HMS Hunter (1797)

[krivukov]

Hello everyone!

After a few-months-long break (busy, busy, busy), I'm starting work on my second model.
After thinking about it for a long time, and after consulting my wife, I decided to build HMS Hunter.

She was a cutter armed with 12 guns, used by the British Navy on numerous functions, including military, coastguard, port surveys & reconnaissance missions with great success.
Most famously, the Hunter was used by Customs and Excise against smugglers.

Incidentally, smugglers were the first to use this type of ship (probably due to its speed), and towards the end of the 19th century, from these cutters derived the sports boats meant for the regattas.

I'm building this model from Shipyard plans (I don't have the kit), in 1:96 scale.

I already cut all the frames and assembled them, so here are the pics:

[Texman]

Scratchbuilding a ship. I have a certain amount of jealousy and a lot of respect for you who can do that. Looks like an excellent start.

[John Wagenseil]

Nice hull framing!

The Hunter was an early Shipyard publication which has not been recently reprinted. I think that it can be build up into a fantastic model, but some of the issues on the plans should be considered to see if they are worth altering to get a more accurate cutter or leave it as it is looking more like a sloop.

Before doing more work, compare these early Shipyard plans against other plans and paintings of English cutters and against their later cutter model, the Alert.

Consider moving the mast aft (to the rear) by one gun station, which will give more room for the windlass and allow a larger forestay sail.

The companionway (the little "cabin") which covers the passageway to below decks is longer that it needs to be and shortening it will give you more free space on deck.

The anchor cables on a small cutter would be brought aft of the mainmast and enter the hull through cut outs in the fore corners of the main deck grating or deck house.

The deck house on the model plans could be build as shown or replaced with a grating.

If the Ship yard plans do not show them, you should add a pair of pumps on deck.

The rigging of a cutter was not standardized and also changed a lot between the mid 1700s and mid 1800s.

The Shipyard plans show the cutter rigged in more Continental style, with an inner and outer jib sail.

English cutters tended to have only one jib at a time, and it was changed for another of a different size as sailing conditions demanded. The jib sail was run out to the end of the boom on a traveller, an iron hoop with a block or pulley on it.

In addition to the jib they might also fly a topmast jib.

If the cutter is rigged primarily as a fore and aft sailing craft:
The rigging of a jack yard or spread yard and a square sail when the mainmast has a gaff main sail attached to the mainmast directly with mast hoops, requires the use of a "horse", a large diameter cable running from an tackle on the deck immediately before the mainmast to an eye between the mainmast hounds or cheeks. The square sail yards are attached to the horse by eyes.

Alternatively if your cutter is to be primarily ship rigged the gaff sail is rigged as a try sail to a Horse or a small mast behind the main mast. This is the rigging style one would find on a snow.

The Shipyard plans for the Hunter might show the gaff main sail rigged as if it was a mizzen sail on a large man of war. The boom and gaff on a Single masted small ship was rigged differently from a large three masted ship.

The model will probably need more belaying points than shown on the plans. A cutter had a pin rail attached to the bulkwarks to the port and starboard of the bowspirit.


On a "legal" English cutter the bowspirit was running, not fixed, and would have an eye on its aft end so a tackle could be rigged to it to pull it inboard or run it out. The bowspirit was held to the stem by a U shaped bold through which it could slide, or perhaps gammoning which could be slacked off.

The pole mast on a cutter was also running and could be lowered to the deck. The pole mast on a cutter could be placed either fore or aft of the mainmast.

Captain Aubrey who was intensely conservative like to place his top masts aft of the mast below, though the typical practice on a ship of his time was to put it before the lower mast.

On a cutter, if the pole mast was placed before the mainmast the top gallant sail was subject to less fraying and fouling against the masthead; if the top mast was placed aft it required fewer stays to support it.

You will also have to decide if you want to put your stun'sail booms fore or aft of the principle sails on the yard. If placed fore the sails might fray, if placed aft the stunsail booms must be tied to the yard and risk being carried away if the ship is taken aback.

The lower stunsails on a small craft were usually set running on a stub yard, but you could have a lower stunsail boom atttached to the channels, which would look impressive.

Other sources show the water sail has lines attached to its leading edge, (the Luff?), that are not shown on the Shipyard plans.

The stays on some later cutters were rigged "cutter stay fashion", where the end of the laniyards connecting the dead eyes were tied off to an eye on the channels and not brought around the upper dead eye and tied to the stay. Also the forestay dead eye was tied off cutter fashion where the stay end was brought around the dead eye, and not brought around the dead eye and then tied to itself as on most ships. This allowed the forestay sail to be pulled further down when furled.

