HMS Sophie by TBlack - kit-bashing Jack Aubrey's first command from the Vanguard Models HMS Speedy

[Keith Black]

46 minutes ago, Gregory said:

202mm x 64mm = 12,928 = 508.97638 inches = 42.4 feet, which sounds realistic for a beam of 30 feet..

 Agreed, Gregory and Tom. 7.953 inches = 42.4 feet and sounds reasonable. 8.66 inches = 46.16 feet which would add another 2 feet either side of beam.

 

Tom, the model should measure approximately 5.73 inches at the beam. 

[TBlack]

My mistake. Must be the late night that fogs my brain. I was thinking 1:64=3/8" to the foot and it's actually 3/16" to the foot. We're all in agreement this morning.

Tom

[Srodbro]

At the risk of getting too granular:

 

Aubrey was a young, ambitious lieutenant seeking his fortune in prize money. His first discussion when undersail in his first shake-down of Sophie was with the sailmaker, asking if he could get more canvas on the mainsail. Sailmaker said No, whereupon Jack focused on the yard itself. Here are, I think, the relevant passages:

Jack grunted and returned to his staring at the mainyard, a piece of wood rather more than thirty feet long and tapering from some seven inches in the slings, the middle part, to three at the yard-arms, the extremities. ‘More like a cro’jack than a mainyard,’ he thought, for the twentieth time since he first set eyes upon it. He watched the yard intently as the force of the wind worked upon it: the Sophie was running no faster now, and so there was no longer any easing of the load; the yard plied, and it seemed to Jack that he heard it groan.  

After pushing it to the point of springing, Jack returned to the dockyard, obtained another yard, and returned to his ship, where his carpenter said:

 

‘Now that is what I call a real spar,’ said Mr Lamb, peering lovingly over the side at the yard. ‘Never a knot, never a curl: a French spar I dare say: forty-three foot as clean as a whistle. You’ll spread a mainsail as a mainsail on that, sir.’

 

But after hoisting it up, the head of the dockyard said:
 

‘It will never do, Captain Aubrey,’ called Mr Brown, hailing over the quiet evening air through his trumpet. ‘It is far too large and will certainly carry away. You must saw off the yardarms and half the third quarter.’
 

The carpenter reappeared with a saw and a rule. ‘Have you a plane there, Mr Lamb?’ asked Jack. ‘Your mate will fetch you a plane. Unship the stuns’l-boom iron and touch up the ends of the stop-cleats, Mr Lamb, if you please.’ Lamb, amazed until he grasped what Jack was about, slowly planed the tips of the yard, shaving off wafers until they showed new and white, a round the size of a halfpenny bun.

 

So, the original sprung yard was at least 30’ long and the replacement was 43’ long, less the yard arms ( maybe, say 18” per side) and less 1/2 of 1/4, or 1/8 of 43’, say another 5’-2”, so down to about 35 ft long, but probably larger diameter than the original. How much more came off with Mr. Lamb’s plane to get to the size of a halfpenny bun, would have to be answered by a Brit. 
 

Allow me to add another quandary:  Patrick O’Brien refers several times to the helmsman at the wheel, at least once having to firmly grasp the spokes of the wheel. From all the detail I’ve seen, HMS Speedy was steered by a tiller ( I’m not sure what is in the kit). So, HMS Sophie:  Wheel or Tiller?

[Gregory]

Well, Tom says he wants to build according to the book, so I suspect Sophie will have a wheel..😀

[TBlack]

Steve,

You're never too granular for this hobby. Keep it up!

Sophie was always going to have a wheel. Page 69 of my paperback edition of the book says that Jack took the wheel, and that the wind blew his hat off, getting caught in the hammock netting. So, the wheel is on the quarterdeck.

Tom

Edited January 7, 2022 by TBlack

[Gregory]

Did Aubrey talk about the tiller and accompanying rigging that would have complemented  a wheel?

 

Your earlier drawings would put the tiller  and cabling somewhere in the great cabin...

 

 

[TBlack]

20 hours ago, Srodbro said:

 

But after hoisting it up, the head of the dockyard said:
 

‘It will never do, Captain Aubrey,’ called Mr Brown, hailing over the quiet evening air through his trumpet. ‘It is far too large and will certainly carry away. You must saw off the yardarms and half the third quarter.’
 

 

So, the original sprung yard was at least 30’ long and the replacement was 43’ long, less the yard arms ( maybe, say 18” per side) and less 1/2 of 1/4, or 1/8 of 43’, say another 5’-2”, so down to about 35 ft long, but probably larger diameter than the original. How much more came off with Mr. Lamb’s plane to get to the size of a halfpenny bun, would have to be answered by a Brit. 

