Lynx 1812 by SaltyScot - Manuta-Panart - 1:62 - building as Mosquidobit

[Dr PR]

Trevor is right about the instability of the heavily rigged American topsail schooners. The British originally had more conservative rigs, but the American vessels could just run away from them to avoid a fight. When the Brits did start using the larger tophamper they learned just how dangerous it was. I think it was in one of Chapelle's books he repeated a British captains story of a topsail schooner that was passing his ship running with the wind in heavy seas. The schooner rode up on one swell, dove down bow first into the next, then cartwheeled stern over bow and dove out of sight in seconds taking all hands with it!

 

I looked at Chapelle's drawings of the Lynx in "The Search For Speed Under Sail" and in both the hull drawing on page 217 and the sail plan on page 219 the fore mast rake was about 13 degrees and the main mast was about 14 degrees. The drawing says the vessel was built in Baltimore in 1812 and the lines were taken at Portsmouth, May 1816, and the plans are at the U.S. National Museum, Smithsonian Institution. These rake angles are common for Baltimore clippers, and usually the greater rake is on the main mast! If you look at the photo of the Lynx model at the U. S. National Museum on page 216 it looks as if the main mast has a bit greater rake than the fore mast.

 

However, if you look at his drawings of the Musquidobit on pages 84 and 85 of "The Baltimore Clipper" the rake angles are 17 degrees for the fore mast and the main mast is 14 degrees! This "draught" is labeled as taken at Portsmouth Yard, May 1816!!

 

Note: In both cases I measured the angle to the waterline marked on the drawings. But the hull plan "waterlines" are drawn parallel to the bottom of the keel. The keel had greater draft at the stern than at the bow.

 

And to confuse things even more, in Chapelle's "History of the American Sailing Navy" Plate X after page 74 (a photo of an original sail plan drawing) shows an 80 foot schooner named Lynx with a foremast rake of 10 degrees and the main mast at 11 degrees. He says (page 292) this schooner was built in 1814 at Washington or Georgetown, and was lost in 1820 in the West Indies (page 354) while still in American service!!

 

If you figure this one out let me know!

Edited 9 hours ago by Dr PR

[Kenchington]

My best guess is that the explanation lies in Chapelle having an enormous field to explore and only one lifetime in which to do it. He worked fast, covered a lot of ground but in process made mistakes, which fall to us of later generations to correct. No criticism there: Where would we be today if he had spent his time perfecting "American Sailing Ships" at the cost of never publishing his other works at all?

 

I suspect (1) that only the one Lynx / Musquidobit had her lines taken off, (2) that that job was done in Portsmouth (England), where they seem to have had a dock set up for the purpose, (3) that the original draught is still in the Admiralty collection in London (probably now in Greenwich), (4) that a copy of that draught (either a photo reproduction of some kind or else Chapelle's re-drafting) is in the Smithsonian, and (5) that when he re-drew the plans at smaller scale for his books, he was not as careful as he might have been. If so, anyone building a model (or a full-size replica!) has the option of raking the masts as seems right, given what is known of other, similar vessels, or paying for a copy of the original draught. 

 

Trevor

[SaltyScot]

4 hours ago, Dr PR said:

Note: In both cases I measured the angle to the waterline marked on the drawings. But the hull plan "waterlines" are drawn parallel to the bottom of the keel. The keel had greater draft at the stern than at the bow.

 

Thank you, Phil. I will remeasure the rake on the Musquidobit plans using the base of the keel as a waterline and see what I get. I am planning on getting this as historically correct as I can but, that being said, I doubt anyone visiting our home will have a protractor with them  

[SaltyScot]

16 minutes ago, Kenchington said:

If so, anyone building a model (or a full-size replica!) has the option of raking the masts as seems right, given what is known of other, similar vessels, or paying for a copy of the original draught. 

 

At least we have a window to work in. From what Phil has said here and in other conversations, it would appear we are looking at numbers between 11 and 15 degrees. You made a good point, Trevor, about the scaling down of the plans for the Chapelle book and the inherent errors therein, quite valid. To be 100 % correct here one would really need to get their hands on the plans you mentioned that might be at Greenwich at this point.

[SardonicMeow]

I grabbed the low res image of the plans from https://prints.rmg.co.uk/products/lines-plan-of-musquidobit-1813-j7636

 

Brought them into Fusion, and made a quick measure of the angles.

I get 13.4 degrees for the foremast and 10.1 degrees for the mainmast.  These might be off by a few tenths of a degree since I was just eyeballing my drafting lines in Fusion.

 

I've done this for a few other schooners, and the masts are never parallel.  There is always some difference in the angles of the rake.

 

[SaltyScot]

2 hours ago, SardonicMeow said:

I get 13.4 degrees for the foremast and 10.1 degrees for the mainmast.  These might be off by a few tenths of a degree since I was just eyeballing my drafting lines in Fusion.

 

 

Excellent, thank you, Peter. I think I will go with those figures and be done with it. I recently looked into Fusion with regards to 3D designs. I have the "home use only" free version. Maybe I should spend some time getting to know it better. Up to now I have used Tinkercad more than anything else which, since they added the new sketch tool, has gotten a lot better.