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 November 18 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.

 

[JacquesCousteau]

After a very relaxing family visit, I’m looking forward to getting back to the build. But first: by now I've discussed why the lancha chilota developed, how it changed over time, and some variations in hull form, but I haven't yet written much about how the type developed. The reason is because I have more suggestive leads and intriguing possibilities than clear answers. Despite that, I still think it's worth at least putting some thoughts and notes down, even if what follows rambles a bit. Broadly, while I don’t think it’s possible to plot out a direct line of development for the lancha chilota, what is clear is that 1) European shipwrights played a prominent role in the 19th-century shipbuilding industry in Chiloé and in Chile more generally, 2) Chilean boatyards and shipyards built large numbers of sloops, schooners, and other gaff-rigged, frame-built coastal traders, and 3) by the late 19th century, Chilean shipwrights increasingly focused their attention on smaller vessels due to economic changes. Given this context, we can understand how the lancha chilota came about in general terms.

 

As I’ve mentioned earlier, the lancha chilota originated in the area of the Chiloé archipelago in the late 1800s, alongside other vessels like the open, double-ended chalupa and the partially-decked chalupón. These vessels drew on Euro-American boatbuilding techniques, which came to replace the sewn-plank construction method that previously dominated the region. It's difficult to be more specific than that, though, or to point to more direct routes of influence that created the lancha, as there’s a lot about its origin that’s unclear.

 

A lot of existing writing is vague on the issue if not of dubious accuracy. For example, Hollander and Mertes, in The Last Sailors, describe the lancha as a direct descendant of the conquistadors' caravels. This strikes me as implausible given the vast differences in hull form and rig, and, crucially, given that chilote boatbuilders seem to have preferred sewn-plank dalcas over European-style vessels for centuries, making it unclear how they would have maintained a building tradition that would have allowed the caravel to slowly develop into the lancha over centuries. Meanwhile, José A. Garnham's Lanchas chilotas: un patrimonio histórico y cultural de Chile (Santiago: Ricaaventura, 2017) fortunately has its first chapter, about the origins of the lancha, digitally available as a sample ( https://www.ricaaventura.cl/catalogo/lanchas-chilotas-un-patrimonio-historico-y-cultural-de-chile-2/ ). Although the chapter contains some interesting hints, Garnham has to admit that the lancha's origins are unclear. Some writers, he reports claimed that the lancha developed from the dalca. Although they clearly fulfilled similar functions, a straightforward line of development strikes me as unlikely due to the absence of shared techniques or hull forms between the two vessels. Others, Garnham writes, suggested that the lancha drew more on European examples and maritime traditions. One chilote reported that a French research group thought the lancha looked similar to Breton vessels of the 18th Century. It's not clear to me, though, how such vessels would have been transmitted to Chiloé, which was an isolated outpost of the Spanish empire at the time. Others suggested that it developed from Galician small craft, as the early Spanish colonists were Galician. This is perhaps more plausible as it suggests a clear route of transition, yet it's unclear how this theory comports with the clear dominance of the dalca for centuries. Still others pointed to the brief Dutch occupations of Chiloé in 1600 and 1643 to suggest Dutch influence, claiming that the lancha was similar to the botter. But it's unclear whether the Dutch even built vessels locally during their very brief occupations. As a point of compsarison, while the Dutch may have influenced the Saveiro of Bahia in Brazil, a different type of coasting vessel, their occupation of Northeast Brazil lasted 24 years and involved a substantial number of people. It was a far deeper-reaching enterprise than their brief occupations of Chiloé. Not to mention that the lancha does not strike me as being all that similar to the botter, other than both being small gaff-rigged sloops with fairly flattened bottoms. In any case, none of these are really conclusive, and Garnham concludes the chapter reflecting on the type's uniqueness (Garnham, pg. 17-19).

