Baltimore Clipper Schooner Pride of Baltimore 1981 (1:20 scale radio-controlled sailing model)

[JerryTodd]

On my 21st birthday I reported aboard the schooner Pride of Baltimore as a deck-hand and gunner. Five years before, my first paying job was on the construction of this very boat.
I spent nearly two months on board Pride and a year later acquired a set of plans from the designer, Thomas Gilmer, with the intent of building a working model.
I started that model, straight from the 1:32 scale plans, while I was living with 7 other people in a big Baltimore townhouse. That model, only forms and half planked was destroyed by a room mate while I was away on another boat.
I started this model much later, when I was single, "owned" my own home, with a workshop out back, you know "settled down" for the fourth or fifth time. I moved here in 2008 and resumed working on Constellation in 2009, but progress was slow on that model, so I figured a schooner would be quicker to finish and net me something to sail in the nearby creek.
I often think this way, and these ideas often don't pan out they way I hoped.
In 2010, I started by re-scaling the plans to 1:36 scale to match my model of Constellation, but this seemed to small to fit servos and mechanics strong enough to control a relatively huge amount of sail. I decided to scale her to be about the same size as Constellation over the rig (tip of bowsprit to tip of boom), or as big as she could be and still fit in the SUV. What I wound up with was 1:20 scale which would give me:

• Hull length: 54" (137.16cm)
• Length on deck: 48" (121.9cm)
• Length on waterline w/o rudder: 46.75" (118.75cm)
• Length over the rig: 81.5" (207cm)
• Beam: 13.625" (34.6cm)
• Draft without external ballast: 5.875" (14.9cm)
• Total height (top of jack-yard to bottom of keel): 61.6" (156.5cm)
• Total Sail area: 2,205.13 square inches (14,226.6 scm) in 8 sails.

This drawing is a reduced version of a work-in-progress. The actual boat was different than her plans in many ways; hatches, the stern, deck arrangement, etc; so using images from my time on the boat, other images from that time-frame I find, and Greg Pease's book Sailing With Pride, (ISBN:0962629901) this "plan" will become the most accurate set of exterior drawings of the boat as she was in the Fall of 1981.

* remember that you can click on the attached images to see larger versions.

This build log is NOT about the Pride of Baltimore II, but the boat that preceded her; here's a quick history of the original Pride of Baltimore.

 

[JerryTodd]

In November of 2010 I re-scaled the plans and produced patterns for the forms. These were cut out of scrap 5/16" exterior plywood and stood up on the build-board/workbench. There they sat for nearly a year while other things had my attention (there's gonna be a lot of that).


In September of 2011, I got back to this model and made the keel, also from 5/16" plywood, and commenced planking with 1/8" thick white pine milled from some lumber left-over from another project. By November 1st, the hull was planked, though I take no pride in it. I just slapped the planking on, resulting in that eyeball shaped pattern often seen done by those that don't know or care. I'm not finishing the hull "bright" (varnished wood), it won't be seen; but I know it's there, and all these years later, it still makes my eye twitch.
You'll note the blue painter's tape on the forms; that's because each plank was glued to each other, and the tape was to prevent them sticking to the forms; allowing them to be removed leaving an open hull.


With the planking "done," the hull was sanded, puttied with Water Putty, and sanded some more. Then the hull was "taped" with brown plastic packing tape. This tangent was something I saw on another forum, where they did this to a hull, laid up glass over it, basically using the hull as a "male mold." It looked cool, and could have worked, but it didn't for me, and I gave up on the idea.


The forms were removed, inside the hull sanded and cleaned, then a couple of coats of resin painted inside.


That brown tape was removed, the hull sanded and cleaned, and the outside got a layer of 4oz glass cloth applied.

 

[JerryTodd]

As an example of my pre-planning, I cut the notch for the propeller now, March 2012, instead of when I cut out the keel to begin with. I also made and installed what amounts to a dagger-board trunk for the removable external ballast fin. The trunk is braced by half-bulkheads inside. Then I installed deck clamps and started making the deck beams.


The lines drawn inside the hull are where I ran a pen along the forms before taking them out. This gives me the station reference lines to measure against.



Another short bulkhead with a knee was installed as a place to mount the motor.


Using some chipboard, I made a template for the sub-deck that would be cut from a sheet of luan.

 

[JerryTodd]

The wales were not planked in, as the real boat was, but added on after the hull was glassed. That way I didn't have to fiddle with getting the cloth to lay over the wale. The wale is actually made from a length of "screen molding" from The Home Despot. This was epoxied onto the hull and given a couple of coats of resin to seal it up.


