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

[JacquesCousteau]

Thanks, all!

 

It took a bit longer than I thought, but the sails are now just about done, needing only the boltrope. As mentioned earlier, I began by painting a large coffee filter in a mix of acrylic paint, white glue, and water and letting it dry on stretched plastic wrap.

 

Looking at photos of lanchas, there was a lot of variety in sail panel widths. The lancha below, for instance, has 8 panels across the gaff sail:

Source: https://www.bibliotecanacionaldigital.gob.cl/bnd/629/w3-article-164339.html

 

While this one has twelve or thirteen (and also shows lots of repairs). 

Source: https://www.bibliotecanacionaldigital.gob.cl/bnd/629/w3-article-613540.html

 

And at the other end of the scale, this one has six:

Source: https://www.bibliotecanacionaldigital.gob.cl/bnd/629/w3-article-164310.html

 

I'm not really sure why there was such variation. As far as I can tell, there isn't a strong correlation between fewer panels and more recent dates, which you would expect if larger strips of fabric or stronger fabric came into use over time. I suspect it just depended on what materials were available at the time where the lancha was built. In any case, I decided that making a six-panel gaff sail would be as accurate as one with a lot of smaller panels, but would have fewer chances for something to go wrong. I cut the panels accordingly, as well as some thin strips for the edge bands.

 

To glue the panels together, I used Aleene's Fabric Fusion glue, which dries strong but transparent and doesn't wrinkle the filter paper nearly as much as white glue would. I put plastic wrap over the template, and then began gluing the panels together. I overlapped them by about 3/64-1/16 of an inch, which is maybe a little oversized for scale, but I was worried that the sail wouldn't hold together well if I went smaller. Once it dried, I took out the template, outlined the sail, and cut.

 

 

I then did the same to make the jib.

 

This process seemed to work all right, but I did run into some trouble with the thin cheap plastic wrap sticking to the glue residue and ripping rather than peeling off. This was especially true for the jib. In the future, I might go for a thicker, sturdier plastic sheet instead of the cheapest plastic wrap around (which also, I should note, was tricky to get flat as it bunched to itself extremely easily). I also noticed that, between the gluing and peeling the plastic off, the sails got a little more wrinkled than I would have liked.

 

I posted about the wrinkling issue in a separate thread, and received a lot of helpful comments. While I figured out how to deal with the wrinkling, I added the reinforcement strips along the edges and the corner reinforcements. In hindsight, I probably could have made the edge strips a bit thinner.

 

After considering the advice I received about how to iron (or not) the sail, I decided to run some tests on scrap material. Unable to get baking parchment paper, I placed the sail material between two sheets of wax paper and put a rag over the top. On low heat, the iron didn't do anything, probably because the rag is pretty thick. Higher heat did press the sail material a little flatter. On a whim, I then slightly dampened the sail material and tried that (still in the wax paper and under the rag), which caused the paint to run. Lesson learned! For the actual sails, I carefully ironed them without moisture between wax paper and under the cloth. It helped a bit, although they're not the smoothest of sails.

 

At this point, all that the sails need before being added to the mast/spars is the bolt rope. I should note that I have not seen any photos showing reef points on a lancha sail. I'm not entirely sure why, as they certainly faced strong winds. According to Clinton R. Edwards's article on the Lancha Chilota, they usually hugged the coast and simply put into the nearest bay whenever the weather got too rough.

 

Unfortunately, at this point I realized that I made a mistake somewhere in the process, and the jib is slightly too large to properly fit under the jib halyard block--the tip of the sail will be basically in the block. I'm not sure how that happened, given that I had checked with the template. I think I'll redo the jib halyard block strop to be shorter which should raise it sufficiently to work with this sail.

[Jim Lad]

Very nice looking sails!

 

John

[Glen McGuire]

37 minutes ago, JacquesCousteau said:

This process seemed to work all right, but I did run into some trouble with the thin cheap plastic wrap sticking to the glue residue and ripping rather than peeling off.

Instead of plastic wrap, you might try wax paper.  It's easier to handle than thin plastic wrap.  That's what I use for similar applications.  

 

Regardless, great job on those sails, JC!  They really look nice. 

Edited June 21 by Glen McGuire

[Keith Black]

 I echo Glen's comments. 

[JacquesCousteau]

Thanks, all! I'll give wax paper a try next time instead of plastic.

 

Some minor progress to report. First, I remade the jib halyard block's stropping and the loop around the forestay. It's much shorter now, which is more accurate to photos and will allow the jib to fit properly. After fitting it, I tensioned everything with thread and applied a bit of watered-down white glue so that it would properly hold the tight fold into the eye of the forestay.

 

 

I also worked more on the jib. The bolt rope is made of .35mm rope from Ropes of Scale, glued in place with more Aleene's Fabric Fusion.

 

As can be seen above, a lot of the seams had shiny glue residue. To get rid of this, I took advantage of a brief bit of sun--Mexico City is quite rainy these days--to apply a matte transparent spray. A couple of coats on each side later, and the residue is practically invisible. The spray also adds a bit of strength and resistance to the sail, which is a nice bonus.

 

Next, I need to do the same to the gaff sail, and add the running rigging. I also need to work out how best to make the hanks (to hold the jib to the forestay) and mast hoops. According to Vairo, by the 1980s these were usually made of wire. I think I'll do some tests with 28-gauge galvanized wire and with thin black rope.

[Paul Le Wol]

Jacques, that is a fine looking sail.

[FriedClams]

Catching up on your progress and everything looks great - sails, anchor, water bottle and logs.  A shout-out to @wefalck for sharing the bark technique, very convincing - surprisingly so!

