Szkuta wiślana (Vistula barge) by 0Seahorse - FINISHED - 1:100 - CARD - XV-XVIII century

[0Seahorse]

Hello
Waiting for the cooperators until they meet what they promised for my "7 Provinces"  I decided to rest for a while and started something simpler (but not much smaller).
The "szkutas" sailed on the Vistula for several centuries, transporting mainly grain to Gdańsk. They were really huge, because the hull itself was even 30 meters long, and at the rear there was also a characteristic long rudder blade.
Below is a painting by Bernardo Bellotto called. Canaletto with the barge and the panorama of Warsaw

  (by the way, Canaletto was the court painter of King Stanisław August Poniatowski and his paintings depicting the architecture of Warsaw at that time were used after the Second World War to rebuild the Old Town of Warsaw)[public domain]

 

Fortunately, archaeological sites were discovered and secured in many places in Poland, hence more and more is known about old Polish river ships.
In addition to the szkuta there were smaller vessels sailed: dubases, kozas (goats), byks (bulls), galaras, komięgas and the smallest rafts. The smaller ones did not even return from Gdańsk and were sold for wood. Models of these ships (boats) can be seen at the Maritime Museum in Gdańsk.

 

Historically, the shipping of goods (grain, leather, wood) down the Vistula to Gdańsk was a very important branch of economic development for Poland. Sometimes it was said that "Poland was the breadbasket of Europe" due to the export of huge amounts of grain.

 

And I also have a certain "relationship" with Polish rafting, because I live in the Ulanów region, which is called "the capital of Polish rafting". The San River flowing through Ulanów goes into the Vistula and was the main route for transporting goods from the Zamość region (the name Zamojszczyzna and the city of Zamość are associated with one of the largest magnate families in the history of Poland - the Zamoyski family).

A phenomenal document describing the construction of these boats is the preserved inventory with precise measurements made in 1796 in the river port in Krzeszów (9 km from my home!!!) by the Austro-Hungarian engineer Benevenutus Losa von Losennau.

The szkutas had a flat bottom slightly raised at the stern and the bow made of pine, oak sides "overlapping", one square sail. At the stern there was a storage and utility room. The rudder blade, up to 12 meters long, with a very long tiller, which was operated on a high transverse platform, was very characteristic.

Well, the construction of the model is so trivial that I took almost no photos:
1) 0.5mm flat cardboard bottom
2) glued frame of the room at the stern
3) the first plank stuck to the edge of the bottom
4) 60 brackets...

...what caused some problems. I started gluing them empty inside. Unfortunately, despite the care taken to make them precisely, they came out very differently. Even worse was that they turned out to be too flaccid and there would be no way to stick the planks to them later. Fortunately, after the first few pieces, I started making them in the form of three cardboard layers glued together (2x1.00 mm + 0.50 mm).

 

Then I have attached the rest of planks to this construction.

Greetings
Tomek

[tkay11]

@0Seahorse: Another lovely model, Tomek.

 

I just have one question, which you may have answered before with your other models, but I cannot find it. I apologise if I missed it.

 

Could you let me know how you make the effect of grain in your 'wooden' planks lining the hull and on the decks of your other models? You seem to have developed this to a high degree with this model and with Sao Gabriel.

 

Do you print them out simply from a printer? If so, how do you achieve the effect of the wood grain? I know other card modelers have used a foil for this purpose, but you indicate on other models that you just print it, or simply paint.

 

Thanks for any hints!

 

Tony

[druxey]

Always nice to see unusual subjects modeled! This barge is interesting; do you know why the rudder is so long?

[wefalck]

I suppose this is a sweep, rather than a rudder. The Vistula/Weichsel is a rather slow flowing river and such boats mainly drifted down-river, so one needed a lot of fulcrum to steer them.

[ccoyle]

Hello, Tomek! You are off to a nice start on this interesting subject.

[0Seahorse]

@ Tony @ This is a direct print. I prepare a bitmap with a wood structure and if the boards / beams are straight, I simply "paste" them into the outline of a specific part. If the boards are curved, I deform the bitmap so that the grain pattern follows the shape of the part.

@ druxey @ I'm not sure, but it seems to me that as @ wefalck @ wrote, it was more of "pushing" the stern of the barge at the right angle and making the barge move much like a fish tail does. Due to the fact that the Vistula had (and still has shoals), the rudder blade could not be deeply submerged, hence perhaps longer. Quote of "Transformations in river boatbuilding in Poland"

 ... The control device was a combination oars and a hinged rudder with a very long rudder blade reaching half the length of the vessel ...

 

I, however, still cannot "decipher" the course of the halyard that was carrying the yard. In this powerful study "Transformation in river boatbuilding in Poland", published by the Maritime Museum, it is stated that the yard was raised with the help of a winch placed on a small bow deck. At the same time, in quite old plans from 35 years ago there is no mention of any block placed on the top of the mast and the halyard only passes through the sheave in the mast.
Hence my doubts: lifting such a heavy yard and securing the halyard only to the cleat at the mast seems unlikely to me. It would be more sensible to use a windlass, but that would require a block in front of the mast. Maybe there is another way?

