Whaleboat Images

These images are details of artworks and graphics on the walls at the New Bedford Whaling Museum.

Whaleboats in Watercolors

Details from seamen's sketches. I photographed these at the New Bedford Whaling museum.

New Bedford

Visited New Bedford's National Park and Whaling Museum. They have a couple Azorean Whaleboats that they raced last Sept. 2010. Click here for their webpage.

Tom, there were many designs for harpoons.

Offsets

The table of offsets has all the measurement information for distances along each labeled line. For a great post about measuring an existing boat to produce plans, check out Russ Manheimerspost about measuring SJOGIN.

Reading Plans

The plans for the Whaleboat have a table

of offsets in the corner. The offsets are read in feet-inches- and eighths of inches. These coordinates specify points on given lines. They are the given locations where a long flexible batten may be bent along to make a fair line.

The lines on the plans are drawn in three axes, or planes intersecting each other at right angles for the most part. (the diagonals make a fourth set of planes, not at right angles.)

In this view the station profiles are shown, the waterlines are the horizontal lines spaced about 6" apart, the vertical lines are buttock lines. The diagonals radiate downward from the center.

In these last two images, (not whaleboats, but good illustrations from a book called, Ships of

the Pharaohs, by Bjorn Landstrom,) you can visualize where the lines come from and how they relate to a three dimensional hull. The lofter uses geometry and battens to create full size drawings from the numbers in the table of offsets and the lines on the plans.

Plans

The plans for the whaleboats being built at Workshop on the Water and Rocking the Boat are available from Mystic Seaport. These drawings were done by R.C Allyn in 1973. They are the lines from a Beetle Whaleboat. Beetle built about 50 boats a year between 1834 and 1854. A set of lines like this gives all the information a builder needs to produce a boat with the given shape.

Stoves

Check out the Bio Diesel stove.

http://www.marinestove.com/herringinfo.htm

With the winter being so cold and snowy here I have been looking at stoves and cooking for small cruisers. Have been collecting camp stoves for a while and recently bought a kelly kettle. The house is heated with a Jotul, which keeps us cosy. SILENT MAID has a wonderful diesel Wallace stove which doubles as a cabin heater. It needs a battery system in addition to the fuel system. I was hoping to keep things more simple.

Whaleboats

The beginning of a new boat means drawing the shapes full size from a set of offsets (feet-inches-eighths) that determine points. Battens bent to meet these points are adjusted for fair curves.

My friend Tom Armstrong, has set up a new blog to document the building of the whaleboats by the seaport's Workshop on the Water. http://whaleboats.blogspot.com/

High Tide

This was a strange day. I came home from school and the porch had water on it. No, the hose wasn't leaking. I opened the door, stepped over the threshold and the water went over my sneaker tops. Good thing I don't wear high tops. It was just like getting off SILENT MAID in Chestertown last year at high tide. At first, it was intereting and then the realization of magnitude of the disater hit me. I walked into the kitchen and waterfalls were cascading down from the light fixtures and each corner of the skylight. What to do? I braved the waterfall and found the shut-off. I waded through house to see. It was so cool and unrealistic at the same time. There is not supposed to be this much water inside your house. The ebb had begun, but every room but the northeast bedroom had standing water. Called Pete, he came home and got some friends over with water vacs. I cried really hard and then got busy cutting up carpet. The floor is concrete so once the carpet was out, the concrete vacuumed and dried pretty quick. Lots of books in the trash. Going to try and save a few by inducucing freezer burn in the fridge.

Lofting

Began lofting the Whaleboat on Thursday. 4 sheets of luan were screwed to the floor and painted white. A baseline was snapped on and penciled in. 9 stations were set up from the baseline with 3-4-5 triangles and the 4 waterlines were marked out.

JS"bach and the CHIMAY team hung the last two planks and trimmed them with a slick. Jeff & Gina were working on MISLEADING LADY.

WHALEBOAT begun

Tues night, Mike & I laid out and cut the rest of the ash oar blanks. Andy had cut a set earlier. We are making them with a rib down the center and not spoons. I had already made the template earlier. The are heavy. ooh, way heavy. I hope it is because the wood is a bit wet. Couldn't find the small power plane, so we ended the night with work on chocks and cleats. Marking and drilling holes.

We bent another set of planks for gaff jaws and I glued up the last set and put in another group to soak. When I walked in the shop, late afternoon, SILENT MAID, the original, had been shifted over four feet to make way for the lofting of the whaleboat. This is very exciting.

Nauset Winter

More Snow Less Boats

Nite Snow

Stayed a bit later to enjoy the quiet after a busy day. Pete worked on the sink for SILENT MAID. I glued up a pre-bent gaff jaw and bent another soaked set of staves. Highlight was to layout a pattern for three pair of ash oars for the museum's in water sharpies and tuckups. Snow kept the TSCA attendance down, but was very pretty.

WorkDay

Thursdays are always busy at the shop. Newt, Gina, Andy and Jeff were working on SILENT MAIDs cradle, John S'B and Charles hung another plank on the Comet. (She may be painted blue like the trappist beer bottles) They also did a bit of rot chasing. John B received the new V-drive for MISLEADING LADY.

WorkNite

Mike and Paul came in to help out and we got another gaff jaw lamination glued up, a gaff jaw pre-bent on a new form, FISH STIX spars marked for rigging, Paul started making blanks for new 4" cleats. He and Mike sanded the tuckup spars and I gave them another coat of varnish. The crew was severely reduced by illness.

New Tent for FISH STIX

Hers blew away in the last big windstorm.

Timber

Here is the support beam for Silent Maids keel being fitted by John and Andy.

The comet is getting more bottom planks.

Famous Writer

Kent Mountford was at the boatshop today mugging for my camera while shooting images for his book about SILENT MAID.

He writes in Bay

Quanset Pond and Nauset

Dawn and foggy on day two of the new year.