Germania Nova 1911 by KeithAug - FINISHED - Scale 1:36 - replica of schooner Germania 1908

[KeithAug]

I have neglected ship modelling for too long and my New Years resolution is to get started on a new build. So here we go.

 

I wanted to build another classic early 20th century schooner but found sourcing decent plans very difficult. This in part was the reason for not starting a build earlier.  After many hours spent on the web I decided I could get together enough information to build a decent representation of Germania (either in her original form or as the recently built reproduction). So Germania sort of chose me rather than me choosing her.

 

Because I found getting early 20th century plans so difficult I though would document (through this log) enough information for others to build her should they so wish. So I will include PDF files and dimensioned sketches as I go.

 

And so to a bit of background:-

 

The first Germania (designed by Max Oertz in 1905) was conceived as a racing yacht and built for Dr Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, a German businessman and industrialist who used her to promote his steel business among the social elite. In her first year she won Cowes Week with a new course record and often raced against Kaiser Wilhelm’s Meteor IV, although, rather diplomatically, that was one yacht Germania never beat.

 

In one year alone, she won more than half of the regattas she entered and her winning streak only came to an end due the outbreak of World War I. Seized as a prize of war, she was sold on several times, ending her days in the US. In 1930 she foundered in a storm off Key Biscayne; she now forms Florida’s Seventh State Underwater Archaeological Preserve.

 

Germania Nova is 60 metre gaff-rigged schooner : a replica of the classic 1908 Germania, using the same hull lines, deck- and sail-plans. She was built as a super yacht by Factoria Naval Marina in 2011. The two yachts look identical with the exception of modern electronic / navigation equipment.

 

Fortunately a lot of photos are available which I will insert in the build as I go. Here is a taster:-

 

Plenty of opportunity here for nice wood and metalwork.

 

This has the potential to be a big model. I like larger scales and in choosing a scale I was minded to do a comparison with Altair (previous build). Hence the following chart:-

I'd really like to build at the same scale as Altair but I don't think the house controller would put up with it. So 1:36 it is. It is still however some 16 inch (30%) longer than Altair. I will enter sizing negotiations once it is too late to change.

 

I won't be cutting wood for some time as the next image is the best I can do for hull lines. It does not look too bad at this scale but when blown up the lines lack definition. It will take some effort to convert this into cutting templates for frames.

So I now need to find my drawing implements - bought for my first post apprenticeship job in the Rolls Royce Design Office in 1975.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ccoyle]

Wow, great choice, Keith! She's a looker, to be sure. When I saw the pictures, I immediately thought of Coronet, which is currently undergoing restoration at IYRS. It'd be sweet if a nice set of plans results from that work.

 

BTW, I somehow managed to miss the completion of Altair. I wonder where I was??

[michael mott]

Ooooh This looks like it will be a wonderful journey, I'm in for the duration Sir!

 

Michael

[paulsutcliffe]

Nice choice Keith, go for it

Looking forward to the results if altair was anything to go by

Regards

Paul

 

Edited January 11, 2019 by paulsutcliffe

[shipmodel]

Hi Keith -  

 

Welcome back and Happy New Year. 

You have made my year a bit happier already, anticipating following along with another of your lovely builds.

 

Dan

 

 

[Guest Riccardo1966]

Hello Keith,

I should like to tag along, if I may. Interesting that you should choose this scale as apposed 1/35, I know it translates as 1 inch is 3 feet and is a known scale for ship plans. All the same, it will be an enthralling undertaking to watch.

All the best .

Richard

[G.L.]

What a beautiful ship!

At scale 1/36 it will be a large model, I like that.

I am subscribing to your log.

 

[KeithAug]

Chris, Michael, Paul, Dan, Richard and GL. Thank you all for your comments - its good being back among friends.

 

Richard - metric is fine but I am an old Imperialist at heart. I just love the way that 3ft becomes an inch, it avoids much use of the calculator when making parts. In fact I'm even trying to convince my daughter-in-law of the merits of £sd (pounds shillings and pence). Although she has a Phd she just doesn't get it.. Kids these days just want an easy life!!!!!

 

Chris - Sometimes I miss the last boat too (often - according to the wife).

 

Dan - Hoping I wont need the optiVISOR for this one. 

 

Michael - You seem to have had news about my Knighthood before me?

 

Paul - Thanks for the wood supplier advice.

 

 

[Jim Lad]

That looks a pleasant little sailing dinghy, Keith! 😄

 

She'll make a magnificent model.

 

Do you have a copy of Uffa Fox's 'Sailing Seamanship and Yacht Construction'?  It was first published in 1934 and has several plans of large yachts of the period.  My copy was a library chuck out, but I see it's readily available second-hand from the internet.

