With winter approaching, and thinking again about indoor projects, I have been working with Capt. Matt to figure out how best to get started with a scale model of his 'Jette'. This is the wooden boat he is building within a few hundred feet of our house: ['Wooden boat projects' Sep.27,2009]
He chose to base his boat on the lines of a particular Danish work boat - the 'Haabet' - but with a deck layout to match his personal preferences. In his words: "There were others similar to it from other places, but I just loved this particular one for some reason. It was said that the Bornholm Island boats were superior to some of the other ones, in terms of seaworthiness, even though it was smaller in size. I want to discover the reasons for this claim."
Most of the classic, smaller, Danish wooden boats were documented by a young boat builder - Christian Nielsen. Under the auspices of the Danish Maritime Museum, he rode his bicycle around the many coastlines of Denmark to visit boatyards and "to measure and describe characteristic boat types, in the field." This is commonly referred to as 'taking the lines off' a boat. These lines are now "offered to the public" in a book that I managed to purchase second-hand and in excellent condition:
According to Nielsen, 'Haabet' was built in the town of Listed on the Danish island of
Bornholm, located in the Baltic Sea far to the east of mainland Denmark:
She was a typical fishing boat with single mast and bowsprit:
"..a strong and solidly built vessel with sharp ends and a distinctively high peak for the topsail yard." The gaff rigged mainsail, with jib and staysail, is similar to a modern 'cutter' sailplan. It can also be compared with the forward
sailplan for a fishing schooner ['Schooners' Sep.24, 2009], although the topsail has a shape that is quite different from that for a typical schooner.
'Haabet' was "used to fish salmon and to jig for cod, but in the main was used in the herring fisheries with nets." Enormous amounts of herring, both salted and smoked, were consumed in Europe in accordance with the prevailing religious practice of fasting.
This boat is typical of the Scandinavian clinker built, 'double-ender',
fishing boats for the period 1870-1930. But it's a design that has evolved from the Viking longboats, over centuries of boat building in this part of the world.
This is one of Nielsen's drawings for 'Haabet':
The basic measurements are as follows:
Length: 25' feet
Beam: 9' 2"
Draft: 3' 6"
So why a scale model?
To quote a Brit shipwright: "Finally, before you start buying much of anything [materials], I'd urge you to build a model of the boat EXACTLY THE SAME AS THE ORIGINAL. Take your plans and figure to build at 1" or even 2" to the foot scale. At 2" you'd have a 50" model, but it will be easier to build for these purposes. First, loft the entire boat on paper as you would the full-size version. Second, build the model in the same fashion as you would the full-size one. You will then have a model
to inspire you as you work on the big girl, but you will already have made all your mistakes on the model, not the full-size boat. You will know how the planks are shaped and which ones will be the buggers to fit. More importantly, you will get a sense of what is the best order of construction. It's one thing to "paint yourself into a corner" on a model and another on a full-sized boat. Questions like whether you should leave the transom off to make running the clamps in full length first and things like that are easy to determine on the model. A similar goof on the big boat may mean hours and hours more work to get around something that shouldn't have been installed first, or tearing out work already accomplished."
From my side, a model should be a wonderful hands-on experience in an effort to really understand how a smaller wooden boat is designed and built.
Capt. Matt says: "I actually have a model started in my closet that is a Jette type of boat. I haven't touched it in a couple years...Let me know how I can help." Then a very interesting development: "If you're very careful, I can let you borrow my set of plans that I got from the museum in Denmark. It's the same as what's in the book, just bigger." Really cool!
Now here is an update on "the real boat" - deck planking, with 1-1/4" Douglas fir, is underway:
Photo: Matt Billing, Gloucester, MA (October 2009)
To be continued...
PS. Later today the New England Patriots are playing on the "other side of the pond". They get to show off American style football
to English fans at a sold-out Wembley Stadium in London - see the previous Blog post.