 

I agree that we can't draw a straight line to the lancha from any particular European vessel. Small vessels, many of them decked with transom sterns and gaff rigs, were common all around the European Atlantic coast but in uncountably diverse forms, reflecting both local boatbuilding traditions as well as broader influences, at times leading to cases of convergent evolution. For instance, to follow up on the possible Galician influence mentioned in Garnham, the northern coast of Spain has long been a hotbed of maritime activity, and a number of distinct local types had emerged by the late 1800s. One of these, the galeón gallego (not to be confused with the galleon of the 1500s), shares similarities with the lancha chilota, being a capacious, decked, gaff-rigged sloop of similar dimensions and similar purposes, one which was also often beached by the tide for cargo handling. Yet there are clear differences, as well--notably, the galeón generally had a round rather than a transom stern. Rather than a case of direct influence from galeón to lancha, the two vessels seem to be a case of convergent evolution, with boatbuilders drawing on similar elements in order to build somewhat similar vessels for similar conditions. (For a brief history of the galeón gallego and related vessels, amply illustrated by photos, see the link in the photo source below).

 

Below: A galeón gallego, a type of Galician coasting sloop.

Source: https://bluscus.es/historia-de-los-galeones-gallegos-industriales-y-practicos/

 

Yet this doesn't answer the question of how European-style boatbuilding techniques and rigs replaced other, more local styles in Chiloé. To understand potential routes of influence, I turned to other sources.

 

The most useful source—one which I only found after spending a good bit of time combing through census records and early lithographs of ports—was Valeria Maino Prado’s La navegacieon del Maule. Una vía de conexión con el exterior, 1794-1898 (Talca, Chile: Editorial Universidad de Talca, 1996). (The book is available in full for download from the Chilean National Library here: https://www.memoriachilena.gob.cl/602/w3-propertyvalue-128835.html ). Although it focuses on the Maule region, which is several hundred miles to the north of Chiloé, and it doesn’t much discuss the specifics of boatbuilding, it’s an extremely useful source for understanding broader Chilean shipbuilding and coastal trade from the colonial period to the late 19th century. The book doesn’t explicitly tell us how the lancha chilota developed, but it provides a lot of information that helps contextualize it, helping propose a way of understanding its emergence.

 

According to Maino Prado European shipwrights played an important role in 19th century Chile. During the colonial era, European-style shipbuilding in Chile languished until the Bourbon reforms of the late 1700s, when Spanish authorities sought to improve the productivity of their empire to better compete with France and Britain. Spanish expeditions had determined that Chile had good sources of lumber for shipbuilding, and with new laws allowing free trade between Spanish ports and the empire, a small number of shipbuilders from the north of Spain—Basques, Galicians, and Asturians—arrived in Chile, setting up shop especially near the Maule river and beginning to build a number of vessels, some of them quite sizeable ocean-going ships (Maino Prado, 16-21). The wars of independence opened Chile to trade with the rest of the world and led to foreign shipwrights immigrating to the country to establish shipyards and boatyards. Among them were British (some of whom came with former Royal Navy officer Thomas Cochrane when he led the Chilean insurgent fleet), French, Germans, Americans, and Italians. In fact, as Maino Prado makes clear, the Chilean shipbuilding industry was marked by the prominent presence of foreigners. From the mid-1830s to the mid-1840s, for example, there were just two Chilean-origin shipwrights in the important Maule port of Constitución, along with six British shipbuilders, three Germans, and one Frenchman (Maino Prado, 37). Foreign shipwrights brought with them the latest in European ship design and techniques, and actively sought to adapt them to local conditions—in Constitución, for instance, Maino Prado details their efforts to create shallow-draft vessels that could easily pass over the bar at the Maule River’s mouth (Maino Prado, 28-29).

