HMS Victory by Bill97 - FINISHED - Heller - 1/100 - PLASTIC

[Bill97]

Ok my great friends I need some nautical education. Reading through Longridge and other references I find I am stumped by “sheets”.  As I am finishing up the ratlines I am planning a little ahead for where I go next. I will have the lifts, buntlines, and leachlines  done, and I understand how to do all the braces so I am good with them. Sheets, and I guess clue lines, have me scratching my head. Especially if I stay with my plan of no sails or furled sails.  When I read about sheets it seems as if the end the rope (sheet) is attached to the corner of the sail. When I look at the pictures and diagrams (plan #7 as an example) it appears that the sheets are rigged through the blocks at the end the yard and pulled by the crew to bring the sail out to the end of the yard when the sail was unfurled. The confusion for me is it appears the sheets are rigged to the yards and various belay points regardless if sails are furled, unfurled, are absent all together. The attached picture shows a block for the sheet attached to the corner of a sail. 

[Kevin-the-lubber]

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve done that already on the Cutty sark during dry-fitting of the masts and yards. Most of the time it makes no difference, the yards pop off, no damage done, but it’s a worry with all that rigging to do!

[Jose Gonzales]

Hi Bill, 

The picture you attached is specific for the bottom sails on the mast, known as the "courses" (fore course, main course). They are also perhaps more well known as the foresail and main sail. These sails do not have a yard below them to attach the corners to. Their sheets run aft back to the hull. The courses also have a "tack" line running forward and to the hull, to pull the corner of the sail forward when the sail is close hauled, to prevent the sail from flapping back and catching wind on the wrong side of the sail.

For sails located between yards, the sheets indeed pull the corners of the sail down and outward towards the ends of the lower yard. The clew lines run counter to the sheets, pulling the corners diagonally upward toward the center of the upper yard. When a sail is furled, the clews are hauled on and the sheets are let go. Furled sail will usually have the sheets remain attached, so you will see the sheets run up from the blocks on the end of the lower yard diagonally up to the upper yard where the corner of the sail has been lashed to the yard. If the ship is docked for an extended time the sheets may be unrigged, so you could choose not to have them on the model. Same goes for bare poles, the sheets and clews can be shown hitched together running diagonally between yards, or unrigged to represent long term docking.

[Bill97]

Thanks Jose. I attached a page from a different manufacturer of the model ship’s instructions. It makes it clear, I think, how to do the sheets. Does it appear fairly accurate?  If so, I can do this. In actual use would the block shown at the end of the sheets near the yard be attached to the corner of the sail and be hauled up by the corresponding clewline?

[Bill97]

All the ratlines on the port side complete! Wow that was a bunch of knots!  Ratlines for the shroud sets on the starboard side of the mizzenmast still to go. Then on to braces, sheets, clews, tacks , etc. Anything but ratlines! 😊

[Bill97]

ALL THE RATLINES ARE FINISHED!!!

Wow!  That is all I can say. Would be curious of the total knots, but not going to waste time doing the math. 😊

Now on to sheets, clews, tacks, and braces (+ a few other threads here and there) to finish the rigging! Subject to change if I decide to add furled sails, which I must decide soon. 

For ship parts I still have the anchors, lanterns, davits and boats, and stanchions and rails for the mast tops

[Dave_E]

Are you going to blacken them? If so, how do you not “dribble”?

[Bill97]

Dave you talking about the ratlines?  If so, no I am leaving light colored thread. I have seen a number of builders use a tan thread for the ratlines and black for the shrouds. I really like the visual interest that brings. 

Edited September 7, 2022 by Bill97

[Hubac's Historian]

Ratlines look tremendous, Bill!  Your sense of Victory must be building as you near the finish line.

 

Regarding whether to add furled sails, my sense is that it would be quite difficult to do with the yards already rigged and attached.

[Bill97]

Love the Victory pun Marc 😀.  You are right about the sails. Would be difficult. 
 

How is the move going?

[Hubac's Historian]

Thanks, Bill.  Painting is in the cut-in stage.  Will finish this week.  Packing underway.  School starting, sports too.  Birthday parties on the horizon.  Who was it that said “life is just one Goddamned thing after another?!”

[Bill97]

Marc I don’t know if this is good news or bad news, but based on your involvement it does not get less busy as a grandparent. 😊

We have 3 kids and 7 grandkids. Different sets of grandkids are here 3 days each week. Most are involved in sports so there are games to go to on week nights and weekends. Speaking of birthday parties, we are celebrating One of the grandkid’s birthday tonight. Got to love it. 
 

