The Shipyard ( Dry Dock ): Builds & Questions > Yachts and Sail

Humber smack circa 1880- build log

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Brian60:
 First a little background- Brixham home of the ubiquitous sailing trawler a few of which still survive to this day. The fisherfolk of Brixham back in the mid 1800’s always on the lookout for newer fishing grounds gradually spread around the coasts of the UK.
Slowly making their way up the east coast they put in at Lowestoft, Hull, Grimsby and as far as Scarborough. The locals on seeing this type of craft were not slow to copy and order craft of their own to the same style. Sadly the Humber variant no longer exists, only as one line drawing in a book called Homes of the Humber , Homes among other things being a small craft (zulu’s) sailor. From the contents of the book the boat was almost identical to the original Brixham craft but being 10-15 feet longer and 1 ft deeper draft to give them more sea room. The boats of the south coast running for safe harbour in foul weather whereas the east coast men would stay out at sea. More in depth reading on all the variants from Brixham up the east coast to Scarborough, both about the craft, their crews and their owners can be read in Edgar J March’s book-Sailing Trawlers, good luck if you can find a copy anywhere for less than a £100. It was written  just after WW2 and has been out of print since 1970 but is a fascinating read! Interestingly the sailing smack rose to prominence and disappeared very quickly from nothing around 1870 to over 300 registered in Hull by 1890. Then in the next 10 years had just as quickly disappeared to be replaced by steam, so 30 years was the golden age for these type of craft on the Humber.
 

Brian60:
 So to my build, while taking measurements from the plan in the book,  I broadly followed builds of any similar boat for ideas and ways to crack problems that arise. So for the problems kicked up by the hull I am indebted to the late Greg Bulmer (Greggy1964) for solving most of them for me! His build of the Lowestoft variant can be found here--http://www.modelboatmayhem.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,19422.0.html
The keel (p1) is 8mm oak scaled up this is a shade under 12” for the real keel, the hull planking will eventually be of oak also. Bulkheads/ribs are in 6mm ply (p2) and are there not for scale but to hold the planking(obviously!) and radio gear.  I have many ideas in my head for the deck, masts and other items, but its problem solving on the fly. You cannot complete part A because part C has to be given consideration for fitment beforehand etc  etc!  My first problem came at the stern, while Greg built at 1/20th mine is 1/44th( a cock up with upscaling on the photocopier!) physically a lot smaller.  He decided on rudder control  using a worm and pinion gear below deck. On mine the clearance between inner hull and deck head in that area was akin to 10mm, not enough room to put the same into place. I thought of using a standard tiller/rod connection through to a servo, but again the problem would be the swing needed for the tiller linkage, using it would mean that not enough timber would be left to support either the deck or the hull planking.
 

Brian60:
 After rather too much time sitting and staring at the area concerned I decided on the idea detailed in p3. I installed two short pieces of 5mm copper tube (car brake tubing available in lengths from ebay or a local motor factors) one port, one starboard (p3). I will feed  a line through these and up to the real tiller bar above deck, the other ends will be terminated at  adjustable turnbuckles at a servo. The outward appearance will show the tiller arm is lashed down as though for rough weather or because the helmsman  ( J Edgar March in his book Sailing Trawlers, mentions that the cook was also a boy apprentice and  helmsman when necessary) is helping out on deck with the gear or gutting fish. It was common for the 5 man crews to carry out any and all work as needed. There was however a pecking order, from apprentice up to captain, boys as young as 11 serving as apprentice could be captaining a boat by the age of nineteen!
The third copper tube in the centre of p3 is fed to the stern rail, through this will be  the sheet for the mizzen boom, down below operated by a sail servo. Once the deck is in place these tubes will be trimmed off flush with the deck and disguised by cleats port and starboard. The sheet will run up beside one of the horn timbers to the taffrail and be fed through a block up to the boom.
 

Brian60:
 In (p4) you can see my  solution to the rudder problem.  I have epoxied a 5mm brass tube which will act as a bearing for a 4mm rod that the rudder assembly will be built on. Again the scale rudder will be much too small to give any noticeable control. After some experimentation with solutions I decided on the rudder being a hollow pocket, into which a perspex extension can be fitted for sailing and stowed inside when the boat is on its display stand. The rudder two parts are shown in p5 and p6, the perspex addition roughly cut to size for the moment, I will trim it smaller and smaller once I can see how much I can get away with in sailing conditions.
There are several  ways of keeping this type of craft well balanced for sailing. The most popular seems to be to increase the actual depth of the hull, ie add in several more lines of planking. I wasn’t happy to do this as when the model is on its display stand it will look out of proportion (to my eyes) so I plan on having a detachable keel and maybe a bulb weight, more of this later.
 

Circlip:
Hope some are watching the bent tube solution Brian as this is all that's required for turning the "cable" in closed loop steering systems (Oh no, not again). As you've already done, the only thing to watch is that the ends of the tube bores have been deburred.   :-))
 
  Regards   Ian.

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