What are these things?

[TBlack]

This is an almost finished model of a coastal freighter from the 1900. She sailed out of both Stonington, CT and Mystic, CT. I know little more about her than that. My question is, what is the function of those two uprights aft of the foremast? Any ideas?

Tom

[BANYAN]

Initial thought is they look like the standards for a windlass?  A little high though but that could be due to the close proximity of the hatch under them.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[TBlack]

Pat,

That was my initial thought also. But then why extend the supports up so high?

Tom

 

[Jim Lad]

Can't think of anything else other than a windlass, but as has been said, don't know why they'd be so high.

 

By the way Tom, did you mean that the model was built around 1900? The hull form looks more 18th century.

 

John

[TBlack]

John,

I guess I wasn’t very clear about the history. The current owner of the model is the grandson of the modeler. The owner of the boat is the great grandfather of the modeler. Indeed, the ship is from the late 18th century and involved in the Connecticut coastal trade.

[Baker]

This can indeed be a support for a windlass, but not yet fully completed.
There is something like this on the Bounty.

 

[Mark P]

Good morning;

 

I would agree with the previous posts, that they are to support a windlass. There is often a third, central post, on which the beam to operate the windlass is fixed, which is called a 'carrick bitt'.

 

All the best,

 

Mark P

Edited July 21, 2021 by Mark P

[Keith Black]

Tom, please look at post #373 in Siggi's build. I thought I'd seen something similar but very unsure if it's the same or even close to. He calls this a bits and gallows. I am unfamiliar with this period so I'm out  of my depth. 

 

 

[BANYAN]

Tom, as I offered in my first post, I think it is higher than usual due to its placement so close to the hatch.  Once the windlass barrel is added etc, some additional clearance may have needed to allow the hatch to be used effectively?  A bit of a long draw of the 'bow string' but...

 

cheers

 

Pat

Edited July 22, 2021 by BANYAN

[TBlack]

Thanks to all of you for your thoughts. It seems the committee has reached a consensus. Now to figure out how the rest of it looks.

Tom

[wefalck]

What about the drawings or other sources the original modeller worked from ? There should be a reason, why these bits are placed so close to the hatch and why they are so high - both features are not really optimal from a mechanical and working point of view.

 

Normally, you would place the axle of the windlass as close to the deck as you can, so that its fulcrum on the uprights is as short as possible.

[TBlack]

Wefalck,

Totally agree. Unfortunately, there are no plans for referral. We are left to guessing.

Tom

[Keith Black]

What I don't understand is why would the placement of "what is this" and the hatch matter? Considering the hatch cover is going to be on most of the time?

[BANYAN]

Hi Keith, purely from an 'ergonomic' point-of-view, getting in and out of the hatch, yet alone loading anything through it would have been problematic without removing the barrel of the windlass.   With the barrel fitted, there would not have been much head/access room above it for about half the hatch opening as best I can see?

Then as pointed out, the mechanics of the windlass are seriously affected by placing barrel axle higher up (leverage alone as the sailors were not very tall mostly).  Filling the hatch is neither here-nor-there I think, as people did not have to step on it to work the windlass. The barrel could be rotated with longer staves a little further outboard from the centreline. 

 

Hope this clarifies, from my perspective at least, Keith?

 

cheers

 

Pat

[mtaylor]

I wonder if that "hatch" was permanently closed?  Maybe smoke vent for the galley?  It is in a bad place for using it as human passageway.  It could also be possibly for passing the anchor ropes below deck.

[Keith Black]

1 hour ago, BANYAN said:

 With the barrel fitted, there would not have been much head/access room above it for about half the hatch opening as best I can see?

Then as pointed out, the mechanics of the windlass are seriously affected by placing barrel axle higher up (leverage alone as the sailors were not very tall mostly).  Filling the hatch is neither here-nor-there I think, as people did not have to step on it to work the windlass.

Pat, understood, thank you. Because of all the issues associated with it being a windless, are there other possible options? I don't know what those options would be, I'm clueless in Seattle.

[amateur]

But, without knowing the onformation the builder used, one of the options could still be ‘windlass, build after a bad quality drawing’…..

Given the fact that there is no other anchor handling gear, I tend to that option.

 

Jan

[wefalck]

Keith, I would agree with Pat, that the placement of the windlass-barrel half-way above the hatch is awkward - for the use of both, the hatch and the windlass.

 

There is another mechanical/operational issue with this being a windlass: one has to somehow stop the backslash. On very primitive windlasses this is done by having the holes of the handles off-set by 90° at both side of the barrel. While heaving on one side, one inserts another handle at the opposite side, so that maximum backslash would be 45°. Not very safe to operate and, therefore, at least since the 18th century pawl-drums were used, i.e. a sort of broad ratchet-wheel with saw-teeth. Into these teeth fall the pawls that are mounted on a pall-bitt in the middle of the windlass and in front of it. This pawl-bit is missing in the present arrangement.

 

When I first saw the picture, it made me rather think of a cargo-winch. Such cargo winches had two spill-heads on each side. They were normally geared, which means that there was an axle above the winch stem that carried hand-cranks on both side. Power was transmitted through a pinion and the gear-wheel. At one of the bits there would be also a ratchet-wheel and a pawl.

[amateur]

Actually, the deck-lay-out has very much resemblance to the schooner Hannah, as drawn by Harold Hahn.

In that lay-out, the foremost deck-hole, is not a cargo-hatch, but a sky-light. The windlass is just in front of that, behind the fore mast.

Again, that points in the direction of a slightly out of scale windlass, and not of something else.

 

Jan

 

 

 

[TBlack]

I think Jan is on to something. The Hanna layout is quite similar. I was thinking that forward hatch was going to have a grating over it, and that cargo is loaded through the two larger openings aft.

Tom

[TBlack]

I have agreed with the model's owner to consider finishing the model. So, being that our consensus here is that the uprights support a barrel windlass,

the next question is what to do on the rest of the deck. I'm using as references models of Hannah, Halifax and Sultana, all colonial schooners. Given that the masts are stubbed off, rigging is not an issue. Let's see if the owner and I can agree on what happens next!

Tom