Muscongus Bay Lobster Smack by JacquesCousteau - Model Shipways - 1:32 - Rescaled and Modified

[wefalck]

Somehow, this project had slipped below my radar until today ... 🫣

[JacquesCousteau]

After a bit more work with the sanding sticks, both sides are now faired. This hull has been much, much easier to fair than my Lancha Chilota build was. The only real issue has been that I think I didn't quite get bulkhead 2 seated properly so it ended up being less sanded than the other bulkheads.

 

I also realized that I needed to build up the area around and just aft of the opening for the rudder, as it was a bit low. I added some scrap and sanded it fair later.

 

Next up, attaching the outer pieces of the keel, stem, and sternpost.

 

The joint of the stem turned out nice and tight. It's good to see that my rescaling and conversion for laser cutting didn't ruin these parts!

 

 

Next up, I'll be starting planking. This will be my main modification from the kit design*, as I'll be doing lapstrake instead of carvel planking. This will definitely be a challenge, and I'm looking at other build logs for inspiration. Druxey's Greenwich Hospital Barge log has some great information for lapstrake planking in a relatively small build.

 

 

*I had almost tried to reshape the bow to do away with the beakhead and to be more vertical, but I realized that, besides causing difficulties in fairing the hull, it would also substantially reduce the area to affix the bowsprit. Modeling something like the Muscongus Bay sloop photos I've shared with plumb bows would probably be easier as a complete scratch build rather than a rescaled kit.

[wefalck]

Lapstrake/clinker planking isn't more difficult than carvel actually. One needs to carefully layout the strakes.

 

Chamfering the planks needs to be done carefully. It may be helpfully to looks up a couple of YouTube videos (e.g. on Scandinavian boatbuilding) to see how it is done in full-size practice.

 

As always, the garboard plank is the most challenging.

 

[JacquesCousteau]

Thanks, @wefalck! The chamfering shouldn't be too bad, I think. Working out the run of the planking around the overhanging stern is a little tricky, though, and I'll have to take some time on it.

 

I was curious to know whether the kit designed precut planks could be at all modified to serve as the basis for at least some of the lapstrake planks. This could in theory help a little with the complexity of the stern, and would also enable me to use the wood that's already been laser-cut. Looking around at images, it seems like most vessels had around 15-18 strakes of planking. (See below, for instance--granted, this is a deeper Friendship Sloop.)

Source

 

The kit design has 11 including an extra-wide sheer plank (which could be split in half or so to be about doubled). Both photos and kit are, of course, caravel planked. I'm assuming that a lapstrake planked vessel would probably use a similar number of planks, or perhaps very slightly fewer (as I'd imagine that it would be easier to use slightly wider planks rather than narrower ones, given the need to overlap planks. Taking a few preliminary measurements, it looks like the largest bulkhead measures around 2 inches. The precut planks are generally around 3/16-inch wide. So, if they were overlapped by, say, about 3/64‐inch, that would lead to around 15 strakes per side. Of course I need to do a lot more planning work, but I think I may be able to use the precut planks as the basis for at least some of the planks. I'll have to line off the hull and check how things look first, though.

 

I thought I would try to dry-fit a precut garboard strake just to see what it would look like. I found it extremely difficult to bend into shape, even when soaked and heated. There's a pretty drastic twist from the stern to amidships, then another at the bow, over a fairly short distance of a little under 6 inches. I then checked with my digital calipers and found that the 1/32-inch thick basswood I had bought was actually 3/64 inches thick! (Dimensions shown in millimeters. 3/64 in = 1.19mm; 1/32 in = 0.79mm).

 

I began planing it down to size with my mini-plane. This went pretty quickly, although I had to check repeatedly to make sure I wasn't angling the wood and creating an uneven thickness. Below: getting closer.

 

And finally there!

 

After being thinned, the plank bent easily into place even without being soaked or heated.