 

John

[KeithAug]

John,

 

Yes, as dinghy's go it is quite spacious.

 

No I don't have that book, I have had a quick look on the net and it does look interesting. I think I will add it to my birthday list, or buy it sooner if I find a good deal. I do have a very tatty copy of The Gaff Rig handbook by John Leather which I find very useful from time to time.

[michael mott]

8 hours ago, KeithAug said:

Michael - You seem to have had news about my Knighthood before me?

Ah Keith many years of English boyhood schooling of calling the Master, "Sir"

 

Michael

[KeithAug]

I have made a start on defining the frames I started with the small web image. This was originally in a magazine and probably scaled about 6 inches long.

 

I had a play with it in the Mac iPhoto package basically whitening and sharpening the image. The plan and side elevations improved more than the image showing the frames.

This wasn't a big deal as the frames were only for the fore part of the yacht and anyway I thought plotting the frames from the plan / elevation was likely to be more interesting.

 

I printed the plan / side elevations at 1:36 and 1:72 scale. 1:36 is the upper 2 sheets in the next photo, the lower 6 sheets are 1:72.

Scaling up to 1:36 produced rather wide / poorly defined lines.

1:72 was somewhat better.

As I was going to draw the frames at 1:36 the scale of 1:72 worked well as I could measure across the matching plan section lines and use this dimension as the centre line to hull dimension on the 1:36 frame sections.

I felt the urge to check that the plans were reasonably accurate as I was worried that length / beam scales could have been distorted. Hence the following check calculations:-

The error line (red) shows the maximum error to be about a third of a percent which I am happy with. 

 

It is probably worth stating that the frame section lines are spaced at 1 meter (full size) or circa 1.1 Inch at 1:36. For building I had to consider how many frames to create. 1.1 inch spacing gives 46 frames and of course 2.2 inch gives 23. I decided to go with the larger number.

[Guest Riccardo1966]

I imagine that approaching the builders of your boat for hull lines has already been considered and, I have not seen the original boat plans either.

If I may ask, what drawing set do you use? I have a set of Hall instruments which was one set that I inherited off my late father.

Cheers

Richard

[KeithAug]

Richard

 

I emailed the builder but didn't get a reply - probably a victim of their spam filters. I not too worried as I think I will get a decent result from the image I have.

 

The instruments are Staedtler. The large compass has a nifty collet arrangement on the adjustment screw to give fast action as well as fine adjustment.

[KeithAug]

I started plotting the frame section lines. The drawing numbers the frames with frame 0 at the steering position. Frames 1 to 38 are forward of the steering position and frames -1 to -7 aft of it. It's a bit slow going but I am making progress. I have commandeered the dining room table - somewhat warmer than the workshop at present and my wife can find me more easily. The Christmas table cloth hasn't been removed yet. My draughting arrangements are somewhat basic, MDF for drawing board, my woodworkers square, dividers, french curves and a much overused eraser. Oh! and a laptop to give the impression of sophistication.

Never the less it seems to work and the bow sections are coming out well. I will publish PDF's of the sections in a later post. 

 

 

 

. 

Edited January 16, 2019 by KeithAug

[G.L.]

Lofting frames with divider and pencil. I love it!

[KeithAug]

Just a bit more draughting progress.

 

I finished the forward section frames - 15 through 38. 

I was pleased with the result although these are the most easily defined frames because the are reasonably well spaced and don't conflict with one another.

 

I also marked the waterline, deck edge lines and the rail lines on the sections.

 

Additionally I have included the upstand and datum line that will be used later for mounting the frames (inverted) on the building board. The slot in the up-stand will form a cut out to align the frame centre line on the building board - this will come clearer later.

 

I have included below the PDF file of these frames for downloading. I have also put x and y scales on the PDF to allow scaling when printing. I found that in my case the scanned PDF came out at 93% full size and I had to adjust the size in the print programme back to 100%. I checked the printed scales measured 6 inch as original drawn as a check on the reproduction accuracy.  

 

 

 

Schooner 1.pdf

 

Edited January 18, 2019 by KeithAug

[michael mott]

Lovely drawing Keith! I know that Cad drawings can be manipulated easily and all that, but there is just something timeless about drawing with a pencil..... maybe it is the sound of graphite on paper that does it.

 

Michael

[Guest Riccardo1966]

Great progress Keith. I have to concur with Michael, it's nice to see traditional skills in drawing.

 

Richard

P.S.

When I searched the shipyard on Google, it returns a status as "Permanently Closed". I do not know if this is for just one location or the whole concern. It may explain why you didn't get a reply.

