James Tuft 1/96 barquentine

[birder]

With sanding, sealing, putty, sanding, painting sanding painting..the hull comes along. I think is pretty true to the former's shape, although the spots where the formers don't line up on assembly really show up when you start trying to make it smooth. Have glued on some outlines of the ship fore and aft to see how it may shape later. Already I see a problem or two that will have to be fixed, but am happy with the hull shape. Will glue on the stem, keel and sternpost pretty soon, made the stand today
http://i232.photobucket.com/albums/e...v/IMG_2769.jpg
http://i232.photobucket.com/albums/e...v/IMG_2768.jpg
http://i232.photobucket.com/albums/e...v/IMG_2773.jpg

[B-Manic]

The hull looks great Glen. Are you planning to plank it or is it an iron hull?

[birder]

Thanks Douglas, yes will hope to plank her, so will have a big job there, she is so large at 200 ft that the planks may have to be a bit overscale for width, though. The whole ship was made out of fir.

[Yu Gyokubun]

Puget Sound! I stayed in Seattle long time ago but still now beautiful Puget Sound is burred into my brain. It must have been fantastic sight with full of sailing ships there and now you are building the hull of one of them in a way that is far beyond my imagination.
I am looking forward to the planking.

[Don Boose]

This is a really major project, Glen. You will be bringing all your skills and knowledge together here.

The hull is breathtakingly beautiful.

The discussion of the definition of a barquentine is timely. A couple of weeks ago, the focus of the weekly film-discussion evening for the Army War College Campaign Analysis Course was the Battle of Trafalgar. My friend, Captain Al Lord, USN (who is the Senior Navy Representative here and is, inevitably known to us as "First Sea Lord") gave the initial lecture and facilitated the post-film discussion. He pointed out that square-rigged sails provided the greatest propelling power and so all large warships were square rigged. Someone asked why, then, so many large merchant sailing ships in the late 19th and 20th century were barquentines.

I suggested (tentatively) that it was because they could be operated with smaller crews and so were more economical, while the square-rigged foremast provided power and speed for cruising. What say you and the others with more knowledge of ships and the sea than I have?

Don

[Michael Mash]

You have made an impressive amount of progress as shown in yesterday's images. Looks wonderful Glen. That last image really shows a lot of mast and rigging. I am always impressed by the sheer height of them.
Mike

[Royaloakmin]

Smaller crews were the reason why fore and aft rigs became so popular for commercial use. Oddly enough, the great steel windjammers (which were square rigged) had small crews. This was because they had powered winches, etc. So you are right on the money, Don.

[birder]

Thank you my friends for your input today! Agree with Fred, perhaps schooner rigs would sail better on a bowline also as Patrick O' would say, if so anything would help in traversing such a powerfully windy shoreline with rocks generally on the lee. I also read a description of turning a ship about coming underway where the square sails up front could head the ship in the proper way and control the front on the ship at slow speed better, but were very expensive to build and rig, so soon were dropped altogether except the deep water Cape Horners, which were steel masts, cable rigging and powered winches as Fred pointed out. So good job Don! Small crews and bigger ships seemed the way to keep up with steam. Yu nice you have a mental image of the Puget Sound with it's beautiful islands, I can hardly imagine a prettier place to see large sailing ships. (maybe the Aland islands between Sweden and Finland)
Mike, this ship had an expansive rig, especially on the foremast, which was the largest mast in every dimention. I'm still working on understanding the rigging...

[birder]

Something I have stumbled on that is of immense help and beauty
www.flickr.com/.../in/set-72157600026559659/

[B-Manic]

Good find Glen, very beautiful and helpful.