Vele Italiane della Costa Occidentale

[Cristiano]

For the modellers that appreciate scratchbuilding of merchant ships and boats, this can be a very interesting book.

 

Name: Vele Italiane della Costa Occidentale

Authors: Bellabarba - Guerreri

Editor: Hoepli

 

link: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss/192-8547206-5481540?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=vele%20costa%20occidentale

 

It is Italian written, but its content is intersting not only for the written part.

It provides full informations of about 45 small merchant sailing ships and boats (max 25 metres of lenght).

The historic period varies from the late medieval age up to the end of XIX century.

For each ship there is a complete description, use and historic background.

Almost all the ships are complete with full color sail plan and the frames drawings.

In other words it contain all the informations needed to "rather expert" modellers for scratchbuilding the ship.

The ships described in the book doesn't belong only to the Italian History, since there was a blending of the various mediterranean cultures (Italy, France, Spain, North African countries, Greece, Turkey) during the centuries.

The result is that many of the ships described are typical of many other Mediterranean Countries.

 

The book is divided in three parts:

1-History and evolution of the Italian merchant fleets and generally of the Mediterranean ones.

2-Technical/historical description of the above mentioned merchant boats/ships.

Some type: xebec, pinco, Cutter, feluca, goletta, leudo, tartana, gozzo, bovo, liuto, sacoleva, corallina...

3-Technical terms dictionary and ancient boats construction engineering.

 

Attached some photos.
 

 

[bobcat]

The first rule of publishing ship model plans is Never print them throug the gutter of the book. It renders thenm useless.

 

Bob Friedman

[Cristiano]

Hello Bob,

theoretically you are right, since for some of those boats the adaptation of the plans can be more complex.

 

But you should consider that for many of them these are the only drawings available for a modeller.

 

For ancient merchant ships and fishing ships there is often a lack of technical informations, since they were made by small shipyards and their projects were never considered strategic since were of no military use.

So sometimes books like that are the only source of informations regarding some specific ship or boat, and can make the difference between existing or disappearing completely from history...

[Sceatha]

Just got this book, and although I don't speak Italian, it is evidently an awesome resource.

 

A lot of the plans are printed on single pages, not through the central gutter, and even those which are, I don't think this is a big problem in our digital times. The plans can now be scanned and the distortion of the gutter is easily fixed.

 

The quality of the print in all plans is really crisp and nice, with thin lines. Most importantly, as Cristiano says, some of those Mediterranean vessels I have never found so well documented before.

 

George