Revell Yacht America

The nice part is they are light in construction  .But , G. You could get a strip of basswood and a small plane and make your own curlies !

From a long-ago Nautical Research Guild discussion, you have to watch one thing using wood shavings to laminate hoops.  The shavings have a taper, and can give a lop-sided look if not careful.

At ;larger scales (perhaps larger than America) the Britannia hoops by Blue Jacket are quite nice.  But yo need a fid or similar conical object to ensure that they are circular.

Of course the old guard at NRG would have spiral brass wire around a carefully-selected dowel.  Then a razor saw would be used along the length of the dowel to split the rings off the spiral.  The cut ends would then be mashed with pliers, and teeny-tiny holes drilled in the now flattened ends.  A lashing or a rivet would then join the ring,  Which would then be either chemically blackened or browned.  Just reading about those guys can wear me right out.

Here's a picture of a cod (?) schooner. I wish it was better- it's provenance is that I took a picture of a reprinted photo behind glass with my iPhone in a fish restaurant.

If you can see, there's a second hoop on each of the bottom two on the fore mast. Plus a lot of other junk and things going on.

I need to make a sorta correction to what I wrote earlier about the Unimat. After considerable web searching I learned that an Austrian company still makes two machines called Unimats - the "Unimat I Basic," which is intended for kids, and the "Unimat 1 Classic," which is designed for modelers and other machinists. On the basis of several websites, the "Classic" version deserves to be taken seriously. It can be set up as a wood lathe, metal lathe, drill press, horizontal milling machine, vertical milling machine, and jig saw - all with the parts that come in the box. It's got a lot of plastic in it (one reviewer gave it 2 1/2 stars out of 5), but it looks like, used with care, it could be a good tool for modelers.

Bad news: 1. No table saw conversion.  2. The best American price I could find was over $700.

I don't think the ship in GM's latest post is a fishing vessel. Its bulwarks are too high ( a fisherman had low bulwarks, so the fish in the dory alongside could be forked over them), there are no fish visible (there almost always are in deck shots of fishing schooners), and I've never heard of a fishing schooner with a big deckhouse like that. I think we're looking at a small to mid-sized coasting schooner - maybe something like Bluejacket's Fannie A. Gorham:  http://www.bluejacketinc.com/kits/fannie.htm . But for mast hoop details, it's a great shot.

A little care with terminology is in order. A mast band is a permanent, tight-fitting piece of ironwork, usually with one or more eyebolts in it, by which various pieces of rigging are secured to the mast. Bluejacket makes cast britannia mast bands with eyes cast integrally.

A mast hoop is a wood hoop that's used to connect a sail to a mast. Bluejacket's mast hoops are laser-cut from very thin plywood. They're very well done, but there's just no way a piece of plywood can be cut, even by a laser, as thin as a plane shaving or a piece of paper. If I were building a model on a really big scale (say, 1'4"=1'), I'd use Bluejacket hoops. But not for anything smaller.

Now, about boom crutches. Last night I stumbled across a couple of photos of the America relatively early in her career. Here's a link: http://www.sandemanyachtcompany.co.uk/blog/america-an-appreciation . The author of the article, David Matzenik (whom I know nothing about, but he seems quite knowledgeable), says he thinks the shots were made during the Civil War, when the ship was onlyabout 15 years old.

In both shots she's apparently at anchor off Annapolis. In the first shot, all her sails are furled. The main gaff is lying on top of the boom, with the sail between them. The fore gaff is fixed at the lower masthead, and the foresail is furled against the mast and gaff. There's no boom on the foresail.

The second shot is even more interesting. The ship seems to be in the process of getting under weigh.The photo clearly shows the configuration of the sails when they're being unfurled. (Or maybe I've got it backwards; maybe the ship is coming to anchor, and the sails are being furled.)

The author of the article notes astutely that the main sheet is draped over the boom. You can get at least an impression of how long that line is.

That author also makes some interesting remarks on the way her rig got changed over the years.

