a few things out, so I may leave off the top staysails for this first stage. I also want to delay much of the deck detail until next winter. we'll see what make sense.

Thanks for the added advice. I have painted brass chain black for static and found it is OK but not all covering. One needs to thin the paint and then be ready to touch up after installing. I would agree, now that I have tried it, blackening is better. I will look into tinning, but will likely stick to paint as this schooner will get moved around. I like the pencil idea and will try it on both silver and aluminum color. Thanks again...I will comment in my build log after trial and error Cheers

Carl The abbreviation COE is center of effort. It is the center of area of the sail. It creates a moment force relating to the waterline. Because the sail area of the schooner is similar to the pond yachts it is interesting to notice their moment will be much less. Thus the ability to force the boat to come about (bow crosses the wind to go from starboard to port tack by example) could be a problem. Cheers

Patrick I am not a RC sailing expert, but as I have followed it along over the years, I have watched several type boats sail. Many discussions come up on hull speed to scale, ability to come about etc. Here are two images of popular and traditional designed pond yachts. This is a recently designed 50 Inch Marblehead class with 76 inch masts and tall [ 70 inch luff] slim sails called the Naskeag. My son and I started one each some 15 years ago and I finished them up last year. They have yet to see the water. This photo is a regata....see how high the sails are with respect to the hull length. The COE scales about 26 inchs above the deck or just > 1/2 hull length. here is a classic 1936 design Gus Lassal that I built 15 years ago. I rebuilt it from copying a broken antique [ that I have partly restored and plan to complete some day] and bought the sail in marblehead, so I could properly size the mast. It was a classic design and its COE is a few inches lower but still not much less than 1/2 the hull length. here you can see the Downeast frieghter with the sail templates .... the lower masts average 22 inches above the deck and COE is roughly half of that . Lets say 11-12" and when I add the upper sails I may gain a few inches. Being generous lets say 15 inches all in above the deck. The decks of the Marblehead and this schooner are similar above the waterline. Therefore we have a similar calc comparison of COE to be 1/4 of the hull length above the deck. So the question is....will I be able to come up into the wind?......we are going to find out .... i sure hope so, or I may have to get a better chase boat.

Thanks guys. What I get is paint is the way to replicate galvanized fittings or chain. Thanks for quick response Jon

I am trying to build a 1894 schooner. In this Era I find from many photos the turnbuckles ,shackles and chains were galvanized. Moving forward the chain plates were too, but many were painted out with the hull. I am using brass tube and stuff for the turnbuckles. I could use quick blackening to start if that is helpful. Is there anything better than silver paint to get to a likeness of galvanized? Ditto for chain. Most is coated brass I think. Thanks for any help

Anton I need to make 70 plus for a 4 master schooner. I bought 200 cap screws 0 x 90 say 11$ then 3/32 brass tube and 1/16 rod for support while filing. I crimp the cap screws into the tube and the each turn but don't pull out. I then make either ring or clevis. This works for 1:48 scale where I need them to be under 4 feet up top or nearly 5 feet 1.25 inch for the shrouds. If smaller say 1:96 I used 1/16 tube and copper wire glued in or perhaps solder if under any Load. I am still an amateur at this but am researching and thought to share. There are photos on my link. Cheers

I just used my new found firefox tools to re edit the previous posting regarding turnbuckles and my upcoming search for help regarding options for galvanizing regards jon

Lextin I have really enjoyed going through your build. I rechecked in today as I am struggling with sails. When I started my build I mentioned using muslin and you happened to visit my first log and gave me a connection to the supplex group. I have used some newer materials indirectly as I had nylon sails made for my 50 inch marbleheads. they perform well.... they are all about the sailing. anyway I thought you might enjoy my struggles now that I am getting to that stage and still trying to be a traditionalist. cheers jon

We got back from a week in Arizona to find our Maine spring trying to get under way. This was a short week, but I got a few things done. I got back on the turbo cad and transferred offsets to create a 1:48 set of sail template drawings. I used my wifes' large format printer that actually gets to 13" x19" that allowed one sheet templates for all but the spanker. setting up these templates one can see that pretty though she may be, sailing quality will be a challenge since the centers of effort are so low at the model size. I used details from Douglas Lee that I found interesting. On the starboard side of the standard sail there is a 1 foot liner and the rope and on the port side a 2 foot liner on the leach and luff and what could be a 3 foot liner on the port foot. This two sided lining led me to an old trick I learned by trial and error of taking a 7/8" oyster bias tape and cutting it in half. I then glued it to the edge giving a rough ¼” on the one side and just under ½” on the other. For the sail foot I cut the tape to give me a three foot liner. I also have ¼” bias tape and I fabric glued that for the reef band. Then I got into trouble as I snuck up stairs to sit at the sewing machine. This nice machine is auto set for tension and things, but I can set the length of the stitch. One of the troubles with 1:48 scale is the seams are only ½” apart and puckering is the name of the game. I did the foresail in the standard set of 2mm and it looks like a big lemon was nearby. Today I tried 1.5 MM stitch length on the mainsail. [ my logic of small means less] You really can’t tell until it is too late. I plowed through and got done and was again disappointed. I tried ironing after, but reality is these will not be ironed in place. When I showed my dear wife, she told me that of course a larger stitch and not a smaller one would apply less tension. So the Jigger is next and the first pass will be 2.5 mm or even 3mm. I also may change and reduce the size of the thread, though I am not sure that is relevant if this one ends up as a first attempt and I fix this problem, then I won't mind leaving this one behind this partial main sail will likely become a great rag I also have some jewelry supply hemp string and again I tried to use it for the bolt rope, adding brass jump rings for the four connections and 4 reef points. I am supposed to stop the rope, seizing it at each side of each reef band ring. I am looking for more demerits as I likely will bypass that detail by simply adding the rings at the end of the reef bands for looks. Sail material and advice: I know Lextin said ...use suplex…. And Jerry Todd used it as well in his build, and before this is over I might just do that too. I went to the vendor web site and color was either snow white or what I might say a selection of modern colors. I love the natural color and defects in old fashion muslin when trying to be ugly old canvas. Gluing bias tape to the sides then sewing is easier than fold - glue and sew. it is the seams that I am fighting. Also this boats is to be able to sail, not race. I will show more when I get further into and solve the puckering or give up and go modern. deck and stain As to the deck, it is like a child…..I love my children and like my deck. I am not sure if the constant change in color is good, I used two different stains and like what I have….it is not furniture. I imagine there were spills and many issues after the shake down cruise. it was oiled [ some say pine and some say other] and a bit messy I believe. I darkened all my masts after review with others and reviwewing the photos in the new book to me Fly Rails and Flying jibs it shows a bit in the next photo I show the fore top with the newly installed futtocks shrouds. I am proud that the collar is my fist ever blackened brass. I made those along with the three gaff block bands in 1/16" x 1/64" brass. Drilling the little holes is a challenge and to take on so many is all new to me. I did not make the three fittings that go from rod to hook to a pass though- double eye. Running the precoated copper wire through the cross tree and making the eyes to receive 16 more turn buckles was enough for me. I am adding gaff blocks and fitting out the spars as I need them ready to sew on the sails before installation. I love Patrick’s characterization of my new task in turnbuckles as fiddly. it is a bit overwhelming and I need to get back to it.