Tally Ho by vaddoc - scale 1:12 (maybe) - as rebuilt by Leo

[vaddoc]

"It's amazing what a boat can do"

 

TALLY HO with fidded topmast and spinnaker flying. Photo; Beken of Cowes, 1927.

Tally Ho is not just a boat - it is an amazing story of friendship, perseverance, skill and success, a crossroad of many journeys - of men and boats.

 

It all started with Albert Strange, a man of many talents, with a passion for sailing and for designing light cruising vessels. He designed Tally Ho (originally named Betty) which was built and commissioned in 1910. The Albert Strange Association website is really the best place to learn about this remarkable person. https://albertstrange.org/biography/

 

Tally Ho lived a colourful but hard life. The highlight is, or rather had been up to now, winning the Fastnet race in 1927 but then, in 1968, she actually sunk hitting a reef in Manuae, near Cook Islands. She was then raised and repaired. https://sampsonboat.co.uk/about/tally-ho-history

 

Many people came and went and Tally Ho was brought into disrepair, hauled ashore somewhere in the west cost of America and placed under a huge tarpaulin. She was put up for an unlikely sale, destined to be broken up.

 

There comes Leo, a fearless young man with a dream - he bought Tally Ho for $1 and then spent 7 years rebuilding her from the ground up. The journey can be found on You Tube, Leo has posted hundreds of videos and through this funded the project. It is a fascinating journey with its ups and downs, happy and sad moments, triumphs and disasters. She is now all finished, truly a wonderful boat, slowly making her way back to the UK.

 

 

 

Watching the videos (I actually picked all this up rather late) there was no doubt in my mind that one day I would build Tally Ho.

 

This will be a big project and at this time (and for the foreseeable future) I have no time to spare, limited finances, multiple other endeavours and Hercules half way through. What better time to start building Tally Ho than now! After all, her story is one of overcoming obstacles, with a launching date 2 years from now - so all good.

 

I hope I will be able to pull this off and also, to do the boat justice! 

 

I contacted the Albert Strange Association and got the plans. I ve been sitting on these for months now but I finally fired up the computer and started drawing lines with virtual ink on CAD. I have not decided on the scale yet but it will be large. 

 

Take care all

Vaddoc

[vaddoc]

Ok, so lets do a quick follow up post with the first thoughts on this.

 

To start with, the plans do not seem to be as comprehensive. There are the lines and some drafts of the keel and a table of offsets but something feels not quite right. Then again, Leo managed to loft the boat so everything should be there.

 

I checked the plans and the lines are not really straight, or vertical. This is common however, paper distorts over time and CAD is really very unforgiving to plans drafted 115 years ago. These lines will be ok to start but serious lofting will be needed. Still, this seems a much easier boat to loft than Hercules

 

I imported the plans to Rhino and scaled them to the actual boat size. I need to dive more into these but it seems that the distances as measured from the lines plan are not the same as in the table of offsets.

 

I am not sure where the stem/start of sheer should be or where the Transom sits.

 

To make things worse, the plans I received do not seem to have been scanned very well. Most of the text in the table of offsets was missing but I managed to recreate it by watching Leo's videos - he had the same plans and they can be seen in a video, so I was able to read almost all of the missing text.

 

A part of the lines plan has not been scanned well and another small area at the bow is missing - apparently permanently damaged as it is missing from Leo's plans as well

 

However, the same lines are easily found on the internet, clearly copied before the damage occurs so I scaled this to size and used it to fill the gaps - kind off.

 

So I blended all together and came up with a sheer plan view

Then added the profile view and created the sheer from these

Adding the other half, shows a bit of the boat shape

Now this is just a study of the plans as I am not really sure where the sheer begins and ends, but it's a start.

 

Until next time

 

Vaddoc

[Desertanimal]

This looks to be quite the project! Best of luck. I’ll be following along. 
Chris

[Knocklouder]

Good luck on your journey with this build !

Bob  M.

[Keith Black]

 Vaddoc, I'm following along hoping that someone actually finishes a Tally Ho build. I think it's four builds (?) that I've watched start that have withered on the vine. 

Edited September 15 by Keith Black

[wrkempson]

This is a worthwhile project, but much more challenging than it would seem at first glance.  Full speed ahead, Vddoc!  You will be finished in two years.

 

Keith, I understand your Tally Ho tally.  You could add me to the list, but I never sought to build the boat.  I have, however, lofted out the working lines, a set of frames showing the bevel, and lofted out the axial pieces.  That exhausted my commitment to the project, so I am done.  Here are some screenshots of my work if anyone is interested.

 

This is the plan lines from the internet reworked and reconciled.  There are a lot of decisions one must make to fill in missing information on this boat.

Tally Ho Master Lines.PDF

 

This picture shows the axial pieces indicating the joinery and frame placements at the heels.  Also shown are the lofts of the frames.

Drawing1 Frames and Keel.PDF

 

Wayne

[Keith Black]

17 minutes ago, wrkempson said:

Keith, I understand your Tally Ho tally.  You could add me to the list, but I never sought to build the boat.

 Wayne, after searching Tally Ho builds It appears I was wrong by double. Until Vaddoc's current build there have only been two other attempts. It seemed like more to me but then old age plays funny tricks on one's memory.  

[vaddoc]

@Desertanimal @Knocklouder Chris and Bob many thanks, and to all that hit the like button, great to have you along!

@Keith Black Keith, I was actually thinking the same, life certainly has the annoying habit of getting in the way. This boat in some ways is like the Deben I ve built in the past, but larger and far more complex and Lord knows how much work that boat took, when I had much more time. But we can't leave MSW without a model of Tally Ho so let's hope everything will work out in the end.