Boom crutches (sometimes rendered "crotches") were in use by 1851, all right. The Elsie has two - one for each boom. (The Elsie has a hoisting gaff, and therefore a fore boom.) I can't find a trace of a crutch - even one for the main boom - in any contemporary picture of the America. That boom is huge - and, with the sail and gaff on top of it, mighty heavy. The crutch would have to be a really sturdy fixture.

The shots of the currently-sailing replica don't show a boom crutch either. I did, however, find a couple of shots on the web where her fore gaff has been lowered on top of the furled sail. To my eye it looks a little weird.

If I were building a model of the America, I'd probably build her as Mr. Matzenik suggests she looked at the time of The Race: fixed fore gaff, hoisting main gaff, jibboom, and jib club, no fore topmast - or boom crutches. But that's just me - and I don't pretend to be an expert on this subject. To each his/her own.

Here are a few more interesting pix I stumbled across. The first one shows her being towed out of Boston Harbor by a Navy subchaser in about 1930:  https://www.digitalcommonwealth.org/search/commonwealth:3t946q72v .The second apparently right after she got to ... well, wherever she was going: https://www.digitalcommonwealth.org/search/commonwealth:3t946q74d . Lots of deck details are visible, including the beautiful skylight that's now at the Mariners' Museum. But no crutches.

Thank you John, those are great. I'll add a few thoughts. I haven't seen the photos before, either the Sandeman ones or the DC ones. A huge fan of that second site; I've used it for my Evelyn. Their big 4x5 glass plate negatives have absolutely incredible detail and resolution.

The first Sandeman photo is like one on page 49 of John Rousmaniere; The Low Black Schooner: Yacht America 1851- 1945. There are little differences, it's not the same day but must have been around the same time. In the book the photo is noted as taken at the Boston Navy Yard (much more built up background) in 1863 on the Naval Academy cruise. I'd expect the Sandeman photo shows her in the same cruise, some years later at most. Where the author notes her as in her original rig, he no doubt means before the drastic changes in 1875 and 1885 when her sails and rig were altered by McKay, and when General Butler stepped her masts vertical. What's not original is the fore topmast, and I am certain, the jib boom (in this case the spar doubled up on the bowsprit, and double jib arrangement. There's only the usual old oil paintings and engravings and so forth of race day, but the fore topmast is not there as you also note in your preferred rig. I also don't ever note a jib boom. The juries a little out on the jib club in fairness, some art has it others don't. Blue Jacket does and they called it a jib boom, it's hinged at the outboard end of the bowsprit, so that's my plan.

They also show a hoisting fore gaff, with a halyard. I guess I'll do that.

The second photo shows a very fine looking monitor at anchor!

As for crutches, no it was a fun idea, but I don't see any either.

As for the unimat, too pricey. I remember my maternal grandfather had one in his shop, he did all kinds of stuff with it. It was also advertised heavily in Model Railroader magazine back in the 60's, when people actually made their own "aftermarket" parts. I'm saving up for my Microlux. I would have used it today making stripwood for the trim on my companionways. I'm slicing basswoood with a straight edge and a razor blade. Not a big problem as I only need several feet of it. But, oh to be making precise strips out of mahogany...

Seeing that Unimat reminded me of the old Mattel Power Shop I used as a child during the 1960s :

http://www.samstoybox.com/toys/PowerShop.html

Motor speed was for cutting wood and a bit too high for plastic, but I used it to sand and cut plastic anyway; can't imagine it being sold to any child these days as the company would have been sued out of business.

I still have it but now use standard power tools.

Best of luck on obtaining the tooling you need to complete the project.

I'm finding the discussion very interesting.

Mattel vacuforms? Love to have one of those.

Heck, my sisters had those little cookie ovens.

Any gaff has to have a halyard. (Actually two - one at the throat and one at the peak.) The question is whether the gaff got lowered when the sail was furled. Those photos show tha, at least on those particular occasions, it wasn't.  But I don't' think there's any difference in the rigging between the two methods.

It seems entirely possible that the jib club/boom was portable, and was used or stowed depending on the sailing conditions.