[Dave_E]

There is a lock on the shipyard door?😳😁

[Hubac's Historian]

It’s all good, but September always a tornado of activity, even if you aren’t moving house.  It always takes mr a best or two to re-acclimate to the school year.

[Bill97]

Yes Dave there is a lock!  My youngest grandchild, the one who’s 8th birthday we are celebrating tonight is actually my ship building buddy. Together we built a much smaller scale HMS Victory, I think it is 1/250 from Revell. He really enjoyed building it on Papaw Day (as he calls it). I made a small display case for it in my ship room. He likes to compare his to mine under construction, and points out the many similarities. 😊

[Bill97]

This is his smaller Victory. His grandmother hand stitched his sail for him. Pretty good I think for a 6-7 year old 😠

[Dave_E]

Supurb! I just got done building a plastic model with my 10 year old grandson, it was his first. Very nice Grandpa! 👍😀

[Bill97]

Can you guys tell me where specifically the spritsail topsail yard clueline belays?  One set of instructions I read says to belay to the beakhead fife rail I am not sure what that is or where at the beakhead. Longridge on page 239 just says belay on forecastle. 

[Bill97]

Sheets and clewlines done in both of he bowsprit yards and the top two on the foremast. Have not done the sheet, tack, and clewline on the bottom yard yet. I am thinking of waiting nearer the end of rigging to add these lines. I think it might be easier to still access the inner belay points if these lines were not in the way let. (Note:  Hope you guys don’t crazy when you read my post and I don’t use correct nautical terms for the yards. I know their names, it is just faster to say top or bottom 😊)

 

Looking at my first picture here after I posted it, I see the allusion of my middle yard being pulled off level by the sheet. Will have to inspect to see if that is correct and make necessary corrections if needed. 

Edited September 12, 2022 by Bill97

[Ian_Grant]

On 8/28/2022 at 8:02 PM, Bill97 said:

Here is a quick ratline question. I understand from my source information that the ratlines on the lower shrouds end at the futtock stave and then continue up the futtock shrouds to the mast top. Ratlines are not put on the lower shrouds above the futtock stave behind the futtock shrouds. Is that correct?  I am just curious if that is in fact correct how did the crew climb up to the hole in the top?  I read where brave and bold crewmen would climb up the futtock shrouds and over the outer edge of the top. Almost hanging backwards from the futtock shrouds like a mountain climber. How did crewmen not so daring climb from the futtock stave to the hole in the top? 🤔

Bill, all the topmen used the futtock shrouds. It's the fastest route to the topmast ratlines to get to the critical topsails. If someone had used the lubber's hole he'd have been shamed and maybe even punished for endangering the ship.

[Ian_Grant]

On 9/9/2022 at 10:00 PM, Bill97 said:

Can you guys tell me where specifically the spritsail topsail yard clueline belays?  One set of instructions I read says to belay to the beakhead fife rail I am not sure what that is or where at the beakhead. Longridge on page 239 just says belay on forecastle. 

Bill I replied o this topic in post #1298, however I see I just used the phrase "on the forecastle". By this Longridge just means to timberheads along the beakhead rail, above the roundhouses. They end up with 3 or 4 lines apiece 😬.

[Bill97]

Thanks Ian. That is what I eventually did. Just tied them at the timber heads. 
 

Ian I am currently reading the Master and Commander book. It is interesting there is a large section in one chapter discussing the crewman using the futtock shrouds instead of the lubber’s hole. One of the fictional crewman talks about being on the futtock shrouds when the ship would tilt to that side in a wave. He says your body can get almost parallel to the water with no ship under you. He says he just wraps his arms in the shrouds and hangs on until the ship tilts back the other direction to where he is close to vertical then climbs again. Must have been an exciting time during rough seas. 
 

One thing I have learned during this Victory build that I most definitely will do on my SR build and any further builds, is make my own fife rails using strong wire for the belay pins. I have needed to tie and untie a number of the sheets and clewlines as I have made minor adjustments along the way. There is no way the little plastic bits on the rails provided in the kit would have stood up. They would have broken off very early in the process and I would have been at a loss how to belay the line. 

[Bill97]

Got another curiosity. As I move throughout the different rigging lines there are few lines (not many) here and there that originate or pass through blocks up around the 3 topgallant yards or the upper section of the mast. The rigging instructions say to pass the line outside the mast top and belay to a particular deadeye on a designated channel. As a result these lines are also outboard the shrouds as they continue down to the channel.  I have belayed them at the outboard on the deadeye.  Now that I have virtually finished the rigging lines that belay at the deadeyes I am wondering, and hoping, outboard is correct. The only way I can see to rig them inboard at the bottom deadeye would be to lace these few lines through the shrouds and ratlines, which I think would look kind of odd. 

