Adding to my resource library

[USCGDave]

Found two nice vintage Howard I. Chapelle books at our local secondhand book shop to add to my growing resource library. Excited to browse through these. 
 

First, we have “The History of American Sailing Ships” from 1935, which covers sailing vessels and rigs from the earliest colonial ships up to modern racing and cruising yachts. As an old Coast Guardsman, I really got it mostly for the chapter on Revenue Cutters. Plenty of line drawings, photos and plates.

 

Then, we have “The Search for Speed Under Sail 1700-1855” from 1967, which has roughly 132 plans that can be used for scale modeling, though most are hull plans only. 
 

Still, I’m happy. The books were in good shape and plenty cheap. 

 

What are some of your favorite resource books?

 

Edited December 13, 2022 by USCGDave

[Jaager]

"The History of the American Sailing Navy"  H.I.C.

As tempting as it is to use the plans directly from the books, better results can be had by using copies of the originals.  They are available from The S.I. ships' plans department.  The cost is reasonable.  Use the books as a catalog.

4 hours ago, USCGDave said:

What are some of your favorite resource books?

There are too many degrees of freedom with a bait that is that general.  Isolate a specialty segment and ask about that.  The more tightly focused is the subject area, the more useful will be any replies. 

A popularity contest will give direction if your object is to build a huge library.  That ambition is better achieved if you are your sole financial manager.

Edited December 14, 2022 by Jaager

[USCGDave]

2 hours ago, Jaager said:

 

There are too many degrees of freedom with a bait that is that general.  Isolate a specialty segment and ask about that.  The more tightly focused is the subject area, the more useful will be any replies. 

A popularity contest will give direction if your object is to build a huge library.  That ambition is better achieved if you are your sole financial manager.

Sorry to have asked too broad a question. As someone new to the hobby, I have no specialty. I didn’t even know we were supposed to specialize. I like to read, I like to build and I was just excited to share my find and see what other people considered favorite resources, not bait anyone. I will try to be more tightly focused in the future. 

[mtaylor]

10 minutes ago, USCGDave said:

Sorry to have asked too broad a question. As someone new to the hobby, I have no specialty. I didn’t even know we were supposed to specialize. I like to read, I like to build and I was just excited to share my find and see what other people considered favorite resources, not bait anyone. I will try to be more tightly focused in the future. 

It's good to expand one's interest.  With some research, at some point, you'll probably find your comfort zone and and main interest.  Do you have any inclinations as to sail, power, wood or metal hull?   Era?  Country?  

[USCGDave]

I actually like all eras. I’m totally interested in ships of the Revenue Cutter Service and early Coast Guard. I’d love to try and tackle a scratch-built Coast Guard Cutter Northland, pre-1936. They removed the sails and trimmed the masts after ‘36. Until I have those skills, I’ll settle with starting the NRG half hull and a model shipways solid hull Phantom pilot boat kit I have on the shelf.

Edited December 14, 2022 by USCGDave

[Jaager]

17 minutes ago, USCGDave said:

I didn’t even know we were supposed to specialize.

You probably ought to understand that I am more from a minority party segment in all of this;  in no way set any rules, and have an academic ( with lose rules ) bent.  I am not always good at phrasing suggestions as suggestions.  I meant it as a "you might not want to walk in that mine field, but go ahead if you wish" sort of comment.   If you are exploring the possibilities you might wish for suggestions for survey books for each of the many eras and technologies.  Our build log forum has a breakdown into several broad areas.  Spending time there may offer a sample of what is available from kits and in the scratch half, what is available using monographs.  Builds that start with just a sheet of plans are not as common as the shear number of possibilities possible from doing that.

 

Specializing is not at all a requirement.   Covering an area that goes from rafts and hollowed out logs in prehistory to nuclear powered vessels tends to be a bit overwhelming for one lifetime.  Becoming focused on at least a general segment of that range is one way to cope.  

You found two books that are significant and fundamental to me.   They are mostly about the end portion of the Age of Sail and are America centric.    Getting a volume with foldout plans is an excellent find.  My Bonanza reprints do not have that feature.

 

A problem with scaling up photo copies is that the line thickness also increases and things can get imprecise.

 

It would probably be more efficient for me if I could follow my own advise and stay focused.  I am prone to distraction which makes finishing a project a rare thing.   But, I have managed to keep a wall at 1860.

 

 

 

 

[Jaager]

https://americanhistory.si.edu/about/departments/work-and-industry/ship-plans

 

The two catalogs will list some of what is available.