To clarify, the BJ drawings have two, one at the throat and one at the peak that zig zags down the spar back and forth through a triple block up at the mast head. I was thinking that I'm easier to follow than I actually am.

Why would a hoisting gaff need a foresail boom, or did I misunderstand the comment regarding Elsie?

One reason might be that without one, when the gaff was lowered the sail would make an ungodly mess on the deck? Can't be that simple.

The jib boom club comes off with a pin, so it certainly could lay on the deck. That would be the case with a really large jib like a Genoa.

Hah! This from Rousmaniere, page 16:

"The sails themselves were cut at the loft of Rubin H. Wilson, who made the sails for most of New York's racing yachts. Steers made a rough sketch of the sail plan on heavy brown paper (ed: printed in the book), and eighty years later it was still in the possession of Wilson's son Robert N. Wilson, an awning maker in Port Jefferson, New York. In a letter to the Stevens Institute of Technology in 1932, Wilson said that although Steers drew a gaff topsail to fit over the mainsail, it was not made. The only three sails that America carried in New York were a large boomed mainsail, a boomless foresail, and a single boomless jib (the boomed jib shown in most paintings was not installed until after she reached England, and the boom broke about halfway through the race around the Isle of Wight)."

All sorts of factors play into th design of a ship's rig. Steers apparently wanted a really big foresail, which was sheeted aft of the mainmast. A boom on such a sail would bash into the mainmast when the ship came about.

I've seen a few photos of furled sails with hoisting gaffs. The sails did make messy piles on the decks. Another thought: hoisting a gaff isn't easy. It's a big job for several people. Brailing a loose-footed sail up to a mast would be relatively quick and easy. Later edit: my so-called spell checker changed "brailing" to "braiding." I've changed it back.

I think the practice of hoisting the gaff every time the sail was set was relatively rare, though not unheard of. And to my eye a lowered gaff withe no boom just doesn't look right.

Sprue-ce Goose

Seeing that Unimat reminded me of the old Mattel Power Shop I used as a child during the 1960s :

http://www.samstoybox.com/toys/PowerShop.html

Motor speed was for cutting wood and a bit too high for plastic, but I used it to sand and cut plastic anyway; can't imagine it being sold to any child these days as the company would have been sued out of business.

I still have it but now use standard power tools.

Best of luck on obtaining the tooling you need to complete the project.

I'm finding the discussion very interesting.

Thanks for the insight. My model has developed a rig through suggestion of yourself and others.

A single bowsprit.

A jib boom attached to the end of the bowsprit. Supported by a topping lift to the fore mast masthead.

A gaff on the fore mast, with parrels (plural?) in the raised position no sail. There's a vang from it's peak back to the main masthead. A pair of halyards support it.

A gaff and a boom on the main mast, with parrels at the gaff and either that or a goose neck at the boom.

Pair of halyards support the gaff, boom supported by a topping lift to the masthead.

Both booms sheeted on both sides, so everything should be relatively stable, although the sheets will be loose.

BigJim

Sprue-ce Goose

Seeing that Unimat reminded me of the old Mattel Power Shop I used as a child during the 1960s :

http://www.samstoybox.com/toys/PowerShop.html

Motor speed was for cutting wood and a bit too high for plastic, but I used it to sand and cut plastic anyway; can't imagine it being sold to any child these days as the company would have been sued out of business.

I still have it but now use standard power tools.

Best of luck on obtaining the tooling you need to complete the project.

I'm finding the discussion very interesting.

I still have my Mattel Power Shop.

COOL !

I'd still use my jig saw blades but the blade retainer wore and needs a replacement; perhaps another good reason for learning to do 3D CADD so a new replacement part could be fashioned.

WELL NOW THIS IS SOMETHING SPECIAL.

But no, saving money for the Microlux. I have an aversion to one-tool-does-it-all. Swiss Army knife sort of, but only sort of, gets a pass. One thing those things do not do well is cut stuff.

Here's a table saw story. In 8th grade electrical shop (here I'll pause to set the date- we sat all day and listened to the live radio feed of Apollo 13's return trip, over the PA), Mr. Costarella had a big table saw in the corner. The project was to make a hot plate, using a long coil of NiChrome wire snaked up-and down through a pattern of asbestos board battens all bolted to a base plate on legs.