 

Looking at it, my sense was that it looked a little too wide, especially aft. However, I soon realized that it would actually look narrower due to the overlap of the plank above. If I set the overlap for around 3/64 inch, it should look pretty good. It's also worth noting that, based on the photo below showing the stern of a Maine lapstrake sailing vessel, the Whistler, with a similar overhanging stern (although it's rather smaller than the vessel I'm modeling), it looks like having a wide garboard plank aft was entirely possible. In this case it's combined with a triangular deadwood piece, which is interesting to see although I don't think I'll be adding that.

Source

 

Anyway, I clearly have a lot more work to do on this, especially with lining out the hull and planning the chamfers, but even just fiddling around with the precut planks is helping me get a sense of how the strakes should run, especially at the stern.

Edited September 24, 2025 by JacquesCousteau
Added images

[JacquesCousteau]

I've finally gotten the garboard on. This ended up being a more complex process than I initially thought it would be. Looking at the kit designed garboard, I couldn't shake the feeling that, while it would work perfectly for a caravel-planked hull, it didn't quite have the right lines for lapstrake planking. It was a little wide in parts, had some bulges, and nosedived a bit toward the bow--which, besides giving a slightly awkward run, also made it very difficult to properly twist the plank there as it narrowed so much that there was almost no leverage. I also found that the thinned plank looked a little too thin next to the keel.

 

So, I reshaped the plank quite a bit, narrowing it and removing bulges to get a nice, smooth line. Once I was satisfied with the run, I marked its edge on the bulkheads and marked out a slightly higher forrward tip. I then transferred the markings to semi-opaque Tamiya masking tape, so as to cut a new garboard. I decided to thin these planks to 1mm instead of.79mm. I also decided to make the garboard in two parts so as to better handle the sharp twists. Below, the aft garboards are drying in place. They still need some final shaping along the upper edge, but given the pronounced twist, it's easier to leave them slightly wide for now, and shape them to the line once they've had the twist added.

 

While working on the garboard, I also painted the interior of where the wells will be located. I'm considering leaving one well partially opened, and thought it would be easiest to paint everything I could now before the hull is closed up (although of course I'll still need to paint the inside of the planking). This isn't an original idea, @Desertanimal did the same on his kitbash (and it looked great) so I'm copying him on this.

 

Here we can see the full garboard strake. I think it has a nice smooth run that should provide a good basis for the other planks, without going too high at the stem. (As can be seen, the centerboard has gotten a bit banged up, and was briefly stuck in the raised position due to excess glue. The paint needs some touch-up.)

 

 

 

Now that the garboard is on, I need to line out the remaining planking.

[JacquesCousteau]

I've been working on trying to line out the hull planking. It looks like a lower band of 3 strakes, and two upper bands of 4 strakes each, should work well and will end the lower band right at the top of the sternpost.

 

That said, I've been having some trouble lining off the hull. Close to the stern, the chart tape has to be basically "edge bent," which it doesn't at all want to do, leading to a lot of buckling that makes it tricky to see whether the lines are fair and even to bring the tape in line with the sternpost.

 

[druxey]

Use thread instead of tape.

[JacquesCousteau]

3 hours ago, druxey said:

Use thread instead of tape.

Thanks! I've tried using thread soaked in glue and dampened before, but I never got it to stick. This time, I decided to just secure it at each bulkhead with a small dab of white glue, which I could then dampen to loosen when I needed to adjust the run a bit. The thread is much more precise than the chart tape, which is nice. For instance, in the photo below, the run is very slightly off at the bulkhead just aft of the black-painted portion, being slightly too close to the keel. I hadn't been able to see that before with the chart tape, but thanks to the thread, I was able to adjust.

 

The runs of the planking bands look pretty good now (the slight wonkiness at the sternpost is because I had trouble gluing the thread down there, so one side glued in at a slightly different angle than the other).

 

 

I'll let it sit overnight to look over with a fresh eye tomorrow, and then it will be time to mark everything out and begin planking.