 

The transition period from 1860 to WWI  is not really a popular period and not a lot of books cover it.

My library:

OCEANOGRAPHIC SHIPS FORE AND AFT                                 
NELSON,STEWART B                                                 
U S GPO                                      
WASHINGTON               
1971

BALTIMORE CLIPPER, THE  1930                                     
CHAPELLE,H I                                                     
EDWARD W SWEETMAN                            
NEW YORK                 
1968

COAST GUARD UNDER SAIL ,THE                                      
KING,IRVING H                                                    
US NAVAL INSTITUTE PRESS                     
ANNAPOLIS, MD            
1989

 

OLD STEAM NAVY ,THE   VOL.1                                      
CANNEY,DONALD L                                                  
US NAVAL INSTITUTE PRESS                     
ANNAPOLIS, MD            
1990

OLD STEAM NAVY ,THE   VOL.2                                      
CANNEY,DONALD L                                                  
CONWAY MARITIME PRESS                        
LONDON                   
1993

HISTORY OF THE SHIP - STEAM, STEEL AND SHELLFIRE                 
GARDINER,ROBERT ED                                               
CONWAY MARITIME PRESS                        
LONDON                   
1992

 

The Mariners' Museum  used to have plans for sale on their website, but there seems to have been a redesign.

They have/had many models from the transition period - most are strange ducks - I think they have materials from Newport News Shipbuilding and they are from 1891 on.

 

Try Mystic - who knows?

 

[Dr PR]

Here are the most useful references I have found so far for topsail schooners and early Revenue cutters:

 

1. To me the most important reference is Howard Chapelle's The Baltimore Clipper (Edward M. Sweetman Co., New York, USA, 1968). It has a lot of information about the development of topsail schooners and lots of drawings and illustrations. More importantly, it lists the dimensions of actual vessels in the early 1800s. It has many sail plan drawings, but says little about the rigging.

 

2. The Global Schooner by Karl Heinz Marquardt, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland, USA, published by Conway Maritime Press, London, 2003. This book is devoted to the history and construction of schooners. It has an exhaustive history of the schooner rig - the best I have seen.  The book has very detailed chapters on masts and rigging with detailed drawings. Numerous tables in the appendices give rules and dimensions for mast, spars and rigging. It is the most complete text on schooner rigging that I have found. It is a large book (11.6 x 10 inches, 294 x 254 mm) with 239 pages containing many detailed drawings, full page ship plans and illustrations.

 

3. Lennarth Petterson's Rigging Fore-and-Aft Craft (Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland, USA, 2015) has a section on topsail schooners, and most of this also applies to straight fore-and-aft schooners. He has drawings showing just about every possible line you could have on a schooner, but it is doubtful if any one ship carried all of the rigging he shows.

 

4.  John Leather's The Gaff Rig Handbook (Wooden Boat Books, Brooklyn, Maine, USA, 2001) gives a lot of detail for rigging modern fore-and-aft yachts and racing boats, but much of this isn't very useful for 19th century and earlier vessels. However, he does give the history of the development of different types of rigs, mainly focusing on British vessels. But the book doesn't have a useful index and finding information about a particular rigging detail is like looking for a needle in a haystack.

 

5. An excellent reference for fishing schooners and schooners in general is Howard Chapelle's The American Fishing Schooners 1825-1935 (W. W. Norton & Company, New York, USA, and London, Great Britain, 1973). It has some hull and sail plans for schooners. The "Notebook" after the history pages has 369 pages of drawings and notes about how Gloucester fishing schooners were built and rigged! Much of this applies to all types of small sailing vessels and a lot of this information doesn't seem to be available anywhere else.

 

6. Harold Underhill's Sailing Ship Rigs and Rigging (Brown, Son & Ferguson, Glasgow, Scotland, 1969) has general sail plans for many types of ships and boats but not much about the actual rigging. But it does have a useful glossary.

 

7. I also have Underhill's Masting and Rigging the Clipper Ship and Oceanic Carrier (Brown, Son & Ferguson, Glasgow, Scotland, 1972). It is an excellent book with a tremendous amount of detail about sails and rigging. It is mostly for British clipper ships, but it has a section on schooners.  Most of what he writes about are rigs of the last half of the 19th century and early 20th century. If you are interested in clipper ships this is a must have! The index is very complete, listing every detail of rigging that is in the book.

