Lancha Chilota by JacquesCousteau – Scale 1:32 – Chilean Coasting Sloop

[Jim Lad]

Just catching up with your build. This looks a very interesting model.

 

John

[JacquesCousteau]

Thanks for the likes and kind comments!

 

I'm continuing research on the lancha, and wanted to share an interesting site I saw several months ago, then lost the link to, and then found again today. Carlos Pedro Vairo, an Argentine maritime ethnographer, documented the lancha chilota for a 1986 article in Navegar. (Available online at: https://issuu.com/museomaritimoushuaia/docs/chiloe ) Not only is the article a useful source, but his website also includes a large number of color photos documenting the final years of the lancha. These will definitely be useful images going forward, showing a lot of details otherwise little documented. For instance, one image below shows the cramped quarters crammed in the bow (leaving most of the hull for cargo space) and the brazier that was almost always kept burning while under way to keep warm against the chill. (One wonders how many lanchas were lost to fire). Other images, like the second and third below, show details of the rigging. And still others show details of lanchas beached for loading and unloading, as in the last photo. The photos are fascinating and worth taking a look at.

 

 

Site Link:  https://www.carlosvairo.com/galeria-puerto-montt-lanchas-chilotas

 

Changing gears: fairing is slow going. I think I have the sides basically ready, so I'm going to set that aside for the moment while I focus on the top. I'm planning on adding a subdeck in 1/32‐inch thick basswood before planking the sides, so it's important to get the top right before I proceed. Fairing the top has been quite tricky.

 

Part of the challenge is that the top of the bulkheads isn't quite lined up. To check the sheer line, I placed a strip of chart tape around the corners of the bulkheads, as seen below:

 

Doing so reveals some discrepencies--some are too high, and others are too low, like the third bulkhead in the photo below:

 

A batten down the centerline also shows some bulkheads are a little off. So, I've been sanding a lot along the top and building up low spots.

 

Part of the challenge is that the plans provide for quite a bit of deck camber. I followed the plans for cutting out the bulkheads, but have now realized that I think the camber is excessive. Looking at the photos by Carlos Vairo from deck level, for instance, the camber is apparent but not as much as on the bulkheads. I can reduce the camber a little with judicious sanding, but going too far would force me to also trim the stem shorter and would throw off the overall shape of the hull. Building up the outer top edges of the bulkheads to reduce the camber in that way would in turn throw off the sheer line.

 

In any case, I don't think it's the end of the world if the camber is a little excessive, but this is a good warning of the dangers of blindly following plans.

[wefalck]

These would have situations and scenes in small-scale cargo shipping all around Europe (and probably the N-American continent too) well into the first years of the 20th century, when better roads and lorries replaced the boats. However, over here in Europe it was common to have a small coal-stove forward, which was used for cooking and heating.

 

It is very easy to draw too much deck camber, I just had this experience myself and needed to correct the drawings for my new project. The camber also depends on how a boat is worked. Particularly when a lot of work is expected on the deck, less camber makes it easier to stand on deck. Also, when one expects to carry deck-loads, that is made easier with less camber. It's a trade-off between water-shedding capability and working convenience.

 

Edited Monday at 09:00 AM by wefalck

[Paul Le Wol]

Very nice photos Jacques. It’s always interesting to see how crews rigged their boats. 

[JacquesCousteau]

 

7 hours ago, wefalck said:

It is very easy to draw too much deck camber

Thanks, glad to hear I'm not the only one in this boat (so to speak). There's such a variety across small boats. The plans didn't look like too much camber on the page, but now seem a bit excessive. At the widest point in the hull, the model has a beam of about 12 ft 8 inches (4.75 inches at scale, and not counting hull planking), and a camber of about 7 inches (7/32 inch at scale). I'm considering whether I can just add a 1/16-inch shim at the edges of the bulkheads and not throw off the sheer line too much.

 

3 hours ago, Paul Le Wol said:

It’s always interesting to see how crews rigged their boats. 

Thanks, definitely! There's clearly quite a bit of making do with what they had. For example, this photo shows some of the details on the shrouds, which the plans show as just attached with turnbuckles.