 

Maino Prado and other sources further highlight the important role of foreigners in Chiloé’s maritime sector, as well, beyond Chile as a whole. Although it’s not the focus of her book, Maino Prado notes that Chiloé also became a major center in the Chilean shipbuilding industry in the 19th century, building nearly as many registered vessels as Maule shipwrights did in 1849-1858, for example (Maino Prado, 42). As elsewhere in Chile, foreign shipwrights played an important role. In the period 1850-1866, for example, Chiloé had one British, four French, and ten Chilean-origin shipwrights (Maino Prado, 48).

 

As a side note, Maino Prado thus paints a rather different picture of Chiloé than that given by Anton Daughters in Memories of Earth and Sea (an ethnographic work on Chiloé history and identity that I’ve discussed earlier). While Daughters emphasizes Chiloé’s isolation in the nineteenth century, Maino Prado shows that Chiloé was an important center of national shipbuilding and that foreign shipwrights played an important role. Census records from 1875, 1885, and 1895, which I also examined, suggest how both scholars have a point. To Daughters’ point about Chiloé’s isolation and the continuation of small-scale, near-subsistence level economic activities among many Chilotes, census data makes it clear that Chiloé had very few foreigners overall—just 217 in 1875, out of a province-wide population of 64,536—and that labor specialization was only in its infancy in the period. While other sources make it clear that Chilotes regularly engaged in fishing for subsistence and for small-scale trade, for instance, there were only 18 people in 1875 who gave their profession as fishermen, meaning that most fishing was done as a supplemental activity by people who combined fishing with other activities (mostly farming on small farms, the most common “profession” given in the census). Much the same could be said of coastal trade—despite other sources being clear that the archipelago was linked by a thriving coastal trade, which was only growing with the expanding timber industry of the late 1800s, only 206 people gave their occupation as “sailors” in 1875, so many Chilote coastal traders would have been people who viewed sailing as a supplemental activity. On the other hand, foreigners were clearly concentrated in maritime industries. It’s difficult to track shipbuilders, as censuses seem to have lumped many under the generic “carpenter” category (in 1875 a single person was listed as a “calafate,” a term generally referring to a small-scall boatbuilder and caulker/repairer, and one person was similarly labeled a “naval constructor” in 1885), but of the 206 sailors in 1875, 70 of them were foreigners, many of them American, British, German, and Spanish. All of which is to say that, while Chiloé was indeed marked by the continuation of small-scale landholding and unspecialized labor systems (allowing for the cultural continuities Daughters identifies), the maritime sector was nonetheless particularly marked by the presence of foreigners, which helps us to understand how the lancha chilota developed with foreign influence even if we can’t fully trace specific influences. (I should also note that the nearby mainland province of Llaniquihue had many more foreigners, especially Germans, including a number in the port city of Puerto Montt, although it's not clear from the census how involved they were in shipbuilding and coastal trade).

 

Finally, Maino Prado and other sources also highlight that there was a thriving Chilean coastal trade carried out in hundreds of relatively small vessels in the nineteenth century, many of which were locally built in Chile following European-style designs. Although she doesn’t provide the particulars of ship design due to a lack of sources, Maino Prado uses registries to trace ship and boat construction, general type, and tonnage. There was a great deal of variety, but in general, while Chilean shipwrights in the first half of the 1800s regularly built everything from small sloops (balandras) of 20 tons or so, up to full-rigged ships of several hundred tons, Maino Prado notes that there was a shift toward smaller coasting vessels—especially schooners, which rapidly overtook brigs and sloops, likely for the same efficiency reasons that US coastal trade underwent the same change—in the later 1800s. This had a number of causes, including the difficulties that Chilean shipwrights (who built with wood) had in competing with large metal-hulled foreign steamships that became more prominent in oceanic trade with the construction of the Suez Canal, the expansion of coastal trade routes and small-scale coastal trade in response to the Spanish blockade of major Chilean ports in 1866, and the growing need for coastal trade to supply the expanding nitrate industry (Maino Prado, 52, 63-68, 79-80). In any case, Chilean shipwrights increasingly concentrated on smaller vessels, until by the late 1800s most were largely focused on building harbor lighters and similar craft (which, concurrently, became increasingly large in this period due to the growth of oceanic trading ships) along with some coastal traders.

