Scratch-Building from Scratch!

[Oliver Weiss]

I would venture to say that most scratch-building projects start with plans, drawings and/or photographs. What if you have absolutely nothing, other than the name of the ship and a tantalizingly cryptic description?

Consider the following paragraph from Roger's "Freak Ships", discussing the "famous domed yacht Meteor"

"The hull had the conventional yacht lines, deeper by the stern than the bows, but above the deck she defied tradition. The hull continued up and over the deck in an oval dome, the highest part well aft. The forward part of the dome sloped in a parabola down to the low bows purposely to permit the seas to break over the fore part of the vessel. The inventors had the strange notion that this form was better than the orthodox stem cutting through the seas. Like the cigar boats of Winans, the Meteor was a wet ship and even in moderate seas had to be practically sealed up to keep the water out. This contingency was foreseen and met with ventilating fans, and a carefully hooded ventilator and funnel, which with the tiny pilot house forward were the only "obstructions on deck"

Now - let's build a historically accurate scale model from THAT.


Cheers,


Oliver

[Oliver Weiss]

The first thing we need, of course, is more information. Let's head to the library and .... wait, this is 2007. Let's head to Google instead.

The first thing we find is that there are a lot of ships called "Meteor". Further we find that our "Meteor" was apparently not all that famous - there are no obvious mentions.

Google is tied in with the ProQuest archive of historical Newspapers. After some snooping, we find an article headed:

THE STEAM YACHT METEOR
A "Steam-Ship of the Future " in Miniature.

Great. This article give a really detailed description, measurements, materials, etc., right down to cylinder bore and the particulars of the four-bladed screw. No picture, though.

More snooping brings out more details about the ship and her career. I find out more than I ever cared to know about the life and times of her builder: Captain Alonzo Perry Bliven of Brooklyn, N.Y. He appears to have been a prolific crackpot inventor of engines, ships, and late in life, air ships.

Several of the articles I found mention that Bliven secured 15 patents pertaining to the Meteor. Letters of Patent have to have drawings! So I'm heading over to uspto.gov to find out more (now Google does Patent searches, too)

Sure enough: Bliven has a few patents to his name. The most important one is #271213 - Construction of ships. Finally a drawing. I feel like it's Christmas!

[Oliver Weiss]

There are more patents - one describing his crackpot idea for spare screws hidden in the deadwood, to be popped out if the main screw failed. This scheme was reserved for the big ocean steamers that were to be built on the Meteor's design. The Meteor has just one single screw. But that one has a diameter of 10.5 ft!

[Oliver Weiss]

Drawings are nice, but it's still not enough to build a model. What I need are photographs, or at least prints or paintings.

For that, I need to find out more about the career of the ship. So the next few months are spent hunting and gathering scraps of information here and there...

Winter 1882-83 - The Meteor is built in Nyack, NY by James E. Smith, one of the best-known boat builders along the Hudson River. She is the property of the American Quick Transit Company or Boston, headed by financier Jacob Lorillard, and she will serve as a model for large transoceanic steamers to by built. Her designer is the aforementioned A. Perry Bliven. After launch, the Meteor is hauled to Bath, Maine to receive her engine at the newly formed Bath Iron Works. Hers is the first American-made triple-expansion steam engine.

February 1883 - The American Quick Transit company fails to raise the capital necessary to build the proposed fleet of ocean steamers, due to adverse shipping legislation and failure to obtain a U.S. government mail contract. The company is dissolved and the Meteor is sold to A.E. Bateman, a Vice-Commodore at the American Yacht Club. In volume XIII of the "The Outing Club" we learn that the Meteor's maintenance runs Mr. Bateman $35 a day.

1883-1890 Bateman converts the Meteor to a regular schooner yacht and uses her on a variety of pleasure cruises. In 1890, he purchases the famous schooner yacht Coronet (currently under restoration) and sells the Meteor to Thomas J. Montgomery, of the Larchmont Yacht Club.

1892 The Steamer Clyde rams the Meteor riding at anchor in New York bay, sinking her. The vessel is raised and is now owned by real estate tycoon Archibald Watt. He refurbishes her inside out, including a new engine and beautiful mahogany interior. She is also re-christened the "Golden-Rod"


1892 - 1902 The Meteor is refurbished inside out. She receives a new engine, reducing her two stacks to one. Beautiful mahogany interiors are fitted and her color scheme is changed. Watt re-christens her the "Golden-Rod".

1905 A lawsuit regarding payment for coal mentions that Watt sold the Golden Rod on May 18, 1905 to New York socialite and art patron Florence E. Durlacher for $22,000. Interestingly, the same source mentions Perry Bliven as Master of the Golden Rod.


Here the trail of the Golden Rod ex Meteor goes cold for now. I am determined to pursue the story until the end! However, I do have some more information on the intredid inventor:


1906 Having invented and built at least one more revolutionary method of propulsion, Perry Bliven turned his attention back to ocean-crossing, this time by air. In 1908, he receives Patent #850616 for a Flying Machine, essentially a blimp with a rigid aluminum skin and a boat-shaped gondola. The engines were to be fueled by illuminating gas. Bliven expected speeds of 70 miles per hour and hoped to cross the ocean. This air ship was never built, but Bliven is mentioned in a different source as an "aviator" in connection with a flying machine called the "Yankee Bird"

1912 Alonzo Perry Bliven, "Inventor and Pioneer in Aeronautics" dies August 16 in Brooklyn. His obituary in the New York Times mentions that he received more than 28 patents and is said to have expended more than half a million dollars in his various mechanical experiments. I can't find the address mentioned in his obituary, 600 W 163rd St, Brooklyn. But I did find an earlier address, 1049 Bergen St., Brooklyn. Not sure if these appartment blocks were there at the time.

[Oliver Weiss]

I did end up finding a couple of photographs. This one is of the Golden Rod, taken in 1896. The hull may be painted white. The sharp bow is evident, as is the curve of the deck. Pretty standard yacht lines, though...

[Oliver Weiss]

I'm pretty confident this photo from the NY public library shows the Meteor/Golden Rod on the left. The image says it's taken in August 1892. Whether that's before or after the sinking, I don't know. In any case, the ship is evidently painted black, and there is only one stack.

[Oliver Weiss]

I also found this picture at an art auction website. It's the "Meteor" for sure, and evidently in her original two-stack configuration, with just the masts added. Maddeningly, the auction site doesn't mention who bought the picture, or else I'd hit them up for a photograph of it!

[Oliver Weiss]

Here is rule number one for historical research: Google your research subjects daily! Most days you'll just get the same search results, but sometimes you luck out like this. You better believe I bought this print as soon as I saw it!

Past experience shows that this print is accurate - they were usually drawn from photographs, and drawn meticulously at that. I can't pretend I had been a little disappointed when I saw the drawings in the letters of patent. Granted, it was all new in 1883, but to me the hull looked like a regular, boring speed boat. Now we see some detail that makes this worth-while - the birdcage pilot house and the ornamentation at the bow make this sufficiently Jules-Vernian to keep me interested.

[Oliver Weiss]

Now I actually had enough material to attempt a reconstruction. I won't bother you with the gory details of piecing together trial hulls, fairing them, discarding them, starting over etc.

In the meantime, I had called the New York Yacht Club to see if perhaps they had a half-hull model of the Golden Rod ex Meteor. The lady I spoke with was very nice, but couldn't help me.

So just for fun I made my own (digital) half-hull model. Try to hang that on your wall!

[Oliver Weiss]

So this then is the state of affairs. It'll be a good while yet until this project progresses to actual card stage. There are still many features of the Meteor I'm unclear about, and I have several leads for more information.