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Ships launch (boat)

Don Case

Don Case

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I'm about to glue the ships boats in the Discovery1789. I was looking at the launch zaz7358.

26 ft Launcha.jpg
I noticed that the drawing doesn't show the oarlocks or tholes. Is there anyway I can deduce how many and the placement of them from the drawing? There are seven thwarts but that could be seven or fourteen oarsmen couldn't it? I'm still puzzled by the single/double banked thing so that just complicates it. I did a bunch of looking on RMG and Wikicommons but all they showed were those boards with the notches in them for oars. Is that maybe one of the signs of a launch? I dunno, confused again :)
 
Launches were wide and relatively shallow - and the rowers often sat side by side. On page 42 et seq of 'The Boats of Men of War' by W.E. May is a draft of a 29 foot launch from 1779 which has provision for 14 oars. Another draft for a 35 ft launch is said to be for 16 oars. As even the smaller of these two is a little more than 8 foot beam, this implies the rowers were double banked since one man in the middle of an 8 wide boat would almost certainly have to stand like a gondolier to get two oars in the water.
 
In Lavery's The Arming and Fitting of English Ships of War where he writes that "in 1783 it was ordered that all launches should be equipped to row double banked." Looking at the boat scantlings for launches circa 1800 in May's The Boats of Men of War, the smallest launch that he shows has a length of 24 feet and a breadth of 7 feet 10 inches.

- one man per thwart with two oars (in small boats only)
- one man per thwart with one oar (single bank)
- two men per thwart with one oar each (double bank)
- four men per thwart with two men per oar (in large boats only)
 
That cut-out thole was probably lined with leather, and the oars may well have had leather cuffs where they fitted into the gap. This made for less wear and tear on the woodwork of both boat and oars, and also was a good silencing medium for the kind of 'sneaking around' that commando operations involved. This information is from memory aided by EM Forster's Hornblower stories.

Another though about the double banked rowers- launches were basically based on dockyard workboats, which is why they often had a windlass and detachable davits - for hauling stuff on-board and hoisting it off if required. Having a large crew meant that there was plenty of arm-power available for hoisting as well as rowing, as well as a - for a 16 man launch - a ton of highly mobile and sentient ballast to reduce the chance of a capsize.
 
Don Case said:
I'm about to glue the ships boats in the Discovery1789. I was looking at the launch zaz7358.

View attachment 470347
I noticed that the drawing doesn't show the oarlocks or tholes. Is there anyway I can deduce how many and the placement of them from the drawing? There are seven thwarts but that could be seven or fourteen oarsmen couldn't it? I'm still puzzled by the single/double banked thing so that just complicates it. I did a bunch of looking on RMG and Wikicommons but all they showed were those boards with the notches in them for oars. Is that maybe one of the signs of a launch? I dunno, confused again :)
Click to expand...

See photos below of double banked rowing and single banked. The second boat is an American-style whaleboat at Mystic Seaport. Note that the rowers are positioned on the opposite side of the boat from their respective oarlocks. The fulcrums for oars, be they provided by thole pins, oarlocks, or washboards, are typically about 1 foot aft the after edge of the thwart. This varies depending on the geometry of the set up (beam, height from floor to thwart, height from thole to rail, length of oar, etc.). Fair winds!



double banked rowing.jpegsingle bank rowing.jpeg
 
The longboat, and later the launch were the heavy duty workboats of the sailing warship. They were called upon for a multitude of different duties; hauling water, provisions, anchors, Ordnance, landing marines, etc. They were also considered to be sufficiently seaworthy to be used independently for expeditions.

I would, therefore, suggest that the configuration of oars was not necessarily fixed. The washboards while useful in an open seaway could be a nuisance when hauling provisions in a sheltered harbor. The washboard/thole arrangements that Allan shows above could easily be removed or attached as necessary. Further, when rigged to sail, anything protruding upwards from the gunnel would be easily snagged by rigging.

Form follows function. The US Navy’s Boat Book issued in 1900 for its standardized boats shows launches fitted with metal thole pins. These are easily removable and are fitted with lanyards attached to the boat to keep them from being lost.

If you are showing your launch secured on board, in my opinion, you would be entirely correct to duck the entire question by not showing .washboards or thole pins.

Roger
 
Roger Pellett said:
I would, therefore, suggest that the configuration of oars was not necessarily fixed. The washboards while useful in an open seaway could be a nuisance when hauling provisions in a sheltered harbor. The washboard/thole arrangements that Allan shows above could easily be removed or attached as necessary. Further, when rigged to sail, anything protruding upwards from the gunnel would be easily snagged by rigging.

Form follows function. The US Navy’s Boat Book issued in 1900 for its standardized boats shows launches fitted with metal thole pins. These are easily removable and are fitted with lanyards attached to the boat to keep them from being lost.

If you are showing your launch secured on board, in my opinion, you would be entirely correct to duck the entire question by not showing .washboards or thole pins.
Click to expand...
Well said. I think that sometimes we try to identify a single correct answer for the likely configuration of a feature on a vessel. In fact, mariners have alway modified their vessels and improvised solutions. So there may be more than one answer. I also have a copy of the US Navy Deck and Boat Book but mine is a modern edition--- 1914. Fair winds!
 
