USS Cape (MSI-2) by Dr PR - 1:48 - Inshore Minesweeper

[Dr PR]

I mentioned earlier that the center/keel piece is only 1/8 inch (3.175 mm) thick and it should be 3/16 inch (4.76 mm) thick - at least at the keel. To widen it to the desired thickness I cut some keel extension pieces out of 1/32 inch (0.79 mm) three ply plywood.

 

 

The thin plywood cut easily with kitchen scissors, and was finish shaped with sandpaper and files. These pieces were glued onto both sides of the keel with SIG Bond adhesive and clamped tight with all the clamps I could find. After all the keel extension pieces were in place I added a 3/16 x 1/16 (4.6 x 1.6 mm) basswood strip keel foot to the bottom of the keel.

 

 

With these pieces added the frame is ready to hold the bulkheads in place so I can start planning the planking.

 

 

This leads to the next problem - the garboard strake puzzle. It will fit from where the bow starts to curve upward back to the beginning of the skeg ahead of the propeller and rudder. But in the ship's blueprints the strake is anything but just another plank.

 

 

In this drawing (above) the red objects are cross sections of the garboard strake at each bulkhead position on the model. For reference the frame scale for the ship is shown. The green parts are the keel extensions and the keel foot. The blue rectangles are the first ordinary 3/16 x 1/16 (4.6 x 1.6 mm) basswood hull planks. The extra thickness of the garboard strake is more like the thick wales on older wooden sailing ships. The irregular four-sided shape varies from frame to frame. Tricky!

 

Right now I think I may just cut a variable width 1/16 inch (1.6 mm) thick basswood strip to fit into the rabbet to serve as the inner part of the garboard strake. Then the rest of the planking can proceed. Meanwhile I will fashion a second piece with the odd four-sided cross-sections to be glued on top of the inner garboard strake plank.

[bdgiantman2]

1 hour ago, Dr PR said:

Right now I think I may just cut a variable width 1/16 inch (1.6 mm) thick basswood strip to fit into the rabbet to serve as the inner part of the garboard strake. Then the rest of the planking can proceed. Meanwhile I will fashion a second piece with the odd four-sided cross-sections to be glued on top of the inner garboard strake plank.

If I understand you correctly, I would think it would be a lot easier fitting a block of wood at the base between each of your bulkheads  as your garboard, starting at bulkhead 1 and continuing to bulkhead 15 as you are showing us with the red highlighted areas and having it run slightly beneath each bulkhead as well then sand to the desired shape underneath. The middle six or seven bulkheads show the same shape of the garboard to my eyes so that ought to make shaping a bit easier.

 

Brian D

[Dr PR]

Brian,

 

Are you suggesting placing 15 separate blocks "at the base between each of your bulkheads?" I can't see how that would make it any easier.

 

Or are you thinking of fitting one long strip the full length from bulkhead 1 to bulkhead 15 and then shaping it in place? I thought about this. The thicker piece would be difficult to twist to conform to the changing angles. It would require shaping the piece to fit the angles between the keel and bulkheads at the rabbet at each bulkhead. No two angles are exactly the same, but I think I probably could do this. This shaping would be on the interior so it wouldn't have to be "pretty." I was thinking of using a 1/4 x 1/4 inch (6.35 x 6.35 mm) basswood strip for this.

 

But I do not think it would be possible to form the visible two sides by sanding with the strip in place. It would have to fit against the keel, and I cannot sand right up to this joint without damaging the surface of the keel extension piece. The garboard piece must also be the same thickness at the outboard edge as the 1/16 inch (0.039 mm) planks and parallel to the plank edge. That outboard edge actually has two surfaces at slightly different angles and this "corner" would be extremely difficult to shape in place. See the single piece garboard strake in the right hand side of the drawing.

 

Note: I can simplify the shape to just four sides by trimming the Keel Extension piece but it would have to be done very carefully to avoid having a messy joint showing.

 

The virtue of first using a 1/16 inch thick basswood strip for the inner garboard strake (left side of the drawing) is that it automatically has the right thickness at the left and right edges, and it will fit easily into the rabbet with a bit of sanding. It will twist to conform to the bulkhead shapes from almost horizontal midships to vertical at the skeg. I have already tried this and a plank bends easily with just finger pressure.

 

Then I would trim another plank (outer garboard strake) to the desired thicknesses and angles and glue it onto the first plank. This second piece would be thin and would also twist easily to conform to the shape. It is basically the same thing you would do for a double planked hull, but only one strake.

 

Whatever I try to shape these outer pieces I suspect I will have to repeat it several times to get it right.

Edited yesterday at 05:45 AM by Dr PR

[bdgiantman2]

More the one long piece, but either way is doable.

[Dr PR]

Caution: This is a nauseating tale!

 

The Cape was a very small ship - too small to be out on the ocean, in my opinion. Shortly after I reported aboard I discovered I was prone to sea sickness - motion induced nausea. This is caused by conflicting reports to the brain from your eyes and the inner ear balance organ. If one reports you are moving and the other says you aren't - as can happen when you are in an enclosed box bobbing on the sea - you become nauseous.

