"Sand Pebbles" motor Sampan from 1966 movie

[JRB]

Hello forum,

 

Seeking plans or other info on the motor Sampan from film Sand Pebbles.

 

Thanks in advance,

John B

LT, USN (Retired)

[Gregory]

A retired LT ?

[Canute]

Mustang?

[Keith Black]

 John, welcome to MSW. I would love to attempt to make a model of the San Pablo but alas, there's not enough sand left in the glass. I wish you well in your search for plans. If you're successful I hope you'll start a build log. 

Edited May 19, 2021 by Keith Black

[Bob Cleek]

8 hours ago, JRB said:

Hello forum,

 

Seeking plans or other info on the motor Sampan from film Sand Pebbles.

 

Thanks in advance,

John B

LT, USN (Retired)

I did some research for a model of Sand Pebbles. That led me to the prototype of the movie prop boat, USS Villalobos, (PG-42,) which I'll share briefly below. I believe the plans for USS Villalobos may be available from the U.S. Navy Museum.

 

The USS San Pablo of Sand Pebbles movie fame is a fictional ship built for $250,000 as a set for the movie by Vaughan and Yung, Hong Kong, and now located on the Pearl River, PRC. (The triple-expansion engine used in the movie was, IIRC, an ex-Liberty ship engine located in a Seattle museum and not the engine which would have been on the patrol gunboat portrayed in the movie.  The USS San Pablo was based on the USS Villalobos (PG-42) captured in the Philippines by the US Army in 1898 during the Spanish-American War. She was added to the Navy roll as a prize and operated thereafter, together with the former Spanish ships Elcano, Quiros, and Callao. 

 

 

USS Villalobos. Note "sampan" shallow draft launch alongside.  (http://www.navsource.org/archives/12/09042.htm, see also:  http://www.navsource.org/archives/12/120904203.jpgI) expect this small boat may have been a locally sourced auxilliary. In this era, captains had authority to acquire such non-standard vessels on the vessel's account. Here it would have made sense, given the shallow waters in which the Yangtse Squadron operated. There were no "standard" USN "sampans," or square-bowed small craft at that time, other than hard-chined flat-bottomed small work boats designated as "punts," which came in a 12' and 14' version. (See: Standard Designs for Boats of the United States Navy: Specifications, Schedule of Material, Weights and Cost, USN-GPO 1900) The photo is of a much longer, and perhaps more elegantly-shaped boat.

 

Were one to want to model a sampan similar to the one in the photo above, the place to find detailed construction drawings would be The Junks and Sampans of the Yangtse, by G.R.G Woorcester (reprint - US Naval Institute https://www.usni.org/press/books/junks-and-sampans-yangtze)

 

Note that the launch in the movie still is much smaller and would likely not have been used in USN service at that time. 

 

 See: https://www.thesandpebbles.com/san_pablo/demise_sanpablo.html and https://industrialhistoryhk.org/j-h-vaughan-an-american-shipbuilder-in-hong-kong-by-york-lo/ (which has links to a youtube video of the construction of the movie vessel and a model of it) for further information on the movie prop boat.

 

 

 

[Harvey Golden]

I haven't watched the film through, but I'd think you might find similar vessels (though not motorized) in Worcester's "The Junks and Sampans of the Yangtze."

Edited May 19, 2021 by Harvey Golden
clarity, hopefully.

[Roger Pellett]

First of all the Sand Pebbles is one of my two or three all time favorite movies.  The book which I have read several times is great too.  Although, Steve McQueen did a superb job of playing the part of Jake Homan, his celebrity and classification of the movie as Action Adventure tends to hide the fact that Richard McKenna intended the book as a serious piece of literature.

 

To try to help answer your question.  On page 422 of Norman Friedman’s book Small Combatants there is a line drawing by A.D. Baker III of the Yangtze  gunboat Mindanao.  There are two motor sampans shown.  The port rigged as an officer’s gig and the starboard as a utility boat.  By blowing up the picture with a xerox machine you can get a top view and profile of these boats.  Unlike the Sand Pebble movie boat these appear to be flat bottomed.  The book is expensive so try an inter library loan.  The forum moderators are touchy about posting copyrighted material, but if you send me a PM I’ll see what I can do.

 

BTY Valiant Miniatures makes a great 54mm (1:32) cast metal kit of a Steve McQueen type figure with a BAR.

 

Roger 

[Louie da fly]

Richard McKenna is known as a science fiction writer, and he stated that Sand Pebbles was a science fiction story - the science being psychology/anthropology. He's written some fascinating stories on the nature of reality - my favourite being Casey Agonistes, about an imaginary ape who becomes all but real by the inhabitants of a naval hospital ward all believing in him. Beautifully written and thought-provoking.

 

Steven

[JRB]

Gents all, apologies for the delay in replying - and thanks for your great replies! 

 

Good leads all, which I will pursue.

 

To answer the questions, yes, retired LT, yes, Mustang.  18 yrs active, 19 reserve, 24 of those enlisted.

 

Cheers,

John

[lmagna]

I have some fairly simple plans for the movie San Pablo, (In reality it was a pretty simple ship to begin with. It was also slightly smaller than a real Yangtze gunboat. At least any American boat. The Movie boat was built to closely resemble the USS Wake of 1927 (Ex USS Guam (PG-43) and reclassified as (PR_3) in 1928. She was captured by the Japanese in 1941and recaptured by the US Navy in 1945. She was given to the Republic Of China in 1946 and captured by Communist China in 1948. She served in their Navy until the 1960s. The San Pablo for the movie was very similar in many respects being only about ten feet shorter, but had a single stack in order to match the description in  McKenna's book. 

 

The boat in the second picture looks more like a flat nose sailing pram than anything else but if you are looking for plans of something like the movie boat you could start by using these.

 https://www.dhylanboats.com/design/plans/ben_garvey_plans/

 

I know, outboard motor and all that, but the basic hull looks about right to what was used, so it could be a start.

 

Good luck.

Edited July 10, 2021 by lmagna