Andy,

Different book. The book that I am referring to is Standard Designs for Boats of the US Navy by Phillip Hitchborn. This remarkable book includes complete design drawings for the entire series of the standardized boats of 1900. The large format book was reprinted in the early 2000’s. It was expensive at the time, about $200. In addition to the usual lines and general arrangement drawings it includes many details. I believe that copies were once sent out by the USN Bureau of Construction and Repair to the naval shipyards involved in building these ships’ boats.

Roger
 
Roger Pellett said:
Andy,

Different book. The book that I am referring to is Standard Designs for Boats of the US Navy by Phillip Hitchborn. This remarkable book includes complete design drawings for the entire series of the standardized boats of 1900. The large format book was reprinted in the early 2000’s. It was expensive at the time, about $200. In addition to the usual lines and general arrangement drawings it includes many details. I believe that copies were once sent out by the USN Bureau of Construction and Repair to the naval shipyards involved in building these ships’ boats.

Roger
Click to expand...
Hitchborn's book sounds very cool. A couple of copies are available on AbeBooks for $400. The book I have, The Deck and Boat Book of the United States Navy, is small (4-3/8" x 6") so that it fits in with all the gear required to be carried in boats, but has some interesting info. Where else could you find the proper naval commands and duties for a boat with a sliding gunter rig or a standing lug rig? Fair winds!

deck and boat book.jpg
 
Roger Pellett said:
The longboat, and later the launch were the heavy duty workboats of the sailing warship. They were called upon for a multitude of different duties; hauling water, provisions, anchors, Ordnance, landing marines, etc. They were also considered to be sufficiently seaworthy to be used independently for expeditions.

I would, therefore, suggest that the configuration of oars was not necessarily fixed. The washboards while useful in an open seaway could be a nuisance when hauling provisions in a sheltered harbor. The washboard/thole arrangements that Allan shows above could easily be removed or attached as necessary. Further, when rigged to sail, anything protruding upwards from the gunnel would be easily snagged by rigging.

Form follows function. The US Navy’s Boat Book issued in 1900 for its standardized boats shows launches fitted with metal thole pins. These are easily removable and are fitted with lanyards attached to the boat to keep them from being lost.

If you are showing your launch secured on board, in my opinion, you would be entirely correct to duck the entire question by not showing .washboards or thole pins.

Roger
Click to expand...
I've been thinking about this for a couple of days. Then looking at Alan's Design "B" I'm wondering if this would be just holes in the gunwales at every seating position and then they could pop the thole pins in according to how many oarsmen they wanted?
 
I would suggest that that’s a good possibility. Although Allen’s wash strakes with openings for oars are robust, Thole pins were fragile and easily snagged by rigging involved in launching the boat. Attaching them after the boat was in the water would have eliminated damage.

Roger
 
Roger Pellett said:
Although Allen’s wash strakes with openings for oars are robust
Click to expand...
Good catch Roger. :) I do wonder about how thick they would have been. The scantlings from David Steel's Elements and Practice of Naval Archiecture show the bottom planking was between 5/8" and 1 1/8" thick for various size boats from 16 feet to 37 feet long so I am guessing the washboards would be the same or less, depending on the boat. He does give the breadth of the boards being from 4 1/2" to 7" depending on the size of the boat, but he did not include the thickness.
Allan
 
Don Case said:
I've been thinking about this for a couple of days. Then looking at Alan's Design "B" I'm wondering if this would be just holes in the gunwales at every seating position and then they could pop the thole pins in according to how many oarsmen they wanted?
Click to expand...
Roger Pellett said:
I would suggest that that’s a good possibility. Although Allen’s wash strakes with openings for oars are robust, Thole pins were fragile and easily snagged by rigging involved in launching the boat. Attaching them after the boat was in the water would have eliminated damage.
Click to expand...
It's likely that the person who drafted that plan considered the arrangement of the oar fulcrums (washboards, tholes, or whatever) to be a standard feature that required no detail on the plan and/or a feature that was added by the ship's carpenter and not required to be completed in the shipyard. Tholepins would not usually be fitted into gunwales without blocks to protect the gunwales from wear (see picture below). Also note how the thole pins are tapered to fit the holes and are secured by a lanyard. The lanyard is attached to both pins and they are unshipped by pulling the pins up and letting them fall inboard. Fair winds!

THOLEPINS.jpeg
 
Stretchers are another feature usually not shown on contemporary drawings. A powerful rowing stroke requires anchoring one’s feet. Otherwise the only things pulling the oars are the rowers arms. With feet anchored the rowers whole body comes into play. The depth of the hull from the thwarts to the floorboards of a large boat like a longboat or launch was such that the feet of a sitting oarsman would dangle in the air. Stretchers were horizontal bars athwartships to support the rowers feet. They would have been easily removable. The other alternative would be row standing up. Pictorial evidence of Royal Navy boats shows the oarsmen sitting down.

Roger
 
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