 

On calm days there was no problem and I enjoyed being at sea. But if the sea was rough and the weather nasty I was nauseous all the time. On one occasion we left Long Beach in a line of minesweepers headed out for an exercise in the Santa Barbara channel off the coast of California. As the day progressed the wind picked up and the ocean became very choppy. My watch station was on the bridge, and it pitched and rolled pretty actively. I was nauseous the whole time and hung out by the rail on the downwind side. If I had to puke I would wait until the ship rolled that direction.

 

Once while I was contemplating such a move my supply petty officer came up and asked how I was doing. He was peeling an orange and the smell of it immediately cured my nausea! I asked if we had any more, and he pulled another one from his pocket. I told him that from then on when we got underway I wanted an extra crate of oranges on board. Hey, I was Supply Officer and if I wanted oranges we would get oranges!

 

Unfortunately oranges only cured mild nausea. Later than evening we ran into a full blown gale, with waves high enough to come crashing down on the bridge. It was an open bridge, but we did have a frame with windows across the front and a canvas awning above. Still, when green water washed onto the bridge we had ankle to knee deep water sloshing across the deck. My shoes and pants were soaked, I was really nauseous, and by the time my watch was over I was exhausted from hanging on. It was like a very wet hours long roller coaster ride.

 

After I was relieved I went below and crashed in my bunk. I managed to catch short stretches of sleep, but was suddenly awaked, only to realize the ship was dead quiet - the engines had stopped. I slipped on my shoes and stumbled toward the engine room. As I passed through the mess deck the starboard weather deck door was open, and I saw a large gray wooden wall pass very close down our side. When the engines stopped we lost all power and went totally dark. The ship following us in the storm lost sight of us and almost ran us down from astern.

 

When I reached the engine room I found that the duty watch had forgotten to fill the day tank at the beginning of the watch and we ran out of gas. Both the propulsion engines and the generators ran from the same day tank, so everything shut down in short order. The engine crew used a manual pump to transfer fuel from the main fuel tanks to the day tank, and in about 15 minutes we were underway again.

 

When I got back to my bunk I was exhausted and nauseous. Through the night I would occasionally flop out of the bunk onto the deck and crawl to the head. There I embraced the porcelain throne and called for Ralph O'Rourke. I was too weak to walk, and eventually was pukeing up liver bile. It is bright yellow and tastes horrible. I was unable to stand my next watch. But by morning we reached the shelter of the lee side of Santa Rosa Island and dropped the hook. There it was relatively calm and I got some sleep. When I woke I was able to eat something and hold it down.

 

So why am I telling you this? Two things came out of that experience. First, I became conditioned like Pavlov's dogs. Pavlov rang a bell before feeding his dogs. After a while he discovered that if he rang the bell, even when there was no food in sight, the dogs began to salivate. This is known as a conditioned reflex. For me, when the last line went over the side and the ship sounded three toots on the whistle to signal "underway" I immediately became nauseous - even in calm waters in port. Three toots and I wanted to puke. It took me years to get over this. I don't know, maybe I might still have this conditioned reflex!

 

The second result was that a note that I became chronically seasick went into my medical record. When I later reported to the Oklahoma City the Commanding Officer asked me about it. I told him I did become nauseous but I could still stand watches and do my duties. He was especially interested because I was replacing an Ensign K. who became incapacitated because of seasickness. It was so bad he wanted a medical discharge from the Navy. But instead of a discharge he was transferred to the Yokosuka Naval Hospital where every day they strapped him in a chair and rotated and tumbled him until he puked. They wanted to be sure he wasn't faking it. So Ensign K. was tortured for several weeks until they finally sent him back to CIVLAND.

 

And just to be sure about me, when we were next at sea the CO had the Officer of the Deck I was assigned to (as Junior Officer of the Deck) smoke particularly nasty cigars and blow the smoke in my direction. All just to see if he could make me puke. I didn't, and the CO was satisfied.

 

But I did toss my cookies once in the 27 months I was on the cruiser. It wasn't in the typhoons when we alternately walked on the decks and bulkheads and hung on for dear life - I was too busy to become nauseated. It was one night on relatively calm seas with a long steady roll, when I was on watch in the Combat Information Center deep in the bowels of the ship. I didn't even realize I was nauseous until I was returning to my bunk. The ship rode up on a swell as I was climbing a ladder and suddenly dropped just as I reached the top step, leaving me hanging in the air. I came down without my supper.

 

I tell this tale to describe for you a little mentioned part of the experience of life on a small ship. And now you know why I am not interested in going to sea again!

Edited 5 hours ago by Dr PR

[Valeriy V]

Phil, thank you for your amazingly artistic story! 👌👍

Once upon a time I had to get into a severe pitching for the first time on a six-meter plywood sail shell. And it turned out that the Lord had gifted me with the ability to endure pitching without any problems. But what was happening to my crewmates was not a funny sight.

[FlyingFish]

Just read the whole log - wonderful to have the build punctuated by your stories Phil. Enjoying it very much.