"Royal Yachts under Sail" by Brian Lavery, an other adition to my library:
-
Win a Free Custom Engraved Brass Coin!!!
As a way to introduce our brass coins to the community, we will raffle off a free coin during the month of August. Follow link ABOVE for instructions for entering.
New on your bookshelf ..... show it here
- Thread starter Uwek
- Start date
- Watchers 92
-
- Tags
- your new books
- Joined
- Jun 22, 2025
- Messages
- 33
- Points
- 48
Purchased recently on eBay, this volume is filled with detail on the clipper ship era. Grey Hounds of the Sea, The Story of the American Clipper Ship by Carl C. Cutler also contains a significant amount of contemporary data pertaining to ship sailing records. All that data aside, the book is a good read with the author moving the narrative along nicely. It is well researched, and equally well written.
These arrived today, Thomas H. Petersen Master Shipbuilder from the Kelley House Museum in Mendocino and The Doghole Schooners. I am not a huge maritime history buff but 19th century west coast U.S. history in general has always held a fascination for me. Neither of these books are ship-building specific and deal more with the history of west coast log-hauling ships, but they're interesting to me nonetheless. I find the "smaller" historical stories far more interesting than sweeping events and "great men".
I am considering scratch-building a model lumber schooner, armed with the knowledge outlined in The Doghole Schooners that such craft were built with such a wild variety that finding a "plan" is probably nigh impossible. Such a model would be an "impression" at best, but there are good photos in these books and available online.
- Joined
- Jun 29, 2024
- Messages
- 1,271
- Points
- 393
The C. A. Thayer on display in San Francisco was recently rebuilt I am sure plans are available. There was a second schooner in Washington State that was surveyed before being demolished plans should be available for her too.
Roger
Roger
C. A. Thayer is easily twice the size of those little two-mast schooners but the hull form looks pretty similar, I'll look into that.
- Joined
- Jun 29, 2024
- Messages
- 1,271
- Points
- 393
Look into the HAMMS (Historic American Merchant Marine) information for the West Coast. They might have surveyed one of these small schooners back in the ‘30s.
Roger
Roger
Thanks for the tip, much appreciated!
Free maritime library Runet.
The C.A. Thayer has been entered into the Historic American Engineering Record. Highly detailed plans for every part of her are available online, together with a considerable number of photos. See: https://www.loc.gov/item/ca1506/
Note: In the lower left portion of each section when opened is a "drop down" "download" box. The files are available in a variety of formats. If the "TIFF" file format is downloaded, the files may be enlarged greatly to study detail without the lines spreading as the view is enlarged. This permits copying to a large format printer. You can download to a thumb drive and take them to an architectural/engineering copy shop with large format printers and get 18"x22" plan prints without line distortion.
I have acquired the last volume of the Warships in the Age of Sail series to complete that series, namely "British Warships in the Age of Sail 1793-1817".
The Louisa Morrison schooner in Volume 3 (West Coast) looks close, at least in general. The pictures I have of Thomas Petersen's schooners show a much wider transom, with the deck appearing to be almost straight to the back. I put some pictures in spoilers so as to not mess up this post. I am fairly certain I might have to make a trip to Mendocino or maybe even San Francisco in order to have a chance of finding drawings.
Lord knows what my kids will do with it when I am gone, but if you are ever in the Kansas city area and want to poke around in it just let me know.Will you leave it to me when you die?
Jeff
It's actually in Volume 6. For those who don't know, HAMMS is the Historical Merchant Marine Survey, produced by the WPA during the 1930s depression to keep unemployed marine draughtsmen busy (including Chappelle). It was released for printing in the 1980s. It's quite large, but can double as an end table.
Here is the Louisa Morrison. Some plans are more extensively documented than others, many are just the lines. This is one of the former.
Last edited:
- Joined
- Oct 2, 2025
- Messages
- 33
- Points
- 48
The S.I. catalog: Ship Plans List
page 90
16-42 Louisa Morrison schooner 1868 Lines 1/4" $10
Inboard profile 1/4" $10
Deck plan 1/4" $10
Deck construction plan 1/4" $10
3 sheets of sections 1/2" $10
Details of windlass 1" $10
Sail, spar & rigging plan 1/8" $10
page 90
16-42 Louisa Morrison schooner 1868 Lines 1/4" $10
Inboard profile 1/4" $10
Deck plan 1/4" $10
Deck construction plan 1/4" $10
3 sheets of sections 1/2" $10
Details of windlass 1" $10
Sail, spar & rigging plan 1/8" $10
Well, you could put my name and phone number on a post-it note inside the box saying, "When I croak, call this guy. He wants this!"
It sounds like your HAMMS set is a lot like what my wife calls my "plunder." I got collections of stuff that practically nobody in the world would be interested in but is "too valuable to throw away." In my estimation, at least. With me, it's books. I've had my eye out for a copy of the 1980's printing you have for years. When it was first printed, in a very limited edition, I believe, it was obscenely expensive. The price keeps dropping, but a set seems to come available only very rarely. I think they were originally intended for distribution to research libraries and not so much for retail sales. You wouldn't have ever seen a set in Barnes and Noble!
Come to think of it, perhaps the copyright has expired or is otherwise in the public domain. The HAAMS set surely would be an excellent candidate for digitization and sale on a thumb drive.
I bought my copy of HAMMS from the estate of good friend and member of our local ship club for $750. He had 3 copies. One went to me, one to another member of the club, and his personal copy I brokered the sale of to a gentleman who then donated it to The Merchant Marine Academy library. He flew to KC, rented a car and then drove it back east... Cheaper than shipping considering the size and weight of the set. It's fun to just pull out one of the books on a lazy Saturday afternoon. ..
New books arrived today, The Art of Rigging by George Biddlecombe, The Baltimore Clippers and The American Fishing Schooners by Howard I. Chapelle. The Fishing Schooners book is pretty exciting for me at a glance because I can recognize the west coast lumber schooners in a lot of the contemporary two-mast fishing hulls, it would be pretty easy to use those as a template.
If you haven't already made his acquaintance, you may want to google "Mathew Turner + shipbuilder." (See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Turner_(shipbuilder) and https://mohbenicia.org/solano-chronicles-matthew-turner/)
Turner was an remarkably prolific and successful builder of West Coast schooners and brigantines in the late 1800's and early 1900's, first at Eureka, CA, "doghole" country, and then at his yard in Benica, CA at the northern end of the San Francisco Bay. There is a museum in Benica that I believe has, or would know the whereabouts of, his plans and records. They may also be in the J. Porter Shaw Library at the San Francisco National Maritime Historical Park. (See: https://www.kahnfoundation.org/j-porter-shaw-maritime-library/ and https://npshistory.com/publications/safr/newspaper/dec-jan-feb-2011-2012.pdf)
There's also a fellow on MSW forum who is recreating a CAD version of the detailed construction plans of the brigantine Galilee, one of Turner's more famous ships. Turner got his start in Eureka building "doghole" schooners for the coastal lumber trade.