Edited October 16, 2025 by JacquesCousteau

[JacquesCousteau]

I've started planking!

 

After making some adjustments to the run of the threads, I was happy with my planking bands. Before I could start planking, I needed to prep the lands on the garboard. I'm doing a somewhat simplified lapstrake construction in which the planks are beveled at a 45-degree angle at the bow and the stern, so that the strakes lie flush there. (This part I shape before the plank is attached to the hull). Over most of the strake, though, they overlap, and the lower strake needs to be slightly beveled for the upper strake to overlap it over a flat surface. Following the example from Druxey's Greenwich Hospital Barge build, I made a small sanding block about the width of a plank, with sandpaper over half of the surface. That way I can place the sandpaper-less side against the bulkhead and sand the lands into the lower strake at the correct angle to receive the upper strake.

 

Once I sanded the lands into the garboard strake (which is barely visible in the photo below), I marked the overlap so that I could properly mark and fit the next plank.

 

I then used masking tape to mark off the plank shape. I found that the plank shape nearly matched the kit design for the next plank, which is not surprising. The one issue is that, as can be seen below (kinda--the marks on the tape are very faint), the kit designed plank is a bit too narrow towards the bow.

 

So, I decided that this strake will, like the garboard, also be made of two planks. Looking at photos, it seems that it wasn't uncommon for similarly-sized Friendship Sloops to have multi-plank strakes (usually a bit more irregular than the nicely laid-out butt shift patterns we strive for in modeling), so I don't think it's unreasonable. It also makes fitting the planks substantially easier. So I chopped off the too-narrow fore portion of the kit-designed planks and did the required adjusting, and then soaked and bent them into shape.

 

After both aft planks dried, I went ahead and glued them in place. I realized that clamping lapstrake planks is a little different from carvel. With carvel planks, you're not just clamping against the bulkheads, but sideways against the previous strake. With lapstrake, you can't really do that, because there's nothing to keep your plank from just sliding down. I had a very slight adjustment to make to the curve of the plank, and ended up using a block of scrap wood, as can be seen, that happened to be the right size to fit between the plank and the keel. In further strakes, this won't really be possible.

 

 

With the aft plank on, the way the plank transitions from overlapping to flush at the sternpost is visible.

Edited October 18, 2025 by JacquesCousteau

[wefalck]

You are off to a good start 👍🏻

 

I think some people also use small notched blocks of wood to keep the planks in place and that they nail to the bulkheads temporarily (but you risk splitting them).

[Paul Le Wol]

Looking great Jacques!

[JacquesCousteau]

Thanks, all!

 

I've now finished the first band of planking. This has, as always, been a slow process--tracing templates on tape, cutting out the plank, adjusting to fit, soaking it and letting it dry in shape, fine-tuning, and gluing--but an enjoyable one.

 

 

 

Although I've fit four planks where the kit design has three, the required plank overlap means that my planks have often been about the same width or slightly wider than the kit-designed planks. I've been able to use some segments of kit-designed planks where they match what I need, but I had to cut a lot of them myself.

 

Overall, lapstrake planking has been an interesting experience with its own challenges. I've had a tricky time getting good tape templates for the planks, as the tape isn't running flat from upper to lower edge of the plank shape, but runs along the bulkhead, abruptly shifts up onto the lower plank, and continues to where I've marked the lower edge. It's also been difficult to properly shape the planks for smooth runs. With carvel planking, you can use clamps to push the plank against the lower strake, which can allow you to do a bit if minor edge-bending if necessary. With lapstrake planking, you can't really do that, and have to judge that the plank is placed well and will have a smooth run. As a result, I've often had to adjust the joints between planks afterward with sandpaper. The top edge of the planks are often a bit uneven or off at the joint between planks in each strake, as seen below, where there's a sort of divot in the run of the strake. Thankfully this is easy to cover with the next strake, just making sure to measure the plank's location from the lower edge of the previous plank plank rather than from the upper edge.

