Hoogaars Yacht by TheDuckDetective - Billing Boats - 1:27 scale

TheDuckDetective · July 7, 2023

Post 1: The Project

Normally I wouldn't start a new project when I still have to finish the last one. But I picked this kit up from the local Thriftshop in my new home town, while looking for a nice cupboard to put in the new house. After spotting this old and covered with a fair layer of dust (now discontinued)Billing Boats kit, I quickly checked if all the important bits were present in the box and hurried home with my new prize.

The Kit is of a 1:27 scale "Hoogaars" Yacht. Now I think that "Hoogaars" isn't really a household name for most people. But it is where I am from, If one thinks of a traditionally build wooden ship. Its these flatbotomed beaties. The Town where I grew up used to be home to one of the bigger shipbuilding warfs of this part of the Netherlands and her Hoogaars ships were known as far north as Friesland and as far south as southern Belgium.

History and Background.

Its not entirely understood what the name "Hoogaars" means, the name is known to have been in use since the 16th century. Hoogaarsen are mainly used in the Dutch province of Zeeland (The Old-Zealand). The ships are differentiated from their other flatbotomed colleques by the sharp rise of their bows. The ships hulls have a water droplet shaped bottom hull and traditionally the side strakes are clinker-built. Depending on the shipyard they are rigged *** either Gaff- or Sprit-Rigged.

The Hoogaarsen were mainly used for the fishing industry, but also as ferries, cargoships and passenger service. And they are equiped with the characteristic "Swords" that make sailing possible despite the flat botoms.

Hoogaarsen were replaced as fishing ships at the end of the 19th century in favor of motorised northsea trawler type ships. During this period there were a couple of examples of hoogaarsen being built with steel hulls and equiped with engines. Some older wooden hoogaarsen were also upgraded. This upgrade didnt turn out as a success however because the wooden hulls were not suited to house a vibrating early petrol engine, and many ships quickly wore out.

Luckily the wooden Hoogaarsen were still popular as pleasure yachts and many were built with a cabin and more luxurious outfitting. This is what the ship kit is.

The Billing boats Hoogaars is a replica based on a ship that was built in the Warf of the town of Tholen. It was used as a ferry and after a couple of owners it ended up with a Belgian owner. This is when J. Van Beylen, A ship researcher from the Belgian Naval museum, drew the boat in detail and documented the building plans. The real boat, in a sad turn of events, but in a way we ship enthousiasts might have grown accustomed to, it didn't stand the test of time, she burned down after years of neglect. The drawings by J. Van Beylen are the only thing that is left about the boat. As far as I know there are no photographs.

After a quick google I found that J. Van Beylen dedicated a small part of a book he wrote, to this particular hoogaars. And the Zeeuwsche library had a copy in its inventory. So I'll be getting that to see if there is any extra information I can find.

Contents of the box

The contents are remarkebly, complete. Everything was neatly put back into the box. The Spars, rope, fittings, sails, even the scrap bits of ply-wood. The hull is partly finished. There are a couple of detailing parts that are yet to be assembled onto the model.

The characteristic clinker Strakes.

The building quality is relatively high which makes me suspect that this wasn't someone's first rodeo. Which also makes one wonder why it ended up at the thrift store.

One thing that stood out to me, is that the parts are not laser cut. So I'll be heading back to the thrift shop to find myself a small modelers saw.

My plan with this project will be to follow the instructions, but I'll be pulling on books and real life examples to add a little bit more detail is the places where the kit might be lacking a little bit. I am very lucky to live within walking distance of a couple of ships that are from the same Shipyard as this model so I'll be photographing them as reference.

This project will probably be on the backburner until I finish the current project. But till then I'll be researching the subject.

Thanks for reading.

ccoyle · July 7, 2023

3 hours ago, TheDuckDetective said:

The building quality is relatively high which makes me suspect that this wasn't someone's first rodeo. Which also makes one wonder why it ended up at the thrift store.

Sadly, in our hobby, the reason is often that the previous builder expired, and his or her family didn't know what to do with a partially-built kit.

TheDuckDetective · April 5

POST 2: In the field

The nice thing about this project is that the real life counterpart is still being build by the shipyard in my hometown. So during last years "Fishing days" a celebratory event comparable to a fair or festival but with the fishing history of the town as the main focus, I went down to the yard to take a look at the projects currently being worked on.

I took some pictures and with the permission of the yard and the boat owners I'll be posting some of them on here.

A couple of boats at the waterfront.

The Mjojo Lamu, a gaff cutter built in Kenia, a ship with quite an interesting story to tell. On the yard to replace her keel timbers and a couple of bow frames. Beautiful ship, but not a Hoogaars which we came for.

