Australian Couta boat by Louie da fly - from about the 1920's

[Louie da fly]

A couta boat is a gaff-rigged fishing boat used for catching barracuda in the State of Victoria, Australia, up till about the 1920's, being superseded by motor vessels, but many of them have been preserved and are now raced competitively.

 

I wasn't going to do a formal build log for the couta boat, but I've changed my mind as i feel it's a worthwhile subject for a log. I didn't take photos at the beginning of the build, it's necessarily somewhat incomplete.

 

Here are the first photos I took of the model. It was built up in layers and then sanded to shape with a belt sander. A lot of mistakes (it was the first time I'd used one of those things) but fortunately builders bog filled in where I'd sanded off too much, so she ended up looking pretty good.

 

Steven

[Louie da fly]

Couta boats have a very characteristic and rather attractive curved bowsprit. I had to do a fair bit of carving and bending until I got it right. Then the Men's Shed got a bunch of thin dowelling (about 5mm and 3mm) ideal for the mast, boom and gaff. Very pleasing.

 

I also made seats. Here they all are dry fitted (except the boom and gaff, as I haven't yet made the fittings).

And I got some old teak woodstain we had hanging around and stained these bits.

Starting to come together nicely.

 

Steven

Edited August 4, 2023 by Louie da fly

[Ferrus Manus]

Didn't you say this wasn't going to have a build log? Glad it does now! 

[JacquesCousteau]

Looks cool so far, looking forward to watching it come together! I think local fishing boats are great build subjects. I have to ask, why is the bowsprit curved?

[Louie da fly]

1 hour ago, Ferrus Manus said:

Didn't you say this wasn't going to have a build log?

See sentence No. 2 in post #1 above.

 

53 minutes ago, JacquesCousteau said:

I have to ask, why is the bowsprit curved?

I wish I knew, but they do look very good.

  

Steven

Edited August 4, 2023 by Louie da fly

[mtaylor]

Looks interesting.  As for the curved bowspit, I would think it was curved for strength.  A straight one would be more bendable.   But I might be wrong.

[BANYAN]

Nice job on the boat Steven; it looks great.  These boats were very fast as is implied in your last photo.  They must have been a handful with a very small crew.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Roger Pellett]

I believe that the downward curve in the bowsprit is to keep the luff of the jib straight and tight.  If the luff of the job is allowed to sag to leeward the boat will not sail well to windward.  If the bowsprit is straight, the tension of the fore stay, or in this case the job luff causing the bowsprit to bend upward shortens the hypotenuse of the fore triangle reducing the job luff tension.  If the bowsprit is bent down,  job luff tension slightly lengthens the bowsprit maintains job luff tension.

 

Roger

[Mark Pearse]

Hi Steven,

 

A subject close to my heart, they are wonderful boats & I race against them quite a lot. For once I have a bit of knowledge - the fish they went after is Barracouta, & not related to Barracuda. The bowsprit question I had to look up in the wonderful book "First Home, The Couta Boat & Victoria's Couta Coast". I had assumed it was to get a larger jib, as sailing performance was important - the first boat home got the best prices for their catch. This is partly correct...on the curved bowsprit (on Coutas called the jibboom) the book says "The early boats ... had little or not bend in the jib boom. Later, the larger boats ... had higher bows & more sheer. Extra bend was put in the jib boom to get more length in the jib & to improve the appearance of the boat."

 

The book has a lot of details, if you want anything you could post or PM me. The model is looking lovely, & I shall follow with great interest.

 

 

Edited September 5, 2023 by Mark Pearse

[Louie da fly]

Thank you, Mark. I agree; they are lovely boats. We go down to Geelong every now and then (a mere hour's drive) and as we go past the bay we often see couta boats moored there. It always lifts my heart to see them - they are so beautiful, and a relic of a past, more elegant era.

 

At the moment I don't think I need any more information, but thanks for the offer. It was never intended to be a 100% accurate model, more just something simple that could be made easily to raise funds for the Men's shed. Turned out not to be that simple. I'm putting the majority of my efforts at the moment into the San Marco mediaeval ship, but a couple of days ago I did some painting on the couta boat - white on the "upper deck". Unfortunately I didn't take any photos of the latest configuration, but here she is with the blue on the lower hull (the holes are for the stand). That was a couple of weeks ago. I'll have to add more photos as I get them, but I only go to the Men's shed Mondays and Fridays.

 

 

Steven

Edited September 6, 2023 by Louie da fly

[Ferrus Manus]

Mondays and Fridays only?? Unacceptable!! My Men's Shed is in my bedroom. 😂

Your Couta looks marvelous, Steven, and i think we need many more traditional or locale-specific builds on this forum.