 

In any case, today I finished the final plank in the lower band, reaching to the top of the sternpost.

 

 

 

From this point on, I think the planks should be easier to bend into shape, as they'll have a lot less twist. Before continuing, I'll need to re-line out the remaining bands and planks. My lower band ended a tiny bit short of the mark amidships, but it's nothing that can't be corrected by slightly adjusting the width of the remaining planks.

 

 

[Paul Le Wol]

Beautiful work at the stem and the stern post!

[Keith Black]

 The planking looks great, Jacques. 👍

[wefalck]

In spite of your challenges, the planking looks good. As this is not an open boat, the inside look is not important and one can do a bit of tweaking.

 

In clinker-planking it is important to remember that planks are not only tapered, but also curved (as seen in the plank diagram from the kit). That should take care of the up-sweep problem that you mentioned at some point.

 

[JacquesCousteau]

Thanks, all! The planks are indeed curved, all are made from templates tracing on masking tape.

 

Between travel and some other projects, planking has been very slow, but today I reached a milestone. The sixth strake has been placed and I am now midway through the planking.

 

My previous planking band ended right at the top of the sternpost, and I was a bit concerned about how I would transition to the overhanging stern. It actually wasn't that complicated, although as can be seen below, unfortunately one plank was a little low and I couldn't fully seat the plank end flush.

 

I also accidentally spaced a plank a little far off the one below it at the bow. It's hard to see the planks once the clamps are in place, I'm guessing it slipped as I was adjusting the run aft.

 

In both cases, and a couple other spots, I was able to add a tiny bit of filler.

 

I've had some trouble with clamping due to the position of the supports I added to the framework. In the future, I'll have to remember to place them a bit further inboard.

 

 

And that brings me up to the halfway point in planking. Six strakes down, six to go.

 

 

[Paul Le Wol]

Amazing looking planking Jacques!

[JacquesCousteau]

5 minutes ago, Paul Le Wol said:

Amazing looking planking Jacques!

Thanks! It's definitely a bit different from carvel planking. I'm still having trouble getting the joints in each strake to line up well. I should also note that I've snapped off each side of frame 7 in the cockpit at least twice. It hindsight, I may have scored it for easy removal a little too early.

[Keith Black]

That planking looks so nice, Jacques. 👍

[JacquesCousteau]

It's been a little while since my last post. During that time, I was pretty busy with work and travel. In fact, I'm still traveling! But, this model is small enough that I was able to pack it with me to advance a bit on the planking.

 

The curves around the stern make clamping difficult, and as I'm going around the turn of the bilge, I've often needed to take care to make sure the bottom edge and not just the top edge of the plank is properly in contact. As can be seen, I've ended up using rubber bands and shims to hold things down.

 

I had a bit of trouble with this bow plank, too, which I accidentally glued too low at its aft end. Fortunately I was able to unglue it and place it properly.

 

At this point, I've finished the second of three bands. I now need to mark out the final band. I'll have to keep in mind that the sheer plank needs to extend 1/32-inch above the bulkhead tops (as I'll be planking the deck), and that I shouldn't glue anything to the bulkhead in the cockpit that will be removed later.

 

[wefalck]

Very pleasing run of the planking and nicely executed!

[Rick310]

The planking looks fantastic!!

Rick

[JacquesCousteau]

Thanks, all!

 

I next marked out the remaining strakes. The uppermost looks narrower because it will extend up to cover the edge of the false deck.

 

And I added the next strake. At this point, I'm having a difficult time clamping at the transom. It's also worth noting that, while I've been able to get the visible lower edge of the planking fairly smooth, I'm still having trouble getting the upper edge smooth where the planks join. Not that it matters, as it ends up covered, but still. Hats off to those who have done a clinker-planked open boat, that would be a lot trickier!