[Ian_Grant]

Hi Bill,  I take it you are referring to such lines as the fore t'gallant sheets and clewlines, and others, belaying just above the lower deadeyes as mapped in Longridge Plan 10 and 11.

 

Unfortunately, these belay on the inside (one would not want to have to climb out onto the channels to access them). Belaying is by means of shroud cleats attached on the inside of the shrouds, as depicted in Fig 142 on pg 214. These lines also pass through "trucks" lashed higher up the shroud; a truck is shown in Fig 141. These prevent the lines from tangling around each other when slack.

 

I don't think these lines pass outside the mast top. In the case of the t'gallant clewlines, as described on pg 249 they lead from the block on the t'gallant yard to leading blocks attached to the after cross tree, then down from there (see the 7" topgallant clewline block depicted in Plan 9). Since these leading blocks are so close in to the mast, in my view the lines then pass through the lubber's hole, through a truck attached at the top of a shroud, then down to the shroud cleat. Similarly, the t'gallant sheets run from the topyard quarter block down through the lubber's hole to their shroud truck. On my model I omitted these trucks, which would be well nigh impossible at this scale, but I did make shroud cleats by attaching small etched brass cleats to small bits of evergreen on the back of which I filed a concave round to allow gluing more effectively to the shroud. I don't have a great shot of them, but here is one anyway. If you look across the ship on the starboard shrouds just to the right of the tip of the sheet anchor's stock, four shroud cleats can just be made out.

It would have been less work to simply tie the lines on the inside of the shroud, but at the time I was carried away by the masterful work I saw on the old Pete Coleman Victory model web site. 😆😬

 

You can decide what lengths you want to go to for your model.

 

Edited September 18, 2022 by Ian_Grant

[72Nova]

I sure do miss the old Pete Coleman web site😞, not sure if I would've ever attempted back dating my Victory at the time. I learned a lot from those gentlemen back then.

 

Bill your Victory is progressing nicely👍

 

Michael D.

[Bill97]

Thank you Ian. I guess you are right that one would not want to clean me out there! 😳

Two steps forward and one step back. So as I go back to make these corrections, none of the running rigging lines we are referencing belay at or around the bottom deadeye at the channel (as I have done it 😕) they belay to a shroud cleat just above the upper deadeye and obviously inboard on the shroud?  And they all pass down through the lubber’s hole?  Got it. Easy fix. I know, if I would thoroughly read and reread Longridge, as you have recommended numerous times, I would not make these mistakes. Looking at pages 266-268 ( Longridge Belaying Plan) I count 12 lines on each side that belay to cleats on shrouds?  Is that right?

[Bill97]

Ian a good while back we had a discussion here, you may remember, about me having put to small diameter thread in to be later used as the sheet and tack lines for the lower yards. Now that I am in the sheet installation stage it was time for me to make this correction. The problem being that one end of each of these lines was already belayed on a lower deck and difficult to access. I used your suggestion of removing the thin thread and inserting the appropriate size into the hole, pulling it through to where I could access it, tying a knot in the end, and then pulling it back to where the knot was locked inside. It worked perfect and will be ready to do the sheets and tacks. I am making the four 3 block arrangements I will need for this step. 
 

I will then finish up the major rigging with the braces. I am doing some advance reading about the braces. Anything you would recommend in advance here?  I have seen there is some discussion as to the use, or not, of yard pendants 
 

[Ian_Grant]

Bill, glad to hear that the sheets and tacks will work out.

 

According to Longridge all yards except the cro'jack used "dog and bitch" thimbles see Fig 169 pg 238.

 

The cro'jack yard is the only yard with brace pendants (pg 258). From Plan 7 they seem to be of a length which would reach from the yardarm to the outer stirrup of the cro'jack foot rope.

 

keep up the good work. Nearly there!  Looking forward to your SR too. 😃

[Bill97]

Great Ian. I have been reading through that section and understanding everything you explaining. 
 

I know when I start my SR I am going to wish I had your first hand experience. Since both the Heller Victory and SR are 1/100 scale i plan to use the spreadsheet you sent me for rigging thread sizes. 

[Bill97]

15 MONTHS!!!

 

Today is my 15 month anniversary of starting this beauty. Almost all of he rigging done. Still have to do all the braces, the sheets/tacks/clews, for the bottom yards, and I am sure some other odd and end rigging bits here and there. Looking in the kit box all I have left to put on the ship is the already assembled and painted anchors, boats with the davits, and Daniel’s mast top rails. I still have to finish the tedious job of painting the lanterns and installing them with Daniel’s etched supports.  All in all this has been an incredible learning experience thanks to each of you that has provided me advice and help!

Edited September 15, 2022 by Bill97