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Author Topic: Scratchbuilt Brig-of-war US Somers of 1842  (Read 12391 times)

meatbomber

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Scratchbuilt Brig-of-war US Somers of 1842
« on: February 12, 2010, 12:37:49 pm »

i`ve just recently completed my second Scratchbuilt Ship :) Again it had to be a square rigger, but this time not so easy as a Brigantine it had to be something a bit more challenging and scale looking as Brooks Aldebaran Topsailschooner and later brig but still more a pondsailer that allows good transportability and good handling, sacrificing a bit of scale detail.
A ship described in Howard I Chapelles "History of American Sailing Ships" caught my eye. the Ship described was the late Man'o war Brig Somers of 12 Guns.

The Specs of th original:

Length between perpendiculars 100ft
Length on Deck 102ft
Beam moulded 25ft
Max Draft 13.5ft
Burthen 259 Tons




A very handsome vessel :) So i set out and started with reconstructing Somers lines plan in Delftship.

The Linesplan was then adjusted so as to get a buttock line every 9mm and these buttock lines were used as templates for a bread and butter build of the hull from balsa.

The Model would be:
Scale 1:51
Length between perpendiculars 588mm
Length on deck 600mm
Beam 147mm
Displacement 2.2kg

lots of cutting


even more sanding and swamping out the hull later


Next up bullwarks, and transom


The head


RC installation:

There is 1 Servo each for each mast. The Fore Mast brace servo also has teh headsail sheet and there is a seperate servo for teh spanker sheet and one for rudder.

and then painting and rigging :)


The Sails are made from Tyvek "paper" a Polyamid foil that is waterproof, chemical proofe and very tear resistant. It`s best known in the form of overseas envelopes.

I ballasted her to the calculated displacement of 2,2kgs and she floated surprise surprise ;) on here scale waterline :) The ballast is in a PVC tube at the end of a 25cm 8mm plexiglas keel. The keel is removeable and also repositionable in an Aluminum U profile epoxiedto teh bottom of the hull. Ballast is 1,2kgs of lead shot. 


And last weekend i had my first cahnce to sail her... on a trip to the Austrian Alps (my home town is there) we came past one of teh biggest Lakes in Austria and i used the chance of liquid water for a maiden voyage with Somers!
We had to sail in teh lee of a floatng pier which gave us some sheltered water in regard of waves but also produced some interesting winds, but nevertheless Somers sailed near perfectly :) tacking was no problem and also wearing ship wasn`t taking much radius du to the big clear fin extension :) i`m very very happy with her sailing qualities.





a short video here:
http://www.vimeo.com/9306990

cheers

MB
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Mark47

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Re: Scratchbuilt Brig-of-war US Somers of 1842
« Reply #1 on: February 12, 2010, 12:55:33 pm »

I'm impressed. :-))

Unusual subject done very well.  O0
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tigertiger

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Re: Scratchbuilt Brig-of-war US Somers of 1842
« Reply #2 on: February 12, 2010, 01:06:17 pm »

Hi Meatbomber.

Nice job.

I wonder, would putting a fixed/permanent belly in the square sails help sailing (as well as asthetics)?

TT
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meatbomber

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Re: Scratchbuilt Brig-of-war US Somers of 1842
« Reply #3 on: February 12, 2010, 03:34:29 pm »

Thanks :)

TT i think from teh aerodynamic standpoint you really want those sails as flat as possible, considering the small Re numbers involved, teh best airfoil is a flat plate (or something with a VERY small camber), so IMO it`s better to keep them as flat as possible. I had ripstop sails on my Footy Brigantine and performance increased dramatically when i changed tehm for Tyvek sails.
The Sails have a nice belly once they are filled and it`s nice to have a good indication when sailing / tacking if your sails are filling well or they are still aback :)
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tigertiger

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Re: Scratchbuilt Brig-of-war US Somers of 1842
« Reply #4 on: February 12, 2010, 04:46:38 pm »

I get what you mean.
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jonny shoreboy

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Re: Scratchbuilt Brig-of-war US Somers of 1842
« Reply #5 on: February 12, 2010, 05:45:57 pm »

Looking good, thats a fantastic looking model and looks great on the water! Thank you for sharing!!