[Keith Black]

 That planking looks so nice, Jacques. 

[Stubby]

Really cool planking. I'll be interested to see how it paints up. I really like the idea of an open well - I may use that one. 👍

[JacquesCousteau]

Thanks, all!

 

Planking continues, slowly.

 

Meanwhile, I’m thinking ahead to finishing up the cockpit.  A key aspect of the boat’s equipment that is not included in the kit is the bilge pump. @Kenchington’s build includes a very interesting reconstruction of what this might have been like, but it’s worth noting that there are very few direct sources on this. The bilge pump does not appear in Chapelle’s plans, nor in the drawings of the sloop Ranger, nor have I been able to find a clear photo of it. The best I’ve been able to find is a photo of a replica Muscongus Bay sloop under construction in the 1970s, in which there is a hole in the cockpit floor next to the centerboard case, presumably for a bilge pump, but the pump itself is not shown. Most of the discussions of pumps on MSW focus on those used in larger ships, not in small workboats. So, some research is needed.

 

What options are there? @Kenchington’s build includes an informative discussion, linked to below, in which he ultimately decided that an elm tree pump, discharging into a bucket in the cockpit, makes the most sense. This seems very reasonable to me, but 1) he hasn’t gotten to the handle yet, so I’m not sure what that would look like, and 2) I don’t want to just blindly steal from his ideas—at least not without learning a bit more about workboat pumps in the era first so I can better understand what I’m looking at.

 

As I mentioned above, Chapelle’s plans of the Muscongus Bay sloop don’t show a bilge pump. In fact, I found very little about bilge pumps in most of his books—they’re barely mentioned in American Small Sailing Craft or Boatbuilding. American Fishing Schooners does include detailed drawings of wooden and iron pumps on pp. 571-582, but I’m not sure whether those designs would have been used on the much smaller sloop I’m modeling. Below, images from the book of a wooden pump and a diaphragm pump—as Kenchington suggests, the latter likely came into use a bit later than the period this model is supposed to represent.

 

A few plans included in American Small Sailing Craft do depict pumps, although not in much detail. Most relevant, perhaps, as Kenchington notes, is that the construction drawing of a Friendship Sloop on page 273 shows some sort of pump in the cockpit, apparently emptying over the coaming, but it’s not clear what side it’s on, what the handle would look like, or whether it would be a round or square cross-section.

 

His plan of a Quoddy Boat on page 263—especially relevant as it’s from Maine in the same time period as my model, although a rather larger vessel—also shows a pump, located just forward of the mainsheet, with an apparently round cross-section, although again the handle isn’t shown.

 

Chapelle’s The Migrations of an American Boat Type (1961), a booklet on the development of the sharpie, does include the following photo of a square pump box on page 151, and the plans earlier in the book show that there was one on each side of the hull. (This detail is shown in Paul Le Wol’s excellent scratchbuild of a North Carolina Sharpie, by the way). The square shape is intriguing, but once again no handle is depicted.

 

Looking beyond Chapelle, I also had a hard time finding much information. Nearly everything that I found was written with large ocean-going ships in mind, not small workboats. Skimming through Inshore Craft: Traditional Working Vessels of the British Isles by Basil Greenhill and Julian Mannering, though, I did find the following interesting depiction of a pump in a small Ardrishaig Open Line Skiff (pg. 18). The handle appears to be a simple loop rather than the more complex lever that appears in other pump depictions. An article on the Sgoth Niseach in a 1998 edition of Ships in Scale magazine shows something similar, but with a square- rather than round-sectioned pump. (Of course, these are from the UK, not the US, so I should take them with a grain of salt).

 

Finally, searching on the Penobscot Maritime Museum site, I found this interesting galvanized pump. Unfortunately, it’s undated, although my understanding is that metal pumps are more likely to be from the 1900s and hence a bit later than my model.