Source: https://www.carlosvairo.com/galeria-puerto-montt-lanchas-chilotas

 

Instead, the first two shrouds have turnbuckles down low, followed by, in one case, a length of wire that hooks onto what looks like a thicker wire for the shroud, and in the second case, what looks like a shorter loop of wire attached to the thicker wire. The last shroud doesn't seem to have a turnbuckle, just several lengths of wire hooked and looped together. It's also notable that the running rigging appears to be white and green.

 

Photos from earlier, like the one below from 1956, also show complex rigging arrangements.

Source: https://ceph-puerto-montt.blogspot.com/2009/02/album-del-recuerdo-imagenes-de-nuestra_22.html?m=1

 

From what I can tell, the foremost shroud has a turnbuckle low down, a big knot or something connecting it to what looks like length of multistrand twisted wire, then a big knot connecting that to what looks like a single deadeye or something similar (a heart?) that connects to either a wire or rope shroud. The second shroud, in contrast, has what looks like a big metal hook low down, with a shroud looped on to that.

 

Photos like these really highlight that these vessels were made and used by people with limited access to resources in remote areas. Rigging, and repairs to it, had to be made with whatever was available that could be made to work. When it comes time to rigging, I'll have to consider to what degree I want to follow this. 

 

Also worth noting, Paul, that I'm seeing internally-stropped blocks in the 1980s Vairo photos, but possibly externally stropped ones in earlier photos. If I go with internally stopped blocks, I will definitely be following your recent example in your sharpie build.

[wefalck]

That could be an interesting proposition to imitate these ramshackle (litterally) arrangements. It will have to be complemented by a worn appearance of the boat overall, to look credible and not just like a botched-up modelling job 😲

 

Externally stropped blocks would be a lot easier to make ...

[JacquesCousteau]

6 hours ago, wefalck said:

That could be an interesting proposition to imitate these ramshackle (litterally) arrangements. It will have to be complemented by a worn appearance of the boat overall, to look credible and not just like a botched-up modelling job 😲

 

Externally stropped blocks would be a lot easier to make ...

I'm considering how far to go with it, especially given my very rudimentary metalworking skills (and the rather limited space and budget I have for this). Some of the simpler wire hooks seem pretty doable, at least.

 

On the camber issue, after some searching I've seen some posts suggesting 1/4-inch of height for every 1 foot across the deck as a rule of thumb. So, for a 12.67-foot wide vessel, the camber should be just over 3 inches. What I have now represents a camber of 7 inches. If I add 1/16‐inch shims to the sides of the bulkhead tops and can sand down 1/32‐inch from the centerline, I'll have a camber of about 4 inches, which I think would be close enough without totally throwing off the hull shape. I'll have to think about it.

[JacquesCousteau]

Unfortunately, the camber issue remains a problem. I had miscounted while measuring, and the current camber isn't actually of 7 inches (at full scale), but closer to a foot, on a vessel just under 13 feet wide. This is very excessive--if I were to try to use sanding alone to reduce it to 3-4 inches, I would need to remove 1/4 inch of material from the bulkheads!

 

I'm also concerned that adding 1/16-inch shims to the edges won't work very well, as I've realized that it will completely throw off the sheer line, especially at the bow. Viewed from the front, the sheer line should rise somewhat to a point at the prow, which it currently does to a degree that I think looks appropriate. Adding shims to raise the edge seems like it will likely destroy this. Raising the prow is a possible response, but it will significantly change the proportions of the hull. Possibly I could shim the bulkhead edges by 1/16 inch at the lowest point of the sheer and add smaller shims fore and aft to create a new smooth sheer, but this would require a lot of work and I'm not sure whether it would still throw off the sheer/hull proportions too much.

 

But, maybe I'm overthinking it. It's a bit hard to judge, but my sense is that the vessel shown below (from 1940) has a relatively pronounced camber, and it may be that the amount of camber varied significantly. Perhaps I don't actually need to reduce the camber to 3 inches, although I still definitely need to reduce it somewhat. That said, this may simply be very motivated reasoning on my part.

Source: https://www.bibliotecanacionaldigital.gob.cl/bnd/629/w3-article-613543.html

 

In any case, I will be setting aside modeling for a couple weeks while I travel for Thanksgiving, although I may post a bit more on historical context.