Trireme Olympias by Richard Braithwaite

[Richard Braithwaite]

Ive chosen the same wood to build the spars (Lime) as used for the rest of the hull. Spruce might have been nice but I always think the grain looks abit to big at this scale.

Her is the Main mast tapered and marked out for "octagonalizing":

The base of the mast is square where it fits into the tabernakle and the top is tapered to fit the mast head fitting described earlier.

The square base is finished with a radius at the forward edge to make raising and lowering the mast easier: 

Finally, both masts with their masthead fittings:

 

[Richard Braithwaite]

A short digression on the rig of Olympias...

 

There were a number of collaborators in the design and construction of Olympias andO.T.P Roberts was resonsible for the design of the rig (I have two articles by him describing the design and subsequent sailing trials, published in, The Trireme Project, Operational Experience 1987-90 Lessons Learnt and The Trireme Trials 1988, both published by Oxbow books). The rig design featured a large and a small sail and a large and small yard as described in Naval Inventories at the time, although there is apparently no iconographic evidence for a two masted rig in galleys of the last millenium BC. Morrison and Williams  (Greek Oared Warships 900-322BC, Cambridge 1968) poi9nt to evidence that the the main mast was unrigged for battle and the smaller "boat sail" was retained to be used for down wind escape if necessary.

 

The forward mast on Olympias also serves as a useful gantry to raise the much heavier main mast (method described in drawing MSR 13)

 

The sails on Olympias were rigged on a yard hoisted by twin halyards but is unsupported by lifts. As mentioned before the mast is only supported by fore and backstays and has no shrouds (as designed) requiring a substantial tabernacle. The sail is controlled by brails and the downward pressure of these (and the yard braces) is thought to account for the downward curving yards seen in the icongraphy. An illustration of this , for a one masted galley is shown below.(figure taken from The Sailing Rig of Olympias, p30, The Trireme Project, Oxbow Monograph 31)

There are no reef points, as such on the sails. Sail reduction, and furling, is accomplished by brails passing through rings on the leeward side of the sails, and fixed to the foot of the sail. Fore and aft balancing of the rig could be achieved by partly brailing the sail to move the center of effort fore and aft to counter weather or lee helm as required, as shown below (figure also taken from Roberts article in The Trireme Project.) Trials on Olympias also showed that slightly drawing up the middle brails when sailing downwind. Apparently this helps maintain the rectangular shape of the sail, preventing the clews pulling in and spilling the wind out of the bottom of the sail. In the two masted configuration this also helps the airflow over the forward boat sail.

 

Performance on trial suggested that progress could be made to windward with close reaching up to 60 degrees off the wind while making 7 degrees of leeway. In light weather a sailing speed of 2.5 kts could be doubled by light rowing as a bireme (i.e. two top rows of oars only) which would have enabled 1/3 of the crew to rest on passage, even in light winds.

Roberts comments that the main yard on the reconstruction was over engineered and so did not flex in the way sugested by the above illustrations. It was also very heavy, so the original plan to make the halliards from 45mm diameter leather were amended to use 20mm 3 strand polyester rope for safety reasons...

 

Edited September 10 by Richard Braithwaite
additional info and spelling...

[Ian_Grant]

Very interesting!  👍

[Richard Braithwaite]

Completed the yard for the forward mast ("boatyard").  A nice , straightforward, tapered yard 7m long with a maximum diameter of 166mm (full size). Drawing MSR 3 gives diameters at the marked points in the series of photos below to help with the shaping:

 

Edited September 11 by Richard Braithwaite

[Richard Braithwaite]

Shaping of the mainyard, took a bit more thought. Made of two pieces lashed together (like the illustrations in Roberts papers described above), with a relatively more complex transition of section where the two pieces are joined. I havent made yards for a very long time, but I remembered (for this last one at least...) to remark the circumference of the yard at the measurement stations at the point when it is octagonal to act as a guide to help make the faces even when shaving down the vertices to make the yard 16 sided prior to sanding to its final round shape...

Finally a pic of both masts and both yards together, from which it is clear how heavily built the main yard was...

 

[Richard Braithwaite]

Im looking into making all the rigging fittings I need, blocks, deadeyes, fairleads etc.

This page from Davey and Co's catalogue (Products – Davey & Co London Ltd) looks like a good indicator for appropriate block sizes for different rope sizes:

I can also scale from photographs of Olympias, e.g. :

 

 

I havent done any rigging for a very long time... Are there other good sources on block, deadeye etc proportions?

Edited September 16 by Richard Braithwaite

[Thukydides]

I have no knowledge about ancient seafaring practices, but steel gives the ratios for blocks to rope for the late 18th century (https://maritime.org/doc/steel/part5.php#pg153).

[Richard Braithwaite]

Thanks, Thukydides. I looked through Steel a few days ago, and missed that bit...