Source

 

So, what can be made of all of this? There are two main questions that I have for my build. First, basic design. It seems that wood is the most likely material for the pump on a small workboat in c.1880s Maine, but I’m not sure whether a square or round cross section would make more sense. The round cross-section pumps were apparently made by boring out an elm tree, whereas I’m assuming that the square-section pumps were made out of planks. The latter option sounds to me like it would be cheaper (planks being widely available), but I’m not totally sure and would appreciate any suggestions.

 

Second, the handle. While the big lever would certainly be easier to use, it takes up a lot of space, and this sloop has a pretty small cockpit. So, I think the options are either that 1) the pump uses a lever handle but the lever and associated mechanism can be removed, so as to not take up too much work space, or 2) given that this is a pretty small boat and the force to lift the pump would be relatively low, there’s no lever, just a simple crossbar (as on the galvanized pump above) or a loop handle).

 

At the moment, I’m leaning toward the simple crossbar handle, but I haven’t decided on the square or round pump cross-section. Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated!

 

Edited 7 hours ago by JacquesCousteau
Added images

[wefalck]

You are right, information on pumps for 19th century small ships or boats is rather scarce. The archive of the naval dockyard in Copenhagen has a couple of drawings. I didn't check other sources, as I am currently interested in a vessel from the Baltic.

 

Pumps made from copper tubes along the lines of the galvanise iron one you showed above were available since the 18th century at least e.g. to flush the seats of ease on large ships and for a wide variety of domestic uses. There is no reason, why such pump couldn't be used as bilge-pump.

 

Otherwise, bored-out tree-trunks (probably mainly elm, but also oak or even fir for simple applications) were common and could be produced with a minimum of tooling. Since Roman times water-supply pipes were made like this. They could be also formed from two pieces of timber, banded together and bored out, but I think a tree-trunk was cheaper and less work. An auger basically would guide itself in a straight-grown trunk. In the case of sawn timber one never knows.

 

Looking at the cross-section of your boat, I would think that the pump must have been located near the front end of the cockpit, but I didn't check, whether anything would be in the way of it there.

 

[Paul Le Wol]

Hi Jacques , the lobster smack is looking great! When I was building a Pinky, I looked at this video a lot. At about 3 minutes in you can see the pumps with the handles in a stored position. Maybe you could present whatever type of pump you decide on in the same manner. Pump handles always look like they’re in the way.

 

https://youtu.be/E0XzgWVNZbU?si=WoRkcoJs2emlj9KV

 

[Kenchington]

I think there is another question too: A small enough boat (yet one unsuited to simply a bailer) might have a portable pump, like the Penobscot Museum's example, though it would likely need some sort of pump well to keep ballast out of the way if it was  to reach the depths of the bilge water.

 

Maybe that would have been enough for a Muscongus Bay boat but I figure that, once going to the trouble of installing a well, a fixed pump makes more sense -- especially for a boat intended for single-handed use, as we know these boats were when lobstering. At least, with so much else to keep the lone fisherman busy, I'd want to be able to grab a handle and pump when needed, if it was me.

 

Square or circular section, wood or galvanized iron: I think you can take your choice. Nobody can say that you are wrong.

 

As to the handle, I suspect a simple lifting action, rather than the pivoting lever used on larger vessels (which need more bilge water lifted through a greater height). A straight handle gripped in the fist, a cross-bar somewhere near the top of the pump spear or a smaller handle worked into the top (e.g. an iron loop) all make sense. Again, nobody can fault your choice.

 

But I do still think that it would be a lift pump, not a diaphragm nor a force pump. The simplest ones had their valves down where the bilge water was, so they didn't need valves that could suck, only lift. That's what I imagine for these little lobster boats. Pumps like the museum example, able to suck water up to their valves, had been around from the 18th Century at least. But those needed more exacting manufacture, especially if required to suck air instead of being primed. (Plenty of water around a boat for pump priming, of course, but it is one more task better avoided.)

 

Trevor