Pictures of models in the bath always make me chuckle. My wife came home one afternoon while I my boat in the bath for the first time (checking for leaks etc) and she gave me a strange look and asked "what are you doing?". I replied "playing with my boat in the bath, what does it look like?". She rolled her eyes and gave me that 'how old are you look'.. {-)
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Jimmy James

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Re: Scratchbuilt Brig-of-war US Somers of 1842
« Reply #6 on: February 13, 2010, 01:43:36 pm »

Nice little model & she sails well ...Well Done... Mine tend to be a bit bigger 40" to 46" and I  tend to use light weight shower curtin for sail cloth. Where do you sail?
Jimmy James
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meatbomber

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Re: Scratchbuilt Brig-of-war US Somers of 1842
« Reply #7 on: February 13, 2010, 07:12:46 pm »

Thanks JJ
i`m sailing in Klatovy the Czech Republic so i fear a fleet sail won`t happen anytime soon ;) but i`m hoping to find a few like minded people in the area soon
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Jimmy James

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Re: Scratchbuilt Brig-of-war US Somers of 1842
« Reply #8 on: February 14, 2010, 09:52:36 pm »

Remarkable the places Mayhem boaters are from.... Keep up the good work... and keep the pictures comming ... For me some local background scenery would be nice...
Jimmy James :-)) O0
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meatbomber

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Re: Scratchbuilt Brig-of-war US Somers of 1842
« Reply #9 on: February 14, 2010, 09:59:55 pm »

yea well i hope i`ll be able to sail again soon... but first we have to have a major thaw... right now all bodies of water here are frozen, including rivers slow enough to sail on!
Mental note to self, don`t finish a sailboat build in the middle of winter :D
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meatbomber

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Re: Scratchbuilt Brig-of-war US Somers of 1842
« Reply #10 on: March 31, 2010, 03:16:49 pm »

finaly our pond has thawed and i had already some really nice sailing teh last 3 days :)
With all her canvas set she is definitely a light wind sailer, but then already a very small breeze makes her move out nicely.
Right now my minimum canvas is the Boomed F&A sails and teh 2 topsails, so i need to think about making a reefed version of the topsails and also maybe the fore trysail removeable..
i had a few gusts where she was pretty much knocked down as you can see in the below pics.. unfortunately i have yet to get her watertight... so all water she ships ends up in her bilge :( well room for improvement. i have since added 200g of ballast to stiffen her up a bit and also with teh lower waterline she should get a bit more stability from the hull shape.
we will see how it works :)

[img width= height= alt=" border="0" class="resizeImage]http://i876.photobucket.com/albums/ab324/meatbomber/USN%20Somers/P1010913.jpg[/img][img width= height= alt=" border="0" class="resizeImage]http://i876.photobucket.com/albums/ab324/meatbomber/USN%20Somers/P1010914.jpg[/img]
 
[img width= height= alt=" border="0" class="resizeImage]http://i876.photobucket.com/albums/ab324/meatbomber/USN%20Somers/P1010901.jpg[/img][img width= height= alt=" border="0" class="resizeImage]http://i876.photobucket.com/albums/ab324/meatbomber/USN%20Somers/P1090619.jpg[/img]
 
[img width= height= alt=" border="0" class="resizeImage]http://i876.photobucket.com/albums/ab324/meatbomber/USN%20Somers/P1090608.jpg[/img][img width= height= alt=" border="0" class="resizeImage]http://i876.photobucket.com/albums/ab324/meatbomber/USN%20Somers/P1090602.jpg[/img] 
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Jimmy James

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Re: Scratchbuilt Brig-of-war US Somers of 1842
« Reply #11 on: March 31, 2010, 11:36:07 pm »

M.B
She looks good under sail,
Try striking the fore and main stay sails and sailing her under the two jibs, fore & main topsails and mainsail, if she is still over powered strike your main topsail, ... If you want to reef --- I use jackline reefing on all of my square riggers (see Brigantine Freebooter in R & D Yachts and Sail or Rigging tool on this site) its a lot easyer than trying to tie small reefing lines... If you are using hard (Plastic or Film)sails the easyest way might be to just make a smaller set of top sails & a mainsail to simulate reefed sails...
Jimmy
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meatbomber