 

Chiloé was hardly immune to such developments, building a large number of European-style vessels. The 1875 census, for instance, records that the port of Ancud in Chiloé had a yearly entry of 132 ships averaging around 570 tons each, and that the province’s lumber trade and local commerce in that year involved some 20 schooners of 120-130 tons each and 213 sloops of 40-50 tons each (tonnages that should be treated as very rough estimates--I should also note that it's unclear to me whether is counting all coasting vessels that passed through, or just ones that were registered in Chiloé province). Maino Prado also includes, on the basis of admittedly incomplete data, registries for a number of vessels built in Chiloé in the 19th century for local and national owners, ranging from sloops in the 20-40 ton range, schooners in the 40-50 ton range, up to a few ships of several hundred tons. Details, unfortunately, are few and far between about such coastal traders, in Chiloé and elsewhere in Chile. I haven’t had much luck finding anything specific in early images of Chilean ports (for an interesting blog post on early images of Puerto Montt, including on lithographers’ practice of adding fictional generic vessels to harbor scenes in order to promote ports, see: https://ceph-puerto-montt.blogspot.com/2011/03/nuevo-orden-cronologico-primeras.html?m=1 ).

 

Nonetheless, a couple points are clear and have important implications for the development of the lancha chilota. First, Chiloé’s (and Chile as a whole’s) maritime sector had a high degree of foreign, especially European, influence from the early 1800s onward, and a wide variety of vessels were built in Chilean shipyards and boatyards. There were clearly many paths, then, through which European techniques could take root in Chiloé, allowing for the development of the lancha chilota. Second, Chilean shipbuilding over time developed to specialize in the production of smaller vessels, including open harbor lighters and decked 1- and 2-masted, gaff-rigged coastal traders. Aspects of both types may have influenced the lancha chilota, which could plausibly be seen as either a decked and rigged version of an open launch, or as a miniaturized version of a coastal trading sloop. This tendency toward producing smaller vessels would have especially met the needs of Chilotes for small, cheap, but capacious and seaworthy vessels to link together the archipelago’s scattered towns and farms.

 

All of which is to say: it’s likely impossible to trace an exact route by which the lancha chilota came to be. Barring further information, such as shipwrights’ memoirs, extensive shipbuilding plans, or other sources that likely don’t even exist today (although I’d love to see more research on this), we can’t plot out a straight line from, say, some particular European coastal sloop to the lancha chilota. But we can see how the lancha chilota developed and replaced the sewn-plank dalca in the context of extensive European influence in ship- and boat-building, and a general economic-driven trend in Chilean shipbuilding to focus on ever-smaller vessels.

[JacquesCousteau]

While I slowly add the bolt rope to the sail for my Canoa de Rancho build (which should be finished shortly!), I've gotten back into the Lancha Chilota. When I left off, I was trying to figure out the deck camber, as it was apparent from photos that the camber given in the plans was excessive, but I couldn't find anything about what the actual camber should be. Fortunately, I was poking around José A. Garnham's website and found that it includes a number of his sketches from research giving various dimensions from several lanchas and other vessels in the early 1990s. (Oddly, the sketches don't seem to be linked to from any of his posts, but are findable if you view a photo and use the buttons below it to scroll, one photo at a time, through all photos). Among them was one drawing of the Maria Oriana, an admittedly unusual lancha--it was only decked on the foreward half, as the owner ran out of resources at the end to completely deck it--that specified a camber of 20 cm, or just under 8 inches. (I wonder if this vessel's camber was recorded, unlike that of other vessels sketched, because the odd deck arrangement made it much easier to measure without having to go below deck).