We boys were allowed to use the drill press to make the holes to bolt the whole thing together, but only Mr. C could use the saw, where he made 1/4" thick 1" x 12" pieces of board all afternoon, with a cigarette hanging out of the corner of his mouth.

The poor guy did die, of lung cancer, at the age of 62.

My only question about that rigging scheme concerns the phrase, "There's a vang from it's [the foresail gaff's] peak back to the main masthead." I've never seen an arrangement like that, and it doesn't seem  like it would work. A vang normally is a tackle running from the peak of the boom to the deck - one vang on each side of the ship. ("Vang," incidentally, is also a wonderful Scrabble word - if you want to get a Scrabble board bashed over your head.)

I'd suggest another look at the plan. Is it possible that the line in question is in fact the mainstay? In a schooner rig like this the mainstay can't lead from the masthead to the deck (because it would foul the foot of the foresail). So they made do with a heavy piece of standing rigging between the mastheads.

I think all of us are enjoying this conversation. I find it satisfying to be talking about the physics and the configuration of something fairly understandable. because i can't pretend to really now how the rigging of a large sailing ship makes it go, any more than I can explain what makes my Toyota go, in any but the most general terms. Speaking of myself.

I highly recommend a sailboat model, a small schooner or the like to any and all as a sort of return to the basics.

I've taken note from many of you, John, Don and most recently  EJ with the little flattie, that a small subject at a larger scale is an essential entry into wood boat models.

Dr. Tilley, here's two details from the BJ plans. Folks at BJ: I hope you will excuse these partial reprints on line; I don't think anyone could put together a model from them and I also hope they advertise the excellence of your product.

From top down- main topmast stay, spring stay, vang/ topping lift.

My little 1:1 cat boat had a vang. It was a line that ran from about midpoint on the boom, to the base of the mast.It's purpose was to keep the boom from angling up when sailing downwind, as the sail otherwise would pillow out. I suspect the function here was similar for the gaff- without a boom on the foresail and a means to really crank the foot of the sail down, the whole affair could billow upwards.

Very interesting. I respect Arthur Montgomery, who drew the Bluejacket plans (and owned the company at the time). He called the Mariners' Museum a couple of times when he was working on the kit design. I'm not in any position to say that drawing is wrong. But this is the only place I've seen this detail.

I wonder if Mr. Montgomery was assuming she had a hoisting foresail gaff. In that case running a "topping lift" from the end of the gaff to the head of the mainmast would make the gaff easier to hoist. Such a line would have a better mechanical advantage than the peak halyard running to the head of the foremast. On the other hand, that "vang/peak halyard" would have to droop a great deal when the ship was running before the wind - and the gaff swung way over to one side.

I guess it would work, but I'm used to a vang (yes, phone, I meant VANG) leading from the gaff peak to the deck (like the mainsail vangs in the drawing). I haven't noticed this "vang/topping lift" arrangement in other pictures of the ship. But it may be right.

Well I've gotten very wet on a lot of sailboats, but haven't had the experience of sailing a gaff schooner except at the wheel. The usual Marconi rig is all about managing the boom and the clew on the jib sails. The latter more than one would think. That's when the boat really gets up and goes.

By the way, John- if the foresail was lashed up to the gaff and the mast, how?

Put a sailor up on a halyard?

I've lost the rudder. Indicative of a really bad year of moving, selling houses and finding a rental. Good thing I have the drawing. Sheesh!!

arnie60

Still wondering about the 'trick' to doing gold leaf GM. Gimmie a couple of pointers? Would appreciate it much. Thanks

Interesting question about the gaff rig. There are a couple of possible answers - and probably a lot more that I don't know about.

One possibility is that they did indeed send somebody aloft to furl the sail. That person wouldn't necessarily have to go out on the gaff (which might break if he did). Notice that, in those two photos that show the sails furled there seems to be no gasket bundling up the middle of the foresail to the gaff.