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Re: Scratchbuilt Brig-of-war US Somers of 1842
« Reply #12 on: April 01, 2010, 12:07:09 am »

Jimmy thanks for the tips i have since read up on making and reefing sails in Harlands Seamanship and i should have reduced the headsails too, as they are removeable, but the rest as it is now is not removeable  and yea they are tyvek sails so non-reefable. i have since added ballast as she was lacking in stiffness and also she was riding high with the strong deadrise that isn`t really helping stability either ;)
i`m gonna modify the trysail  and the topsails to be removable which they are not right now  so i can make reefed ones or just take them all off and sail under F&A alone in gale winds :)

I had a reefable course on my footy brigantine but the stiffness of the tyvek sails really improves the windward performance as compared to cloth sails and they are so much easier to make..
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Jimmy James

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Re: Scratchbuilt Brig-of-war US Somers of 1842
« Reply #13 on: April 03, 2010, 12:42:36 am »

MB
You might try the systime I used to use a few years ago ... for each yard slip a bit of thin brass or copper tube on the mast with a simple u shaped bracket that will fix to the yard with a removable pin ... to shorten sail pull out the pin and unhook the sheets ,haulyards and lifts

 I've Martin to put  up some more pictures of Fire Drake for me
Jimmy
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meatbomber

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Re: Scratchbuilt Brig-of-war US Somers of 1842
« Reply #14 on: May 25, 2010, 08:51:56 am »

today took out Somers again to a newly flooded pond at the stone quary which is perfect for the direction of the wind we had. Winds were from west with a good 12kts and in gusts near on 20kts, during the day we had 25G30. So i decided to sail with tops'ls over fore course and all head sails. I also put the keel 1,5cm further forward with the hope of making her quicker in stays.
She sailed really nicely with that setting ! I have a quick video, unfortunately its not very sharp (we used our digicam for that) but i have a lot of very nice photos to compensate for that :) Stays worked quickly, i missed stays a few times but only due to operator error swinging the fore yards too early.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSR8k_XcnA4
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derekwarner

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Re: Scratchbuilt Brig-of-war US Somers of 1842
« Reply #15 on: May 25, 2010, 10:48:43 am »

Hey...thats brilliant footage of the vessel under sail  meatbomber ..........I see 200 gm of ballast has been added

May be a compromise between available free board & sail area????????  :-)) ....Derek
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Greggy1964

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Re: Scratchbuilt Brig-of-war US Somers of 1842
« Reply #16 on: May 25, 2010, 07:43:59 pm »

Lovely ship :-))

Excellent video :-))

I want one! {-) O0
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dave301bounty

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Re: Scratchbuilt Brig-of-war US Somers of 1842
« Reply #17 on: May 25, 2010, 08:52:45 pm »

Hey ,fantastic .You,ve made a good job there ,and the way she sails ,speaks volumes .well done ,y should be proud of y self.
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meatbomber

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Re: Scratchbuilt Brig-of-war US Somers of 1842
« Reply #18 on: May 25, 2010, 09:44:37 pm »

thanks guys :) i`m starting to have real fun with Somers, the change of the keel further forward made all the difference !

today: Cruise #20 Wind W 5G10kts and falling Baro rising
in the first dogwatch again spotted a sloop inshore and slightly to to leeward. Suspected it to be the sloop that evaded us earlier in teh same waters. Closed the chase and fired a salvo infront of her bow to make her heave to. The chase wore, and returned fire causing only minor rigging damage. after which we fired 2 broad sides into her and later took her by bording. The sloop turned out to be Doublefoot (6 guns) 5 days out of ivory Coast bound for Cuba with contraband.
:D
The footy is very hard to catch... i tried to make contact with her a lot of the time and the onyl time i could have "borded" was when i caught him so close inshore he couldn`t escape to windward and could`t wear anymore to escape.. sailing tactics are really difficult.. so many variables
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Jimmy James

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Re: Scratchbuilt Brig-of-war US Somers of 1842
« Reply #19 on: May 26, 2010, 05:00:26 pm »

OK MB ,
I give up...how did you do it .... my guns only go bang and make a bit of smoke --- {:-{-- or were you cheating and throwing stones  {-)
Jimmy
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