Inside a large temporary tent The Hoogaars "Atalante" is being rebuild by her owners and the yard volunteers. Atalante is a Gaff Rigged Hoogaars originally built by the Yard in Tholen, the same yard that built the Hoogaars the Billing boat Kit is based on. It has been nearly 6 years since she's been in the water. But the large amount of work that has been done defenitly bears fruit. She looks like new.

Her bow and not so symmetrical clinker strakes.

The extra rubbing strake amidships for the sword to move over.

The Rudder and one of the spars.

This is her a couple of weeks later. From this angle its easier to spot the way this yacht is designed with the main cabin space being in the middle but leaving space at either side to walk past. This is in contrast to the large cabin in the model kit that covers the whole span of the boat from side to side.

A couple of bonus pictures from the storage shed where they were working on a smaller Hoogaars with original fishing layout and a small clinker boat.

That's it for the reference pictures. I always enjoyed looking around the yard every year. But this time, thanks to the model I looked with a different eye commpared to other years. How much of this I'll be able to translate into the model.. Who knows. I just wanted to share these picutures.

Next up. An update on the progress I made on the model.

Till next time..

TheDuckDetective · April 5

POST 3: Deck furniture and spars.

This post will abreviate the progress I made this past month because I didn't remember to make enough pictures. I'll try to talk about my thought process and what happened in between pictures.

I still don't have a permanent workshop and with my current storage method I do create quite a mess every time I unpack everything to start building. But the mess fuels the 'ol imagination so It's fine. I'll consider myself lucky that my partner doesn't mind the desk in the living room looking like a construction zone during most of the week.

I don't really mean to complain, but the wood in this kit is very much not of the forgiving type. It's veneer of varying thicknesses, and either was stored incorrectly, is very old or was allready rather weak from the factory(or all three, which isn't improbable for this kit). But the layers of wood that should be adhered strongly together, are rather fond of fracturing and delaminating during the working of it.

I started with roughly sawing out the bollards from the thicker sheet of veneer wood. First one went smoothly but the other three had to be glued back together multiple times. One of them is quite possibly more glue than wood.

Two pieces per bollard.

This piece was too far gone, I sawed too close to the lines. But Easily fixed with a small replacement piece.

After finishing them I went on to work on the winch. I used a power drill to turn the piece into the right dimensions. Something I picked up from somebody else on this forum. It turned out rather well for a first try.

Not in the instructions, but I wanted to add some detail to the winch by adding these parralel bars to one side of it. Like the smaller Hoogaars in the shed. The result will show in a later picture.

Sawing the rudder before glueing it back together to simulate planks. I didn't have an actual saw yet, so my saw consists of a razor saw held in a vise with a piece of wood on top to hold it in place with. This worked better than it should have, but the precision of the cut suffered a little bit and this shows. I now have a proper holder for the razor saw. But the rudder and swords have allready been sawn.

Test fit of the bollards, rudder and helmstok and winch.

there is a little bit of damage on the aft side of the upper strake but I'm not bothered by it. This was also when I noticed the wood part underneath the tiller being too far up. It interrupts the nice flow of the sides so I'll be taking it off and placing it lower down.

Winch. I thought the area forward of the winch deserved some more attention and decided to plank it. I also planked the footwell in front of the tiller and by the main accommodation entrance.

Let's also add some planks to the top of the companionway. I really enjoy the look of those on the real yachts. I think it'll add a nice touch.

Removing the stern piece and placing it lower after removing some material underneath.

In the mean time I had started on the swords which will go on the sides. Note the not so clean cuts on those. I'm still happy with how they turned out. The tiller is given a slight bend. and the rudder gets its hinges. This is where I made a mistake because I assumed the metal pieces were intended for the rudder. They were instead meant for the rigging and this mistake would force me to do more metal scratchbuild work than I would like, and which I don't have the tools for. But thats for future me. Current me is still enjoying his progress..

Mounting points for the swords added. and I have given most of the boat a light pass with some danish oil. The color is a little washed out on the pictures but still quite light in real life. So I'm not sure if this is the finish I like. The decks are left untreated.

This is where I realized my mistake. Those weren't rudder hinges.. they were.. Oh well.

Thats also where I learned that 0.4mm plate is pretty hard to cut through with cheap nippers. Even worse to clean up afterwards. But I did manage to make an acceptable bowsprit fitting.

This rigging point was not in the plans. But I didn't like the idea of just fastening the rigging with a knot arround the spar. So I made this. I'm happy with the way it looks.