She may have had two or three brails on the foresail. A brail is a light line that runs from the edge of the sail to a block on either the gaff jaws or a mast hoop, and thence to the deck. In those pictures in appears that the foresail is secured to the mast in two or three places below the gaff. Those spots could be brail blocks on the mast hoops. Haul in the brails while casting loose the sheets, and the sail gets furled.

If the brails are in those photos, I sure can't see them. The more I look at the evidence, the more I'm inclined to think the gear was all handled by people aloft. Somebody had to pass at least one gasket around the foremast.

How somebody got up there is another question. I've never seen any evidence that the America had ratlines. I guess the sailors either shinnied up the rigging or got hauled up in a bosun's chair.

All this demonstrates that the hoisting gaff rig, with a boom, was a lot more practical.

I urge anybody building a schooner model to watch the grand old, 1935 movie "Captains Courageous." Among other things, it lets you watch what happens when a big two-masted schooner furls her sails. In the movie, it takes about ten seconds for the sails to come down. (And, of course, a few minutes to pass the gaskets.)

I'd like to get my hands on a set of the plans for the old Model Shipways America kit, which were drawn by George Campbell. He could always be relied on to provide good, reliable information to the modeler.

Great movie, although I thought Spencer Tracy didn't seem very Portuguese. I will watch it again.

No, no ratlines but I have noticed that over the years, particularly after 1885, that the number of shrouds on each side of each mast increased from two to four. Sending someone up on a halyard is pretty easy, I did it once. Really lets you know the meaning of your life in someone else's hands.

I don't think Spencer Tracy looked - or sounded - the least bit Portuguese. But he won his first Oscar for that role.

Actually that character (Manuel, the Portuguese fisherman) was almost entirely fabricated by the movie makers. In the Kipling book he's a really minor character, barely mentioned. The movie in fact doesn't have much to do with the book. This, in my opinion, is a rare case of a movie being better than the book on which it's based. The novel really didn't do much for me.

With mast hoops, you don't much need ratlines.

I've sailed with a loose-footed gaff--it's an experience.  With a Bermuda rig (marconi referring more to spreader-rigged masts). the leech of the sail--the curved area beyond the hypotenuse is stiffened with battens.  Withe Bermuda rig, you haul in with the main sheet, and control the boom angle with a vang,

Under that gaff, if you haul in the sheet, the gaff stays out in the wind, the sheet just flattens the foot.  So, you need a way to haul the gaff around, which is best dine with windward and lee vangs,.  That, or you bend a mutton chop topsail to the gaff.  This gives you a bermuda-like rug where the sheet is now pulling down from the top of the topmast; any vangs used cab be slacked right off, (there are parts of a reach where you need the windward vang is needed with no boom).  Downside to that top sail needs to be "tacked" to keep iys tail out of the gaff haliyards.

Now, whether you could use that vang rigged back to the min mast, I do not know.

Would not surprise me if the original's foresail was loosr-fit, and was on an outhaul to the gaff,  To furl, a hand would go up the hoops,  They;d haul in thee head o the sail to the base of the gaff,  the sail would the get gaskets passed every other hoop or so.  Or, if a light racing sail, simply passed down to the deck.

Go up the hoops? Like a monkey?

Imagine that!

" G "

    Hi there ! Hey , if you want one you should haunt Flea Markets  .I got one two years ago in our Flea Market in Shertz , Texas . It was still in the box and all the parts were there too . It looked like it had Never been played with ! Price $ 20.00 .

     You can occassionaly find one at model show vendors , but condition is always an issue . A vendor at one of our I.P.M.S. shows had one without the flip platen for the heated plastic sheet ! His price , $ 350.00- ! !

    Needless to say he didn't make a sale on that !

Re vacuform machines - Micromark offers a modern version; it's on sale right now for $135.00. I don't have one, but on the basis of the pictures, video, and instructions it looks like a nice piece of equipment. Here's the link: www.micromark.com/compact-vacuum-forming-machine,11244.html .

Saving up for my table saw. maybe there's an attachment...

Photos of a section of plans is not a problem. Reproducing and selling plans is a problem.