 

Tomek

 

 

Edited February 8, 2022 by 0Seahorse

[wefalck]

On many such boats, they would have had a windlass somewhere behind the mast, which would also serve to raise the anchor. However, having the windlass in the bows would also be possible, but one would need a block seized to somewhere near the foot of the mast to redirect the halyard to it, if a sheave in the mast is to be used.

 

This publication of the Maritime Museum in Gdansk you mentioned is only available in Polish, I suppose ?

Edited February 8, 2022 by wefalck

[0Seahorse]

Thank you @wefalck @ for the hint. I don't know if it can be solved this way. This is because there was also a cargo space in front of the mast, and in the old drawings the amount of grain is piled high. Perhaps, however, I will use a block on the top of the mast, because at the end of the 18th century it would not be anything extraordinary.
As for the museum's publications, I don't think it has been translated.

 

Greeting

Tomek

PS. Now I remembered there is a short summary in English in a few pages (11 pages)

Edited February 10, 2022 by 0Seahorse

[0Seahorse]

Hello everyone,

as is often the case in life, various circumstances prevented me from showing the finished model earlier, including the war in Ukraine (I live 100 km from the Ukrainian border). But the time has come to present the rest of the work on the boat.

 

The very construction and making of individual parts was so trivial that it is difficult to write it in elaborations. As I treat this model as a test model, I decided to make a certain distortion, consisting in the fact that half of the ship goes to Gdańsk with grain and the other half goes up the Vistula with imported goods. This is because the rafting was carried out with the mast folded only with the help of oars, and during the return the mast was erected.

 

Since I had never done dioramas, so after many attempts to make grain in a scale of 1: 100, I gave up the idea and covered the entire cargo space with linen. I put barrels and bales of cloth in the bow part.

 

Laziness made itself felt when carrying out the rigging - the blocks are not made of cardboard (as would be recommended by the art of cardboard modeling), but of a 3D printer and painted.
Well, that's what I got out of this project.

 

Greetings
Tomek

 

Edited April 10, 2022 by 0Seahorse

[tkay11]

That's beautifully done, Tomek. I especially like the fact that you can show it with mast up or down.

 

One question: How did you make that lovely little ship's boat

 

Tony

[0Seahorse]

@tkay11

Well, it's rather simple work in paper/cardboard:

1. 3D drawing in Rhinoceros3D...

 

2. Parts developed in Rhinoceros 3D and colored in CorelDraw + Adobe Illustrator...

 

3. And a gluing instruction ...

 

I don't know if you expected such an answer. The gluing itself took about 1 hour. White cut edges need to be retouched with the appropriate color, which is obvious in cardboard models. The trick is to choose the right color.

 

Greetings

Tomek

[tkay11]

Thanks, Tomek. Very impressive use of software and design. I hadn't thought of using a CAD programme as I had forgotten the sides of the boat, being card, are solid rather than fully planked.

 

I asked because I am trying to build a 6 metre ship's boat at 1:96, and having difficulty in planking it properly. I was trying to think of other ways of doing it, including card.

 

Do you think having a 3D CAD programme is more helpful than a 2D one in preparing such a model? I can see that it helps in visualising, but does it help in constructing it?

 

Unfortunately Rhino is far too expensive for me, and I'd probably have to get a new graphics card as well.

 

Although I think I have to stick to 2D for the while, I'd be very interested in your thoughts on the value of a 3D programme.

 

Tony

[0Seahorse]

2 hours ago, tkay11 said:

Thanks, Tomek. Very impressive use of software and design. I hadn't thought of using a CAD programme as I had forgotten the sides of the boat, being card, are solid rather than fully planked.

 

I asked because I am trying to build a 6 metre ship's boat at 1:96, and having difficulty in planking it properly. I was trying to think of other ways of doing it, including card.

 

Do you think having a 3D CAD programme is more helpful than a 2D one in preparing such a model? I can see that it helps in visualising, but does it help in constructing it?

 

Unfortunately Rhino is far too expensive for me, and I'd probably have to get a new graphics card as well.

 

Although I think I have to stick to 2D for the while, I'd be very interested in your thoughts on the value of a 3D programme.

 

Tony

In fact, this boat has sides made of a single board. But I also designed boats with the typical layout of several boards per side.
I can only comment on Rhino because I work in this program. One of its functions (probably the most important for me in designing models) is the ability to unfold individual surfaces onto a plane, i.e. to obtain ready-made outlines of parts flat on cardboard (plywood/ wood).
The 3D design process itself takes some time, but the surfaces developed later have errors of 0.01mm, so they're perfect. That's why I use Rhino.

You can take a look at the SketchUp program (free version available) that some designers use. There are rumored to be plugins on the web that allow the same feature of unfolding a surface to a plane. I haven't explored the topic, so I don't know much about SketchUp.

[tkay11]

Thanks, Tomek. I've been wondering about how to use the simpler 3D programmes to unfold surfaces to a single plane. I'll start exploring!

 

Tony

[ccoyle]

Another fantastic design, Tomek!

[tkay11]

Just FYI for anyone following: Sketchup Free cannot load Extensions, and so cannot action Unfold. The subscription Sketchup is £95 per year.

 

Tony

[GrandpaPhil]

Congratulations!  Very well done!

[druxey]

Congratulations, Tomek. An excellent result and lovely model. I hope things remain peaceful in your neighborhood.