 

Source: http://lanchaschilotas.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/IMG_2945-2L.jpg

 

This was a big relief. Based on some other vessel types, I had been considering going as low as 3-4 inches of camber, but knew this would throw off the lines of the top of the hull, given that the plans specify about 12 inches of camber. 8 inches of maximum camber seemed much more doable. So, I marked out the new deck height on the bulkheads, based on the proportions (2/3 of existing camber). I then used my mini-plane and sanded. As I got close, I began checking with a batten for fairness. Ultimately, I only reached the fully reduced camber on a few frames, but the others are within 1/32-inch (or 1 inch at scale) in order to keep the deck properly faired. I can live with a maximum deck camber of about 9 inches instead of 8, as it's much closer to accurate than 12 was. The lines of the deck now look much flatter, and the model should look much closer to the photos I've seen.

 

Before:

 

After:

 

 

I also added some thread along the sheer line on both sides to check alignment, finding a few edges that needed to be raised or lowered. Of course, it's only upon taking the photo below that I realized the thread had popped off the first bulkhead, which was easy enough to fix.

 

I've also been using a batten along the top of the bulkheads to fair the deck besides just at the center line and sheer lines. Once the top is fair, I'll be adding a 1/32‐inch false deck--this will be my first planked deck so I'd like a firm backing--and then will be adding a sternpost and then planking the hull.

Edited December 12 by JacquesCousteau
Added image

[wefalck]

I think you painted a quite convincing picture of the history (or of the lack of knowledge about it). Relating the lancha to the botter is bizarre, as neither the shape nor the construction bears any resemblance to it. A botter doesn't have a true keel, but rather a wide bottom plank, for instance.

 

It has been observed in other regions of the world that local boatbuilders began to adapt their types, when European tools, materials, or ways of producing half-finished goods, such as sawn lumber became available, resulting in more efficient processes, albeit at higher capital cost. Local boatbuilders may have also copied features of European craft because they were either more efficient or more 'fashionable'. Examples are the Inuit that started to use European sawn planks in their kajak construction or the Arab dhows that adopted the high square stern of the European 16th galeons once they came into contact with the Portuguese.

 

Around the European coasts boats and small trading or fishing craft often were built be part-time builders, whose main occupation may been farming for instance. They were often built for their own use, sometimes with the advice and help of a professional boatbuilder. So it is quite conceivable that locals would put together boats basec on whatever example they may have come across.

 

[JacquesCousteau]

3 hours ago, wefalck said:

I think you painted a quite convincing picture of the history (or of the lack of knowledge about it). Relating the lancha to the botter is bizarre, as neither the shape nor the construction bears any resemblance to it. A botter doesn't have a true keel, but rather a wide bottom plank, for instance.

 

It has been observed in other regions of the world that local boatbuilders began to adapt their types, when European tools, materials, or ways of producing half-finished goods, such as sawn lumber became available, resulting in more efficient processes, albeit at higher capital cost. Local boatbuilders may have also copied features of European craft because they were either more efficient or more 'fashionable'. Examples are the Inuit that started to use European sawn planks in their kajak construction or the Arab dhows that adopted the high square stern of the European 16th galeons once they came into contact with the Portuguese.

 

Around the European coasts boats and small trading or fishing craft often were built be part-time builders, whose main occupation may been farming for instance. They were often built for their own use, sometimes with the advice and help of a professional boatbuilder. So it is quite conceivable that locals would put together boats basec on whatever example they may have come across.

 

Thanks! I had noticed that the botter looked pretty different from the lancha in hull shape and use of leeboards, but I didn't realize that the construction details were so different as well. That's also fascinating about the dhows and Inuit vessels. It's worth noting that Chiloé wasn't alone in Chile in shifting away from traditional vessels to more European-style boats. Maino Prado also briefly discusses the replacement of traditional seal-skin and reed rafts in the fishing industry with wooden chalupas and similar vessels in the 19th century. As for who built (and owned) lanchas, this is a topic I need to research more, but it seems likely that there was some degree of specialization involved--less "everyone built boats in their backyard" and more "most carpenters, of which there were many, had at least some boatbuilding knowledge"--but this is a subject for further work.