The Hunter model on the Ship yard web site is shown with a ring tail and a water sail , these should be on their own boom attached to the fore and aft mainsail boom. Some captains did not set these sails, instead they set up a shifting mizzen with a lug sail by the taffrail.

Ok, now your head hurts from all the 18th century ship terminology.

Look in the book section of this forum, I posted links to David Steel' s and Falconers books which contain a lot of information about 18th century rigging.

Steel tells you exactly how to do it but you have to translate him from 18th century technical seaman's British to 20th century English.

Karl Heinz Maquardt's "Eighteenth Century Riggs and Rigging", from Phoenix Publications has a chapter on Cutter rig and shows several diagrams of variations of how the main mast was set up.

Mondfeld's "Historic Ship Models" is usefull. Roger Morris "Atlantic Sail", Arum Press has a brief discussion of cutter rig.

The best book on the subject of Cutters is Jean Boudriot's book published by Ancre. It is out of print, hard to find and very expensive. However there are a couple of web sites that have pictures of models built from his plans.

You could build the Hunter over and over with each model showing a variation of cutter rig, or a different sail plan, as well as variations of deck furniture. You could also show variations in hull shape, using the hull shape in the plans and also showing the cutters which had a hull form with more drag aft than is on this plan.

Anyway, you can build it rigged Continental style, English style, as a fore and aft craft with the square sails on a horse, or as a ship rigged vessel with the mail fore and aft sail on a horse or rigged as a try sail.

Oh, do you want your model to have hammock rails, and if you do add these that will alter the placement of the swivel guns.

Basically the Shipyard plans get you started, but need supplementation if you intend getting obsessive about details. The plans as they are now really show a sloop- like rig.

Based on your start no matter how you build it , you are going to end up with a very impressive model.

And don't forget if you make a "small" change of your ship plan, that will affect the placement of everything else around it.

[John Wagenseil]

http://www.burtonbradstock.org.uk/Hi...Resolution.jpg
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5164/...394893c0d3.jpg
http://www.hastingschronicle.net/ima...enuecutter.jpg
http://ny-image1.etsy.com/il_170x135.147908797.jpg
http://fineartamerica.com/images-med...iela-marcu.jpg

[John Wagenseil]

A save all top sail could be placed in the gap between the square sail and the deeply roached topsail, as seen in the left hand view. Note that the main mast seems a little further aft than it does on the Hunter plans.

[B-Manic]

Very nice project - it will be interesting to see a model built from Shipyard plans as opposed to one of their kits.

[krivukov]

@John Wagenseil: WOW!! You're right, John - my head hurts Ever considered writing a book?
But seriously, thank you for your post, I never imagined so many details would need to be considered!
Luckily, I never get that obsessive about details. I'm going to build the ship almost entirely according to Shipyard plans, but I may add or change a few deck details (like the pumps, and the deck house, that you mentioned), and possibly use a different coloring scheme. As far as rigging goes, I don't like to complicate things too much

OK, finally I have some free time on my hands, so I'm putting into high gear - the hull plating is done!
I sanded it down a bit, to get a smoother surface for the planking.



Next, I'm starting with the deck, and then the hull planking.
Also, started working on the stand for the model

More pictures coming soon!

[Papercut]

Nice, I have a Shipyard Le Coureur I got f/Christmas. I will be watching this thread closely. I never thought about building from a set of their plains, for one reason, I never seem to be able to find a set that is not sold out?

[John Wagenseil]

I am really impressed by your hull build and how you avoided flat spots between hull formers on the lower hull.
Would you mind sharing how you transfer the plans to the cardboard, and how you cut out the frames and keep the edges square and uncrushed?
What thickness paper or cardboard did you use, and how did you bend it so smoothly, and were you worried about sanding through it and how did you sandpaper the paper hull surface?
When I have filing or sanding paper, the paper surface usually turns into a stringy lumpy mess that has to be thrown away.

I got carried away with my first post, I think the Model Shipyard publications are amazing and they seem to have only gotten better with time.
The only place you will have real trouble following the Hunter plan, is fitting the spread yard to the main mast.
As they drew it, if it were a real ship, the spread yard's attachment to the mast would prevent the fore and aft mainsail from being lowered. Mamoli, who makes the wood ship model, got around that by putting the spread or lower yard above the gaff jaws.

Now I have gone and made another too long post, its time to shut up and wait for some more paper magic from you.

[Zathros]

Kudos to a beautiful frame and to JohnWagenseil, you could easily write a book. I should be loathe to ever build a sailboat without consulting you. That was one thorough lesson and fun reading!!