Test fitting. The mast has gotten its first fittings like the belaying pin bench where the goose neck connection will also connect the boom.

I gave the swords an extra bar for strenght.

Gooseneck. and the bollardds are in place and oiled.

0.4mm copper is a little too thick for such a small handdrill.

Rail in front of the mast. Judging from the drawings its meant to allow the headsail sheet to freely move. The tackle is also in place just behind to bow. barely visible, but it is there.

Gave her a lick of paint. Color scheme altered to look more like the boats in my references.

I'm not sure if I should do something about the main wood color. I'd like it to be a little more rich and with a slight tinge of orange maybe. I'll be adding a sating coat as finish which will help slightly. But that probably won't get me the desired result. I'm still debating about that.

This is as far as I've come. Next up is finishing painting of swords and spars and then starting the rigging.

Till next time..

Paul Le Wol · April 5

Hi DuckDetective, what a great yacht and model. Such a shame that Billings would discontinue her. Everything is looking super!

TheDuckDetective · April 17

Thank you for the nice comment Paul, I too think it's a shame that the kit is discontinued. There are still some availeable in a couple of online(dutch) shops. I do wonder what other region specific kits Billing boats(or any other company) has availeable.

cotrecerf · April 17

you achieved very good results although working on some wood parts (judging from the pics) seem to be quite of poor quality (like cigar box soft wood) must have been very difficult...... A nice boat!

greetings

Joachim

ccoyle · April 17

Wow, this build is a great lesson in how far kit designing has come in recent years! Considering what the kit gave you to work with, I'd say you have achieved pretty darn good results so far.

Cheers!

TheDuckDetective · April 17

Thank you Chris and Joachim!

The kit is indeed a little rough arround the edges. Like the positioning aids on the deck are printed on the deck itself, I probably would have liked to plank the deck to hide those marks. But since the builder before me allready laid it down like this I decided to leave it as is. I consider myself co author of this particular vessel so I want to keep the original build as it is.

The wood does like to fight back and I think your sigar wood comparison is pretty spot on.

That is why I am thankfull the mast was allready turned to the correct dimensions by the first builder. I wouldnt want to try turning that long a spar on my powerdrill 😅

TheDuckDetective · April 17

POST 4: Hull detailing Work

It is time to start adding some more details and color.

From my research and references I found that a lot of old Dutch yachts were finished with a deep green paint, used to highlight details on the boat. This is also what the Kit box shows but I chose different locations for the application. Based on reference pictures.

First off, I wanted to add different portholes. I found these brass portholes with glass in my local modelshop. Very happy with how they look. I enlarged the openings to have them fit correctly.

Spars are (almost) done. The Gaff(?(gaffel in dutch)) is bend arround a row of nails into the correct shape and letting the wet piece of wood dry in between them. Added the guide and gave it a couple of ringbolts for eventual securing arround the mast.

Working on some ideas for decoration on the swords. Not sure what I want to do. The plans say to leave it empty but I think a yacht would have decoration. Most of my references show decoration on there as well.

The shipyard is now (apparently)also open to visitors!

Time to add some green! I wanted a very rich color and thanks to my background in military modelling I only have Olive drab.. so I mixed a green from my primary color oil paints. I really like the way it pops but still looks authentic.

Let's create lots of dust very close to still wet oil paint.. what could go wrong?

very happy with the look.

I've also lowered the rudder so it follows the lines of the keel. This meant I had to place the Tiller higher up and the pieces of wood underneath it had to move as well. The fresh wood underneath the old location is still visible in this picture.

Thats all so far. Thanks all for reading and commenting!

Till Next time.

Scottish Guy · April 17

Great work and I like that wee boat. Really well done and looks amazing. Looking forward to see the rest of the story.

Micha

TheDuckDetective · July 24

POST 5: RIGGING

These pictures and their depicted progress are from some time ago, this is because partway through the rigging I ran out of rigging line material of all sizes. And since I'm moving soon the project will have to wait a while longer. So I might as well post about it.

Last time we spoke, I had added a nice bit of color to the model and this is what I continued to do on the Tiller.

And I started adding some of the transfers onto the model. These were not the wster transfer decals that I am used to from plastic modelling. These were thicker and more like stickers. I had to cut them out and I they turned out slightly rough, but good enough for me. A star on the hinge part of the lee-boards and a stylized fish on top of the rudder.

after this I was able to attach the leeboards and made the control lines off on the bollards at the back, my thought being that the location would be convenient for the skipper during sailing. I'm no longer sure if they should be there, but I glued them in place so there is no going back.