Edited September 6, 2023 by Ferrus Manus

[Louie da fly]

No, I work on the ship most days - but the Men's shed is full other days of the week, so Monday and Friday are the only times I get to use the wonderful boys' toys (machine tools) they have there.

 

And I'm leaving the couta boat there to work on when I'm in the mood or between working on the San Marco ship. (Or other things - I replaced the broken plastic handle of my handsaw with a beautiful new hardwood one I'd made from scratch a couple of weeks ago, and there are still the model railway buildings on the back burner.)

 

Steven

[Bedford]

The Couta Boat is considered such an icon of Australian nautical history that there is one at the Australian National Maritime Museum. 

Nice to see a model build of one.

[Louie da fly]

Some more painting - that's pretty much complete now. The main problem I have is that in the Men's shed there's usually a thin layer of fine sawdust on everything, and though this doesn't really affect the painting, it does mean I have to be careful not to transfer the stuff from the benchtop or my fingers etc to the dry paintwork - especially the lovely royal blue - almost impossible to get it off if I do.

 

But she's looking very pretty. I chose blue and white as it's such a popular colour among boat owners (who presumably don't care that it makes them invisible against the sea to search and rescue people if there's an emergency).

 

From now on, the main jobs will be making fixtures and fittings - pintles and gudgeons, blocks etc and putting them in place so I can assemble the model into its final form. I've cut out the sails, but I'll have to do some extra work there - not totally happy with how they turned out.

 

 

 

 

 

Steven

 

 

[Jim Lad]

Looking good, mate!

 

John

[Mark Pearse]

Lovely.

 

You got the deep & squarish forefoot of the bow, apparently it's so the boats can drift well. If the forefoot is too rounded they don't hold a drift abeam to the wind, the bow blows faster than the stern.

[Cathead]

This looks so cool! 

[Louie da fly]

Ready for the sails, but as I can't sew I need to wait for my wife to do that bit. Looking pretty good, I think.

 

 

 

Steven

 

[Jim Lad]

Sure does, Steven.

 

John

[Mark Pearse]

Very nice. They seemed to often (or perhaps sometimes) paint the top part of the mast. I'm not sure why.

[BANYAN]

Very nice indeed; a very nice little side project Steven.  Suggest the sails as a Christmas present?  

 

cheers

 

Pat

[KeithAug]

Looking very cute.

[Louie da fly]

AAaaand - finished!

I've simplified the rig and I'm not totally happy with the sails - my fault. I should have consulted with my wife before I cut, folded and ironed them. She did what she could to correct my mistakes, but there's only so much you can do, even when you've been trained as a seamstress. Ah well, all part of the learning process.

 

Steven

Edited December 14, 2023 by Louie da fly

[Glen McGuire]

Hey Steven, I just ran across this build log.  What an interesting subject and a beautiful build.  Congratulations!  But I am most impressed by the fact that you are able to do 2 models at once.  I saw the framework of your San Marco mosaic ship in the background on one of your pics above.  Not sure how you are able to pull that off!!    

[GrandpaPhil]

Very nicely done!

[liteflight]

On 9/5/2023 at 9:43 PM, Mark Pearse said:

For once I have a bit of knowledge - the fish they went after is Barracouta, & not related to Barracuda. T

Fascinating build log, Steven, and the direct cause of me learning a New Thing ( despite being careful). I found more about the barracouta, and found it’s the same fish as Snoek, which anyone with a UK or South African background will have heard of.

It’s Sunday name is Thyrsites Atun, which suggests a relationship to the Tuna/ Tunny/ Atun family, but anyone who has seen one would conclude it’s a distant relationship, as it’s common name of Snake Mackerel suggests

 

My hat is well and truly off to the fishermen who ventured out through the Narrows each day to fish in the Bass Strait.  

[Louie da fly]

4 hours ago, liteflight said:

My hat is well and truly off to the fishermen who ventured out through the Narrows each day to fish in the Bass Strait.  

Yes indeed. Many vessels have come to grief in those waters.

 

Steven

[KeithAug]

On 12/14/2023 at 11:12 PM, Louie da fly said:

my fault. I should have consulted with my wife before I cut,

Always a good policy. But the most dangerous thing to do is consult her and then ignore the advice. You could always get her to remake the sails.

[Louie da fly]

I did consider it, and she was willing to do so, but I just wanted the damn thing finished, so I went with what I had.

 

Steven