Steve,

Your quoted passages are on pages 79-80 in my edition. While Mr. Brown thought the yard should be shortened, Jack thought otherwise, and instructed the carpenter, Mr. Lamb, just to touch up the stop-cleats. The spar was never shortened and remained at 43 feet.

Tom

[TBlack]

4 hours ago, Gregory said:

 

Your earlier drawings would put the tiller  and cabling somewhere in the great cabin...

 

 

Gregory,

I’m just. Guessing, but maybe the steering cables went straight down from the drum, through the captain’s cabin, into the space below, and thence to the rudder post?

Tom 

[Gregory]

The cables would do that if space permitted, however you have to consider how far up into the boat the rudder post extends in your ship as she sits.

 

Is there enough lateral room for the tiller to swing below the cabin?

 

 

[Vane]

Not sure if I get this project right. You are converting the Speedy to Sophie, but you dont have any drawing? Just a bookcover with a part of her painted and then you are just getting the rest of the info needed by analysing what O'brian wrote in the books? 

That a challenge indeed! I will be following this build... good luck with everything!

[TBlack]

Gregory,

Yes there is plenty of room for the tiller to move. Not a problem there. Furthermore, in other ships with a wheel, regardless of where it was situated, had to deal with the same mechanics and space, right?

 

Vane, delighted to see your response. Yes, you got that description of the project just right. In one sentence you've captured what it has taken me three pages to say!

Tom

[Gregory]

12 hours ago, TBlack said:

Furthermore, in other ships with a wheel, regardless of where it was situated, had to deal with the same mechanics and space, right?

Well, no.. All ships with a wheel did not have the same amount of space below decks to accommodate tiller mechanics, but it would have  been adequate for the tiller as designed.

 

Where does your rudder enter the transom?

 

What kind of space do you have at that point for the swing of the tiller?

 

 

 

Edited January 8, 2022 by Gregory

[TBlack]

Gregory,

Thanks for your observation, but that's not the plan to use. This is:

Back in my posts #13 & 14 I show how I got to the above plan. The arrow points to the deck in the captain's cabin. I haven't entirely figured out the complete stern arrangement yet. I should also point out that what O'Brian describes in the book and what shows in the cover picture don't always match. As an example, Aubrey says he can look through 7 stern windows when sitting in his cabin. That's an impossibility, given the configuration of the Sophie as depicted in the picture on the cover of the book. At the same time, the ship's wheel, according to the book, is clearly on the quarterdeck. So, that's where it's going.

Tom

[Gregory]

The plan I used was to illustrate how the rudder post enters the transom and determine the position of the tiller.

Not necessarily  how you plan to build Sophie.

 

Your plan doesn't show where the rudder post enters the counter.. That would determine where the tiller would lie.

 

 

 

Edited January 8, 2022 by Gregory

[Vane]

So indeed a very interesting project! 

So the question is how accurate O'Brain was when he wrote in the books and also how much artistic freedom Geoff Hunt added to his paintings?

I read the books long time ago and remember they included alot of descriptions but it could just had been alot of imagination also. Hunts painting are amazing and perhaps one way of investigating the issue is just to look at other of his paintings and see how accurate they are. Here is one on HMS Victory. 

 

[Srodbro]

On 1/7/2022 at 11:40 AM, TBlack said:

Steve,

Your quoted passages are on pages 79-80 in my edition. While Mr. Brown thought the yard should be shortened, Jack thought otherwise, and instructed the carpenter, Mr. Lamb, just to touch up the stop-cleats. The spar was never shortened and remained at 43 feet.

Tom

I like that interpretation better than mine. 35’ or so always seemed to me to be too short for Sophie’s beam. 

[Srodbro]

2 hours ago, Gregory said:

The plan I used was to illustrate how the rudder post enters the transom and determine the position of the tiller.

Not necessarily  how you plan to build Sophie.

 

Your plan doesn't show where the rudder post enters the counter.. That would determine where the tiller would lie.

 

 

 

There is a solution to the tiller-wheel issue that satisfies both. The pics below are from Modelshipways plans for Kate Cory and Chas Morgan. Both show a wheel mounted on the tiller. Not sure this solution would be period appropriate, since the action in Master and Commander takes place in 1801, and both of the whalers with this detail are from 30 to 50 years later. But, who knows?  Patrick O’Brian had a couple other anachronisms in the Aubrey-Maturin saga, but not many.
But, it seems such a “strange” ( to landlubber me) arrangement might have been commented on by O’Brian, like the elm pump. On the other hand, the pump allowed further development of Maturin’s character, whereas this wheel-tiller arrangement might have been commonplace enough to not warrant comment. 