 

@wrkempson Wayne wow! This is just great, thank you for sharing. It is interesting that you reached the same conclusion, that Tally Ho's plans are like a puzzle with a few pieces missing. I will need to study your master lines and all the good work you did, see how it compares to the plans and the table of offsets. Which software did you use?

 

Best wishes to all 

Vaddoc

 

[Keith Black]

10 minutes ago, vaddoc said:

Keith, I was actually thinking the same, life certainly has the annoying habit of getting in the way. This boat in some ways is like the Deben I ve built in the past, but larger and far more complex and Lord knows how much work that boat took, when I had much more time. But we can't leave MSW without a model of Tally Ho so let's hope everything will work out in the end.

 Vaddoc, you have the torch and I have faith you'll carry it to the end. 👍

[wrkempson]

I use TurboCAD.  Concerning the table of offsets, I have never used them.  When the actual lofting is done on the floor the offsets are soon abandoned at any rate.  Perhaps my efforts will be useful to you.

 

Wayne

[KennyH78]

vaddoc,

 

I am going to pull up a chair and follow along.  I also watched Leo's YouTube series on rebuilding Tally Ho and thought about building a model of her.  There is something about her story that just draws you in.  I may still attempt a model, but that is a long way off; I need to learn how to draft a set of workable plans for a build from the lines plans first.

[vaddoc]

Dear all

 

A wee  bit of an update as I found a bit of time here and there to work on the boat. No sawdust yet (and will not be for a long time!) but a lot of digital ink spilled over my monitors.

 

@KennyH78 Kenny, if you decide to build Tally Ho, let me know and I will send you the CAD file - if I manage to loft the boat that is. Still, lofting the boat is fun but also would give you a much better understanding of the hull lines and how she should be built.

 

So lets discuss Tally Ho's plans.  There is no doubt that there are issues with the plans in the archives of the Albert Strange Association. 

 

Tally Ho is a bit different to all the other boats I have lofted. The curvature of the hull does not stop at the rabet but continues at the stem, sternpost and all the way to the bottom of the keel.

 

I think I remember Leo in one of his videos mentioning that there were missing data from the plans, specifically the offsets for the stem and sternpost. This is indeed one of the issues I am facing. Furthermore, the paper has been distorted over the years, there seems to be a bit of damage but also, my copy of the plans has not been scanned very well so there are some gaps with the lines and the text. Also, CAD is very unforgiving and I am picking up all sorts of issues with the plans - Leo must have seen this but to a lesser degree, as he did not use CAD for his lofting.

 

Ok, so lets get a bit more technical - This may be boring but may also help some people with their lofting (and lofting of Tally Ho in particular).

 

For me, the first step in lofting a boat is to find the edges of the hull surface. These are the sheer at the top, the rabet/bottom of keel at the bottom, the sternpost/transom aft and the stem with its rabet at the front. Most but not all of this info is in the table of offsets but again there are issues.

 

The table of offsets does not seem to correspond to the dimensions as measured using the plan lines. I initially created the sheer using the numbers from the table, however the position of the stem and transom, which define the start and finish of the sheer, must be taken from the lines - also the width of the stem. Combining all these does not really work. Using just the lines again does not work - the boat comes out short by half foot and generally things do not work well, the lines are not fair and there are issues with the keel.

 

So I decided to ignore the table of offsets - I only used the half breadths for the bottom of the keel.

 

I traced all the frames (except frame 13 which is missing) and positioned them in their stations (2 feet apart) using the same reference point to make sure they were aligned. I added some diagonals of my own - Leo was right, this boat is much easier to loft using diagonals. I then added the sheer, keel, sternpost/Transom and stem. Again it did not work!

 

So I went back to watching the You Tube videos and the solution was there. You see, Leo had the same plans as I do but he also had the boat!

 

He mentions that the sternpost face is 4 inches wide - excellent. But he also showed this drawing:

 

This shows that the stem is 7 inches wide (although he chose 8 inches to give more support the the hood ends of the planks. The lines show the stem less thick at 6 inches. Mine was 10.6 inches so clearly wrong. The face of the stem is only 1.25 inches and the rabet 6.75" from the stem face.

 

This was very useful. I also measured the distances of the stem from station 6 at all waterlines, to get its shape

I used all these to draw a new stem with a new shape at a new position. I then created a new sheer from the top of the frames I had traced. Combining all worked beautifully!

 

The boat is now 47.5' long and the stem just over 7" wide!

 

The drawing bellow is the same as Leos. The yellow line is the contact surface of the planks with the stem. The arrow shows the half thickness of the stem. The blue line is the sheer.

So now with all boundaries defined, it was time to start lofting. Some work was done to get the half breadths at the bottom of the keel correct.

 

I traced all the diagonals, waterlines and buttocks. They were of course all over the place:

Fairing this line produces a much more satisfying curve.

After all the lines had been drawn and faired, new frames were produced - using only the diagonals.

All new frames drawn and faired. I noticed that there was very little deviation from the original contact points with the diagonals. The last frame aft is a different colour because it did not really cooperate. This needs more work.

This is just the first cycle of lofting but I tried to make a surface and I was half surprised how well it worked. I knew the lines where not that far off but I did not expect this:

The hull is already reasonable and the areas where usually I have issues, at the bow and stern, look mostly ok.

 

The boat needs at least one more lofting cycle but it looks promising. 

 

Take care all

 

Vaddoc

[Keith Black]

 Great update, Vaddoc.