 

Today Ive been fitting the brace cleats to the  Fore Yard. A bit of careful positioning of the yard and a spacer to make sure they both end up on the same centerline (Image ncludes part of drawing MSR 3  © Estate of John F. Coates, reproduced with permission)...

 

[Richard Braithwaite]

More rigging fittings. Brail fairleads this time. Small (105mm long full size , 4.35 mm at 1:24) bronze fittings defined in drawing MSR 8. 

 

Even working at this large scale, I do get to make some small stuff!

 

They sit on top of both yards and I need 16 of them altogether. I made them on my Unimat in strips of 7 which was the most I could do given the extent of the transverse travel on the milling table...Used my "manual CNC" approach again. Quite a challenge to remember where I was in the sequence right through 7 repeats. I lost one strip because I didnt believe the dial movements ant tried to measure with my vernier guage...Turned out the dial settings were right and the measurement I made wrong...The mounting holes are 0.35mm in diameter and nicely fit some 0.3mm diameter (4mm long) brass pins that I just recieved from Dry-dock Models and Parts.

[Richard Braithwaite]

Ive ordered (and now recieved) ropes made by Ben of Ropes of Scale for this project. Ive gone for polyester tan as a reasonable match for the mixture of Hemp and Polyester rope used on Olympias. I constructed a simple spreadsheet to convert the rigging list (defined in drawing MSR 10) into 1:24 scale and then match against the diameters offered by Ben:

the spreadhseet then sumarises the totals of each rope diameter for ordering:

 

So 47 m in total. As Ben makes these up in 6m lenths I have some margin (varies from size to size...). Whether this is sufficient remains to be seen.

 

First attempt on the model today, lashing the Trierarch's chair to a quarterdeck beam (Image includes part of drawing MSR 26  © Estate of John F. Coates, reproduced with permission). Its very fiddly work, and Im still getting up to speed with it!

In this case I was using Bens 0.35mm rope (equivelent to 8mm full size). I practiced with some sewing thread to work out a suitable method and work out how much rope I needed. When it came to using the polyester rope I whiped one end with Gutterman 120 thread, again very fiddly work. Ive yet to come up with a method for making this go more smoothly...Process then:

1. Start with a clove hitch around both seat and deck beams.

2. pass one more turn around both beams (to match the 3 overall turns shown in the drawing)

3. 3 half hitch turns around the lashing (again to match up with the drawing)

4. I couldnt get in there to whip the final end...so sealed with a drop of CA glue and then cut off.

 

I ended up using a piece of rope 50mm longer than ended up in the lashing (to give me something to hold onto to do the half hitches at the end...) which means a 25% wastage rate for this first effort...

 

Hopefully Ill get better as I go along...

 

Edited September 23 by Richard Braithwaite

[Richard Braithwaite]

Fixing the brail fairleads to the boat yard. Drawing MSR 8 shows copper "tingles" fitted underneath these to protect the spar from wear. However, phtographs of Olympias show these were not fitted and so I have left them off. The farileads were first fixed with epoxy and then drilled through into the spar before fixing with 0.3mm brass nails. I found it quite challenging to align the tiny (0.35mm) drill with teh holes in the fairleads and broke 2 in the process of drilling the 12 holes in the boat yard. With hindsight it would probably have been easier to drill the hole through the brass fitting and into the yard in one go...

[ccoyle]

Just catching up on your project -- that's some exceptionally skilled craftsmanship on display!

[Richard Braithwaite]

Preparing to put the lashings on the main yard. These are shown in drawing MSR 3 (Part reproduced below  © Estate of John F. Coates, reproduced with permission):

Not quite sure how these lashings were secured on Olympias. Tried a couple of approaches using 0.5mm polyester rope (from Ropes of Scale - on the actual yard I will use 0.35mm rope as closer to  8mm rope at 1:24) on a piece of dowel (see image below). The sequence is of a "common whipping". In the second image the loop has been pulled so that the end on the left is pulled under the lashing coils and then the ends trimmed off. The whole thing was then coated with polyurethane varnish to hold it in all together and in place on the dowell.

 

Ive also tried a "round lashing" (on the left of the third image),with a clove hitch securing both ends of the lashing.

 

The "round lashing" is often quoted as being suitable for securing two poles together, but leaves the rope ends exposed and liable to get caught up with sails etc in use.

 

I think the "common whipping" looks neater (despite the bulge under the coils where the ends are pulled in) but neither arrangement feels that secure to me given the loads, and handling, that the yard would be subjected to in service...

 

[BANYAN]

I would have to agree with your conclusion WRT the round lashing Richard; the common whipping looks a much better option for a model at least.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Louie da fly]

That's beautiful work, Richard. One small point regarding the blocks - the early ones I'm familiar with (admittedly mediaeval rather than ancient) seem generally to be rectangular rather than round. Some examples:

 

 

Though there is one with a rounded end:

It might be worthwhile to see if you can find surviving examples from your period to check against. 