 

Edited January 8, 2022 by Srodbro
Additional comment.

[Srodbro]

On 11/24/2021 at 4:40 PM, TBlack said:

can’t just invent a Sophie. If Aubrey (O’Brian) says these things exist, then I have to build the model accordingly.

Yep … that’s the true guide, no matter what Hunt ( and I really love his art) or others may show, you gotta be true to O’Brian. 
By the way Hunt didn’t start illustrating Aubrey-Maturin books until many years after the first books were published  (at around Book 11, I think, when O’Brian got a new publisher), then he went back to paint covers for the earlier ones. 
Here’s a pic of an earlier cover with Sophie on it. 5 windows!  Guess this guy didn’t read the book. 

 

[Gregory]

That stern looks a lot like one of the Bounty replicas..

 

[TBlack]

Steve,

Thanks for this, but I think I'll go with the 7 window option and have the outer two windows be fake, like Fair American. And Sophie is described as being very low in the water. Also, Sophie has royals and stun'sls.

4 hours ago, Gregory said:

 

Your plan doesn't show where the rudder post enters the counter.. That would determine where the tiller would lie.

Gregory,

You can see on my plan where the stern post is. Just aft of it would be the rudder post which, let's imagine, that it stops just below the deck of the captain's cabin and the tiller attaches there.

Tom

[TBlack]

I've been absent from here, but not the workshop. I'm apparently really slow in envisioning  how the hull line are going to work towards the stern. I've finally made some decisions that seem to be working out. Here's a start. Originally I thought the lower counter was convex, but that doesn't leave room for rudder movement. Must be concave:

Getting to this place enables me to start to adding planking to the hull which, ultimately, helps to form the bulkheads for a smooth finish. This is going to take a while!

[Keith Black]

Tom, good to see an update from you and I'm glad you're able to move forward.

[Kevin-the-lubber]

What an interesting and fun project. It was mainly the O’Brien books that inspired me to start modelling again, some sort of late middle-age crisis/homage. I can’t offer a shred of knowledge here, even about the book series, which I’ve read twice, as I have the memory of a goldfish. But I’ll enjoy seeing it develop and the lively discourse around details that mostly go straight over my head!

[TBlack]

Just as a refresher, here's the picture that is my guide:

Note that there is very little tumblehome aft (maybe the wale tucks in a little at the aft end) . I'm using that fact to guide me in forming the last 3 bulkheads which need bulking out. I take it a little bit at a time, so I'm going to be slow. And thanks to all for the likes, checking in, and following. I'll try not to disappoint. And maybe even be a little entertaining.

Tom

Edited January 28, 2022 by TBlack

[Keith Black]

 Tom, take your time, we're a patient lot. I'm quite certain you'll not disappoint, I've not seen anything in your work to indicate that would be the case. If you need me to hold the dumb end of the tape, just ask. 

[TBlack]

In order to get the aft bulkheads shaped correctly I've started the hull planking which shows me where I need to fill out the bulkheads:

The circled areas are given landings for the planks which provide a visual for what needs filling on the intervening bulkheads. This process seems to work and should provide a smooth hull.

Tom

[TBlack]

I haven't put anything on this log for the longest time. Didn't want you to think I'd quit. I'm doing the preliminary planking which, for me, is slow going. I cut the angle at the bow; I cut the length; then the plank gets soaked in water until saturated. The plank is then placed on the hull and clamped down to dry. Once dry it can be glued in place. All this means that I can do about one plank per day....I told you it is slow going, but it works for me. In the meantime, I can put together gun carriages and other deck accoutrements.

[Keith Black]

 Tom, I knew better than to think you'd quit but it is good to see an update. Buddy, slow seems to run in the family. 

[Louie da fly]

Good to see, mate. I'd thought of doing a Sophie myself at one point but never got around to it. There's a wealth of information about her in Master and Commander as I'm sure you already know. Good to see you've got it happening. 

[Ian_Grant]

11 hours ago, TBlack said:

I haven't put anything on this log for the longest time. Didn't want you to think I'd quit.  <..snip..>

 

Glad to see you're still at it. Three weeks is not a long time compared to my own sporadic updates. 😆

Edited February 26, 2022 by Ian_Grant