 

Gary

[JacquesCousteau]

Thanks, all! Yes, Wefalck's bark technique is really excellent. If anyone gives it a try, my main advice is to not judge it until it's dry, as it looks odd and fuzzy when the paint is still wet but really sharpens up once it dries.

 

I've continued to advance on the sails. I added the bolt rope to the gaff sail and, taking advantage of a brief break in the clouds, applied the transparent spray. I then measured and drilled holes where needed to attach the various bits of rigging.

 

I also added a loop of rope to the clew of the jib, as photos showed that the jib sheet ran through a loop here.

 

Next, it was time to start actually attaching the sails. After looking at several photos, I decided that thin wire mast hoops would be the most realistic-looking option. I made them out of 28-gauge wire, wrapped around a length of dowel. The dowel was a little oversized, so I trimmed a bit off the ends before gluing them shut with superglue.

 

Next, lacing the mast hoops to the sail. A lot of other build logs show people adding the mast hoops directly to the sail and then sliding the whole thing onto the mast, which which would definitely be easier, but with everything already on my mast, this option wouldn't work for me. I drew inspiration from diagrams in John Leather’s The Gaff Rig Handbook and examples in a lot of build logs to figure out how best to loop it. I experimented with using fly tying thread, but found it a bit too thin and tricky to work with as strands kept coming off it when threading it. Instead, I went with. 35mm rope. Initially, after looping it through itself around the hoop and running it through the eyelet twice (once from each side), I tied a simple knot on each side with the remaining thread, as shown below:

 

I had a hard time getting it tight on each side, though, and was worried that it was a bit bulky. So I retried by just tying the loose ends off to each other.

 

I'm still deciding whether the first or second option looks best--feel free to weigh in! Both are simplifications from actual practice, but completely following how it was actually done would result in a very bulky knot here. While I decide, I've been attaching the lacing to the mast hoops.

 

Finally, I'm trying to figure out how to attach the sail to the gaff spar and boom. It's a bit tricky. I've seen some photos where the boom very clearly has a continuous rope lacing, and others where the gaff spar very clearly uses robands. So both options seem to have been used. But would a single boat combine both methods--e.g., continuous on the boom and robands on the gaff--or would it make more sense to be consistent?

[wefalck]

Glad to have been of service ...

 

As to the robands vs. continous lacing, I have seen both used on the same sail. I didn't check on the photographs, but was the foot of the sail actually tied to the boom? On vernacular craft sails were often loose-footed, as this allowed tricing them up quickly and thus take the pressure out of a sail e.g. in an emergency.

 

Whether and how a sail was tied to the boom may also be depending on whether the boom was used as a cargo derrick. Robands may be easier to untie than to unravel a continuous lacing.

 

[Glen McGuire]

44 minutes ago, JacquesCousteau said:

I'm still deciding whether the first or second option looks best--feel free to weigh in!

I like the 2nd option.   The knot and rope look like they lay more naturally than the first.

[JacquesCousteau]

Thanks, @Glen McGuire! I agree, I think the second option looks less bulky. 

 

Thanks, @wefalck, it's good to know that robands and continuous lacing can be mixed. While it would make a lot of sense to leave the foot of the gaff sail loose, photos show it was attached. Below, the looped continuous lacing is very clearly shown:

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

 

Of course, that photo's from the early 1980s, so I wanted to check earlier photos as well. The photo below is from 1940 and shows what look to me like robands:

Source: https://www.bibliotecanacionaldigital.gob.cl/bnd/629/w3-article-613541.html

 

At this point, I'm leaning toward robands on both gaff and boom, as I think it might use less of my dwindling supply of .35mm rope.

[JacquesCousteau]

Continuing on the sail, I first laced it to the mast hoops, securing all the knots with a dab of superglue. The photo below is from before trimming the loose ends.

 

Next, the robands on the gaff. I was initially going to just loop the rope through the eyelet in the sail and then directly around the gaff, as below.

 

But, looking at photos, I decided it would look more accurate to first do a half hitch through the eyelet around the boltrope, and then around the gaff, as below. Subtle, but worth it.

 

As with the mast hoops, I first tied off everything around the sail before attaching the gaff spar.

 

The throat took some thought, as I wasn't sure whether it should be attached to the gaff or the mast, and once I decided the former, it wasn't clear how to tie it off, as it's located at the gaff jaws. After a bit of searching, I noticed in the photo below that there was a thin rope running around the gaff jaws.

Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/luchinmardones/5232587713/in/photostream/lightbox/

 

 

After seeing it in a few other photos, I now think that the throat was simply tied off around the jaws on many lanchas, so I did that, as seen below.

 

To make the robands, I used the same "fake splice" as I've used for stropping blocks: tie a half hitch, secure with a bit of glue, and trim the ends tightly.

 

A quick check, with the gaff temporarily held at the right angle with scrap thread and wire, to make sure none of the angles are wrong.

 

For the boom, I ultimately decided to go with the continuous loop instead of robands. While it at first looks like the continuous loop uses more rope, that doesn't take into account that each roband needs excess rope that gets trimmed after tying the knot. Handling it as a continuous loop was much easier than doing separate robands. That said, while I've seen a number of photos with a continuous loop lacing on the boom, none of them show that on the gaff spar, so this is accurate.

 

Finally, the photo below shows that, unlike the rest of the mast where hoops were used, the tack was held in place with a wrapping of rope.

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

 

This was a pretty straightforward matter to represent.

 

With that, the gaff sail itself is finished! Next up, I need to figure out how to properly represent the hanks on the jib, and add the running rigging. At this point, I have about 1.5 feet of the .35mm rigging left, hopefully I won't need much for the jib.