Gaff sloop of unknown design c. 1910 by Bedford - RESTORATION - possibly to RC

[Bedford]

Well, this is my second restoration of a model donated to the Lake Macquarie Classic Boatshed. This has been sitting on the Mezzanine for a few years and the lines are just so beautiful I couldn't leave her to be eventually discarded. Did I need another model project at this point, not really but here it is.

 

We have no idea what she is modeled after but it's in the style of the Fife sloops of the early 1900's and since it has a bowsprit I'm thinking gaff rigged so I'm taking very loose inspiration from the William Fife III  designed "Mariska"

 

It will be "stand off scale" as we used to say n the aero-modelling field. as it may end up with radio control added but let's not get ahead of ourselves.

 

The hull is 1460 long, so quite large and planked in Oregon which was varnished in what appears to be the old Estapol, that had to go so a hot air gun and scrapers got most of that off with the rest removed by scraping and sanding. This process revealed the truth about her beauty, it's very much skin deep. Some of the planks have been sanded to within 0.02mm of their lives in order to achieve fair lines, you can see light through them! What this means is that whether or not I add RC she's going to have to be fibregassed so I've ordered some 30gsm cloth. Hopefully I can get a good enough finish to allow varnishing over the 'glass but I may need to paint below the waterline anyway to cover water damage and poor fairing of strakes at the stern post.

 

I can't reinforce the strakes internally as it's quite roughly finished and I'd have to sand back a thick layer of black paint which is over varnish, I'm not prepared for that debarkle and chances are I'd go through the thin strakes anyway. The internal framing is quite substantial and, in places, broken so I'll have to do something to stabilise that and possibly create the room for auxilliary drive should she become an RC sail boat.

 

Anyway, on to the pics. Oh, and the tabernacle is decidedly agricultural for a model with some beautiful features so it's going.  

 

 

[Bedford]

Some more pics

Edited yesterday at 05:55 AM by Bedford

[druxey]

Lovely lines and worth resurrecting!

[Jim Lad]

I agree with Druxey wholeheartedly. She's well worth bringing back to life.

 

John

[ccoyle]

18 hours ago, Bedford said:

planked in Oregon

 

Do you mean Oregon pine? That is a regional name for Douglas fir. It was very commonly used in West Coast ship building, it being a very large and straight-trunked tree, which made it a prime source of long, straight-grained planks. Most of the West Coast schooners that have been in the news here on the forum lately were built of Doug fir.

[Bedford]

Yeah, we in Aus tend to shorten names but Oregon Pine aka Douglas Fir or as our Irish shipwright calls it, Irish Pine - O'regon

[Bedford]

This might be a long shot but I'm trying to find info on how to design the rig and sails if I go RC and all I keep getting is how to make the sails or very class specific info. Does anyone here know how to design a sail plan or know who does?

Edited 10 hours ago by Bedford

[Keith Black]

Any help here?

 

https://modelshipworld.com/search/?&q=rc rigged sloop&page=1&quick=1&search_and_or=and&sortby=relevancy

 

[Kenchington]

8 hours ago, Bedford said:

Does anyone here know how to design a sail plan or know who does?

It will be primarily an issue of placing the centre of effort of the rig in relation to the centre of lateral resistance of the hull. Neither can be exactly determined from the paper plans and both move as the wind changes and/or the hull heels, so some "tuning" (mostly a matter of adjusting the rake of the mast) will be needed.

 

You can start by finding the geometric centre of the (lateral) plane of the underwater body. Then sketch in possible sail shapes (by length of boom and gaff, height of the hounds, number of headsails etc.), find the geometric centre of each sail then that of their combination. Then adjust until the centre of the sailplane lies roughly over the centre of lateral resistance.

 

I hope that's some help but it's about as far as I am competent to advise. You will need to know more, so look for textbooks on yacht design.

 

Trevor