[JacquesCousteau]

A bit more progress. First, on the stern, I planked the transom. Some photos seemed to suggest somewhat wider planks on the transom than on the sides of the hull, so I went with relatively wide planks. (If further evidence suggests that's not accurate, I can just scribe extra plank lines, and this will all be painted anyway). I also used relatively thick, 1/16 inch thick basswood, so as to provide a better gluing surface at the transom.

 

As can be seen, I also started work on the sternpost. On my model, this will just be a small triangular piece, as that's allthat would be visible. On an actual lancha, much of the sternpost is internal, running upwards along the interior of the transom (as seen in the image below of the more recently constructed lancha La Voladora), and rabbeted below it to provide a solid ending point for the plank.

Source: https://lavoladorachiloe.blogspot.com/2008_06_08_archive.html?m=0

 

I cut out the space for the sternpost, then cut it from the same material as the keel:

 

 

It will be more fully shaped later and then joined with the keel.

 

I also did some more work on fairing the hull and the deck, adding a few shims here and there and sanding down a few high points. This hull is proving very challenging to fair. Partly this is because it's quite a rounded, bulky vessel, but I also have to wonder how accurate the plans are for producing a fair hull or if I screwed up on something.

 

I also started work on the subdeck. The plans include two top-down views of the hull, so I simply traced one on tracing paper.

 

As it turned out, the tracing was a bit off from the model, being overlength (and slightly too wide or too narrow at many bulkheads):

 

I've begun marking up the tracing to get a better fitting subdeck. I plan to make one that's slightly oversized and then sand it down.

[JacquesCousteau]

Unfortunately, I just realized that I made a mistake. Checking photos of the lancha Quenita, it's clear that the deck runs over the top of the transom.

Source: https://lavoladorachiloe.blogspot.com/2008_06_08_archive.html?m=0

 

Unfortunately, I already trimmed the top of my transom planking, so the subdeck will also run over the top. Given that this will all be painted, I may see if I can make the exoosed end of the subdeck invisible with the judicious use of filler and sanding.

 

[Paul Le Wol]

Hi Jacques, your Chilota is coming along very nicely. In post #32 the second photo shows that one of the deck planks looks somewhat wider than the others. Do you think that is a structural thing? 

[JacquesCousteau]

50 minutes ago, Paul Le Wol said:

Hi Jacques, your Chilota is coming along very nicely. In post #32 the second photo shows that one of the deck planks looks somewhat wider than the others. Do you think that is a structural thing? 

Thanks! Very good eye, I hadn't noticed the wider plank, and excellent question. Looking at other photos of the sane vessel, it seems like it has wider deck planking on the side of the main hatch and where a cleat is located, so it may be structural.

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

 

That said, photos of other vessels like the Quenita, below, seem to show pretty consistent deck planking, and sketches by José Garnham don't mention anything about wider structural deck planks.

Source: https://lanchaschilotas.com/dscn7150-2/

 

The details of the deck planking are hard to make out in older black-and-white photos.

 

So, the wider planks may well be structural on the vessel that Vairo sailed aboard and photographed, but from other evidence, it doesn't seem like it was a widespread practice. Maybe it was a characteristic of a particular boatbuilder? Thanks for asking, it's definitely an interesting issue.

 

[wefalck]

It doesn't need to be a structural thing. If you look carefully, not all the planks are the same width at all. Perhaps they just used what they had or the width worked out better with cut-out for the hatch - one tries to avoid to have to caulk around a notch for the hatch, when you can run the plank straight along the edge of the hatch.

 

[JacquesCousteau]

39 minutes ago, wefalck said:

It doesn't need to be a structural thing. If you look carefully, not all the planks are the same width at all. Perhaps they just used what they had or the width worked out better with cut-out for the hatch - one tries to avoid to have to caulk around a notch for the hatch, when you can run the plank straight along the edge of the hatch.

 

Excellent point!