 

8. James Lees' The Masting and Rigging of English Ships of War 1625 - 1860 (Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland, USA, 1990) is almost entirely about larger square riggers. However it does give a lot of detail about parts of rigging that does apply to schooners. More importantly, it tells how to determine the dimensions of spars, rigging, blocks and such based upon the mast diameter, and has lots of tables. But some caution is necessary because fore-and-aft rigs are much lighter than square rigs, and mast diameters are usually smaller for schooners. And the text can be confusing because he often fails to explain exactly what dimensions he is referring to. Mast and spar dimensions are usually diameters but rope dimensions are circumferences. Divide by PI (3.14159) to get the rope diameter.

 

The biggest problem I have had is all the nautical jargon these authors use, usually without any glossary. And different authors use different arcane terms for the same things. Some authors think a work cannot be scholarly unless it is written so an ordinary person cannot understand it, and use "five dollar words" where a "nickle" word would do just as well.

 

I have found three books indispensable for translating the nautical jargon into meaningful explanations:

 

9. The Young Sea Officer's Sheet Anchor by Darcy Lever in 1808 (reprinted by Algrove Publishing Ltd., Ottowa, Ontario, Canada, 2000) tells the novice officer or seaman how to rig a ship - every detail of how to put all the pieces of the masts and rigging together. It is essentially an illustrated glossary of nautical terms and a how-to book. But there isn't a lot about fore-and-aft rigs.

 

10. The Art of Rigging by George Biddlecombe  in 1925 (reprinted by Echo Point Books & Media, LLC., Brattleboro, Vermont, USA, 2016) is based upon David Steel's 1794 The Elements and Practice of Rigging and Seamanship. It has an excellent glossary and many illustrations. Again,  not much about schooners. I think you can find Steel's original book on line as a PDF file.

 

11. A good general reference is Wolfram zu Mondfeld's Historic Ship Models (Sterling Publishing Co., Inc., New York, USA, 1989) although it is oriented to square rigged ships and doesn't have much to say about schooners. But it has a tremendous amount of detail about all parts of wooden ships and a lot of the history of different configurations. It has lots of diagrams and text describing the parts of ships' hulls, rigging, sails and such. The book has tables for figuring the dimensions of mast and spars. It is one of the best references for sailing ship modelers.

 

****

 

You have the best editions of Chapelle's “The History of American Sailing Ships” and “The Search for Speed Under Sail 1700-1855”. Later editions are quite inferior, with a smaller page size and the former two-page drawings are reproduced on single pages.

[USCGDave]

9 hours ago, Jaager said:

https://americanhistory.si.edu/about/departments/work-and-industry/ship-plans

 

The transition period from 1860 to WWI  is not really a popular period and not a lot of books cover it.

BALTIMORE CLIPPER, THE  1930                                     
CHAPELLE,H I                                                     
EDWARD W SWEETMAN                            
NEW YORK                 
1968

COAST GUARD UNDER SAIL ,THE                                      
KING,IRVING H                                                    
US NAVAL INSTITUTE PRESS                     
ANNAPOLIS, MD            
1989

 

Thanks for the tips, Jaager.
 

I know you said there were no rules, but many get drawn to specialize. You are right. I will probably find myself mostly drawn to the hybrids of the transition period. There are so many interesting dichotomies in vessels around that time. For me personally, while building is fun, I enjoy the historical dives of research. There’s something I find enjoyable about digging into the past to uncover long forgotten documents, plans and stories. 

[USCGDave]

Phil,

 

Thanks for the long list and reminder to pick up a jargon dictionary. I have #10 and #11 from your list. I definitely love poking through my copy of Historic Ship Models. Comparing your list and Jaager’s, I may have to search for an original copy of #1 Chapelle’s The Baltimore Clipper. 
 

All I have to do now is select my first non-plastic build and get to fun.

[Roger Pellett]

You can’t go wrong with a full set of Chapelle’s books.  Like Jaager and Dr PR posted you have very nice editions of the two that you bought.  I also particularly like his American Small Sailing Craft.  My library has grown to well over 100 books collected during my adult life.  I find books dealing with ship history more useful over time than “how to build ship model” books, as I try to develop my own model building techniques that fit my personal skills and interests.

 

Roger

[Guest]

Hi all and Phil.. 

I love schooners, always have. I just ordered  The Global Schooner by Karl Heinz Marquardt, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland, USA but it is not inexpensive.  I have most all of Chapelles works too. 

Thanks Phil.

Guy