 

Steven

[Richard Braithwaite]

Thanks Loie de Fly. Roberts (who was responsible for the rig design) does not talk about classical block/deadeye etc. design in the papers that he wrote for the Trireme Trust on the subject and seems to have used modern (19th century)  versions that were readily available at the time. As far as I know, no Archaeological remains of Triremes have been recovered (they tended to float when "sunk"). However,  some archelogical remains of merchant ships of the time have been excavated (which sunk due to their ballast/cargo and were preserved under the sea bed) and it would be interesting to see what fittings were recoverd from these.

For this model I am (generally, although I havent been 100% consistent...) building a model of the reconstruction "Olympias" rather than attempting to build a model of an ancient greek Trireme, so I shall probably go for the modern style used on that vessel.

[Richard Braithwaite]

Completed lashings (using 0.35mm polyester rope) on my main yard, secured in place with a couple of drops of CA and overcoated with matt polyurethane varnish to hold them in place. The second image shows where the ends have been pulled underneath the lashings and trimmed.

 

Edited November 13 by Richard Braithwaite

[BANYAN]

Very neat work as usual Richard.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Thukydides]

Fantastic work. It holds up so well in those up close photos.

[Richard Braithwaite]

Been struggling today to work out a way to make belaying pins. The largest rope I will be belaying is 1 inch full size = 1mm at scale. So a 1mm diameter pin (1.5mm diameter handle) 16mm long, seems to make sense and matches pretty well with photographs of Olympias. Its a very simple wooden pin with straight sided handle (see image below). Tried turning these in one piece (from holly) but  they kept becoming unstable and breaking as I tried to turn them in my Unimat.  Same problem trying to turn them from brass, the overhang is just too long for the slender pin.

Making them in two pieces as shown below seems to work. Process as follows:

1. Roughly  3mm round  holly mounted in 3 jaw chuck and center drilled 1mm to a 5mm depth.

2. Swap the 1mm drill for 1mm brass rod and insert in hole to stabilise.

3. "Turn between centers" down to 1.5mm and cut off a 7mm length for the handle.

4. Cut a 1x1mm square section of holly and make into 1mm dowel through a draw plate (which for some reason - a long time ago- I made from a brass hinge...)

5. insert into hole in handle and cut off make a total of 16mm long for the pin. This length gives equall exposed pin above and below the pin rail (which is 2mm thick at model scale).

Its going to be quite time consuming making all these pins (as always) but at least they dont keep on breaking...

 

Edited November 15 by Richard Braithwaite

[BANYAN]

Hi Richard.  One way that has worked for me is to make a metal template with a sharp edge.  I grind the required shape into a piece of wide hacksaw blade and put a relief on the underside of the leading edge.  I have a bandsaw blade company nearby and they are happy to give me a few cut-offs of their industrial blades. After allowing a little on each end to act as a sort of parting tool (but not fully)  I cut away a section on each end beyond the depth required for the largest dimeter in the handle.  I also found doing this in short sections of stock almost eliminated any flex.  The type of wood is also important and I found a tight-grained stock best.

 

May be worth trying?

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Richard Braithwaite]

Now I’ve got a production line going, I’m finding my two-part method is going quite quickly (32 out of 40 made so far...) and seems to result in reasonable tolerances. Looking at photos I'm reasonably sure I’ve proportioned them right. The diameters of rope to belay on them varies between 14 and 24mm diameter full size and I’ve  proportioned the pin to accommodate the largest rope. Here is a picture of a couple of pins on my rail with 0.8mm polyester rope belayed (equivalent to 20mm full size), alongside a photo of the one of the rails on the full size vessel. The mix of crisp polyester (the white rope in the foreground) and hairy hemp rope used on the full size vessel can be seen in this photograph.

On the full size ship these pins were left unvarnished, but as Ive varnished everything, Ill probably varnish these as well.

I guess I'm building a "Luxury yacht" version of Olympias, rather than trying to reproduce the, rather battered, post trials version!

The lovely, sparklingly crisp, model polyester rope that I'm using from Rope of Scale fits nicely with this approach!

[Richard Braithwaite]

Here are 40 belaying pins on a rack drying after their second calt of varnish:

And here are some of them mounted on the aftermost pinrails:

It actually didnt take as long as I feared. An advantage of this method is that the tolerances are very tight. The lower part of each pin was a nice push fit in to the hole in the pinrail (all pulled through the same hole in the drawplate) and the upper part was all turned to the same dial settings on the lathe. The pins on Olympias are obviously a very simple shape, but the same method could be used to make shaped pins vers accurately using the stepped process described above for the brail fairleads, mast head fittings etc. (I wouldnt like to try it as a scale much less thatn 1:24 though...)