Cheers

Edited January 18, 2019 by Riccardo1966

[KeithAug]

 

23 minutes ago, michael mott said:

something timeless about drawing with a pencil

Michael - My time in the Rolls Royce Draughting Training School was a long time ago (1969 / 70). I am very much worse than I was then. The last time I drove a drawing board was in the RB211 Design office in 1977. Which leads me into a story.

 

I had been asked to work overtime one night and was sitting alone at my stool in front of a long line of vacant 6x4 feet drawing boards. I was engrossed in designing a new style of combined engine oil feed and scavenge pump and quite oblivious to the rhythmic clanking of the bucket and mop as the cleaning lady worked her way steadily down the office. Suddenly as she came level with my station she stopped and spoke the following words that, in their irony, have lived with me to this day:-

She said "Sorry to bother you but don't you get board just drawing stuff all day". I looked at her mop and bucket in amazement incapable of making sensible reply.

 

Unfortunately I moved into management before the advent of CAD and never bothered to learn.

 

[michael mott]

17 hours ago, KeithAug said:

She said "Sorry to bother you but don't you get board just drawing stuff all day". I looked at her mop and bucket in amazement incapable of making sensible reply.

Wow! which just goes to show it's not what you do but how you think about what you do that matters.

 

Michael

[KeithAug]

Having completed the forward sections I moved to the aft end. The lower aft end of the keel is perhaps the most poorly defined area not only because of the loss of line definition in scaling up the original but also because of closeness of the lines on the plan view.

 

This post covers the definition of frame lines negative 7 through to 11 (nineteen in total).

Producing the frame lines required a degree of interpolation to get something that looked sensible within the frame and between adjacent frames. I enclose the PDF of the result for anyone interested.

 

Frames4.pdf

 

I found that drawing the keel bulb on frames forward of those being defined was helpful in getting my mind around the keel shape. The bulb lines in question are marked 15, 14 & 13 on the drawing. They can be ignored when I get on to cutting out frames as they will be covered  on the fully defined frames later.

 

Again I have defined the datum line, the building board alignment slot, the water line, deck edge line and rail line. Additionally I have noted the levels of the cabin floor as it rises in steps towards the bow.

 

To complete the lines I now need now to define the frames 11, 12, 13 & 14.

 

 

 

[Roger Pellett]

Nice job Keith!

 

Sometimes it’s remarkably difficult to sort out closely spaced waterlines.  Have you considered plotting some diagonals to check fairness?

 

Roger

[KeithAug]

Paul - I hadn't thought about it and you are probably right that it would help. I am getting a bit fed up with draughting so I may short cut and go to cutting out the frames and then check what it looks like "in the flesh". I'll probably regret it and have to revert to your suggestion - oh hum!

[Mark Pearse]

Hi Keith, this will be amazing. Best wishes for the build.

[KeithAug]

1 hour ago, Mark Pearse said:

Hi Keith, this will be amazing. Best wishes for the build.

Thank you Mark, I'll try to live up to your expectations and standards.

[KeithAug]

I completed the final sections. I plotted them on a separate sheet to avoid the conflict confusion. As previously i have attached the PDF.

Schooner 2.pdf

The next step was to make the templates for cutting out the frames. Fortunately in these days of scanners and printers things are much easier. The scanner decided to scan the image at 94% so when I went to the print programme I adjusted this back 100% and checked the scale lines to confirm the accuracy of the print, all was well. I also needed the mirror image print as a half hull model wasn't my plan. After a bit of searching I fount the flip horizontally button and hey presto I had the other half.

Then followed a large print run 46 of each - port and starboard. it took a while not least because of the hunt fort the replacement black cartridge.

 

The halves were joined with a glue stick and then each frame was coloured up to identify it for cutting out.

 

I did a lot of colouring in - just like being at school.

Some time ago I had found some small scale plans on the internet. As plans go they lack a bit of detail however with the aid of many photographs I think they will be adequate.

 

I need to do a bit of scaling up and printing to get the plans to a workable scale. My initial test on scaling up showed that the definition was reasonable.

[Jim Lad]

Looks like you're nearly ready to make sawdust, Keith!

 

John

[Mark Pearse]

Hi Keith, looks lovely already

 

Do you know how they manoeuvred the top staysail & topsail when going about?

[wefalck]

There has been a 1:100 scale (sorry metric ...) model of the GERMANIA by a German modeller:

 

https://www.arbeitskreis-historischer-schiffbau.de/mitglieder/modelle/germania3/

 

It may be worthwhile asking on what drawings his model was built. Keith, if you want, I can contact him and ask. He lives in Spain and specialises in models of such yachts.