I do believe Benjaml's hull is of a Fife, whereas Bernhard's model is more likely a ship's lifeboat.
Many years ago when we lived in Shetland, I bought a Fife as a derelict on the beach: "Girl Anne" was 21 feet LOA by about six or seven feet beam. The stem and the stern were very straight and had very little rake from vertical. Her planking was larch-on-oak, the planks about 5" x 1/2", lapped (clinker-built) and copper-rivetted with the occasional blooming big iron nail through a frame. The rivets were at about 6-inch spacing, which left space to add an extra if the boards sprang a little, and the sawn frames were probably 18" to 2 feet apart. Contrast that with Bernhard's hull - rivets at about every two inches.
(As an aside, we hauled her back to our house and spend many, many hours trying to re-plank her: even at only 1/2 inch thick, the larch really needed steaming, which we could not do. And Shetland's very occasional sunshine dried the boards so they were very hard to bend without breaking.)
Her propeller was three-bladed, 10 or 12 inches diameter on a spindly 1 inch shaft, sticking straight out of the stern-post. A cutout in the rudder sort of accommodated this. Her stern-tube was very short, basically just enough to get through the stern-post. The shaft then ran under loose floorboards to couple with the engine. We never did find what the engine was - it was so rusted-and-crusted it was beyond salvage. ("Bolinder" semi-diesel seems possible??) I do remember that the heaviest part of the engine was the massive flywheel - very necessary on a one-lung, slow-revving engine.
A little "wheelhouse" sat just aft of the engine. This comprised a front and two sides, each with a plain glass window, and a roof and it was perhaps five feet high above the deck - don't forget the fisherman stood on boards just above the prop-shaft, perhaps two-and-a-half feet below deck. This wheelhouse was barely wider than a man's shoulders, maybe two feet. The engine was only just in front of the guy's knees so he could easily reach the controls, the gear-lever and the starting handle.
There were deck beams at pretty nearly every frame to prevent "hogging" as well as to support the deck. A fish-hatch of maybe 3 feet wide by four feet long was the only opening in the deck besides the wheelhouse - both had coamings four inches high.
I wish, Oh how I wish, I could offer some photos. But I can't, so I shan't. Sorry chaps, I don't have any photos of her.
I also wish I had managed to restore her, but that's another story ....
Geoff