The hull below the wale was de-greased and given a coat of flat white primer. I found Moss-Green spray paint that was a very good match for the actual boat's bottom color, and on it went.


Then the hull got a little black paint above the waterline, just to see, cause I'm a kid like that sometimes. At the hawse pipes, there's a wood bolster that's kind-of part of the wale, and above that is the outer edge of the waterway-cap. The top of the deck is even with the top of the wale. Inboard, on the deck, is a waterway log, and the waterway-cap sits on that. The bulwark planking, which is pretty thin, sit above that. Since my hull is planked to the bulwark, I'm applying the outboard edge of the waterway-cap as a trim piece. It's made of white pine ripped into square-stock, rounded off on one side, and epoxied onto the hull. The drawing below shows how the model is constructed here.


The channels were made as they fit snugly between the sheer-cap and the top of the wale. The rest of the black was painted, and the bulwarks were painted white.
The stern fashion pieces were made and applied, along with the "fancy piece" of the transom. Everything got some paint, and outboard sheer-cap was painted with Pride's signature red trim below her white gun stripe. Then the channels were pinned and epoxied to the hull, and the gunports were cut out.



The model was looking like her namesake now

 

[JerryTodd]

The deck beams, mast partners, etc went in, and I made the inner cabin trunk from some thin plywood salvaged from some sort of gift-box.
Using the card template, I cut the sub-deck from 3/16" luan plywood. The underside of the sub-deck was slotted to allow it to bend to the camber of the deck beams.


Concerned with snapping off the bulkheads weakened by cutting out the gunports, I decided to put just the outboard half of the timber-cap on the bulkhead to protect them. When the timber-heads are installed later, I'll put the inboard half of the timber-cap on. The timber-cap is glued and doweled to the bulwarks using round toothpicks as dowells. A bit more paint, and she's, well, something's off, but I can't put my finger on it.


Then I moved onto framing the main access hatch. This hatch isn't anything the boat actually had, but is large enough to install and maintain the sail-controls and radio gear. The corresponded portion of the sub-deck was glued to it. I'm not sure it was needed, but I put a "compression post" at the head of the hatch, and put the boat's name in the beam. The real boat had her name and documentation number carved into a beam in the main cabin. I also marked the locations of the deck fittings and furniture on the sub-deck.


I installed a bit of mahogany veneer in the transom, and scribbled some useless information inside the main hatch.

 

[Kurt Konrath]

Looks like she will make a nice sail boat for the local lake or river.

 

[JerryTodd]

April 2012
Some effort went into the motor mount, stuffing tube, etc, though even then I wasn't convinced a 1 inch 2 bladed prop would manage to over come all that sail.
I started making deck furniture, and the cabin box-cover. The cabin lid is simple bass (lime) sheet. The bitts were made from some sort of mahogany that came from a cargo ship's dunnage, that's pretty hard, and colored the same as the real boat's wood was.


I was still volunteering at the Naval Academy Museum's shop then, and one of the fellows had a piece of Pride's fore topmast and gave me some splinters from it. A couple of month's before I came aboard, Pride had her fore topmast replaced. These spruce splinters weren't good for anything "structural" but I used them to make the compass box, skylight, and edge molding around the cabin trunk which, when varnished, looked very like the real boat's cabin wood work.

The model's rudder is cut from 3/16" Plexiglass, with a bit extra add to the aft end to give it a bit more authority than a scale rudder would have. It's padded with 1/16" plexi shaped like the scale rudder on either side. The rudder post is a 3/16" brass rod with 1/16" brass rod "drifts" going through it and into the rudder. The side-pads are painted to match the real rudder, and the main body is left clear.


The rudder set-up I use on all my models is simple, strong, and removable. A rabbet is made in the heel of the keel for a metal plate and coated with epoxy. The plate is drilled for wood screws to hold it to the keel, and drilled and threaded for two machine screws to hold the "gudgeon-plate" which will be removable. All the holes in the wood are drilled over-size, filled with epoxy, and drilled to size so no wood is exposed to water at all. The gudgeon-plate is attached with the two machine screws. It has a hole in it to catch the bottom of the rudder post, which I guess is technically a "pintle." The rudder has two pivot points, the gudgeon-plate at the bottom, and the tube through the counter at the top. Take off the gudgeon-plate and the tiller, and it slides right out. Because of the drag of the keel, and rake of the stern-post on a Baltimore Clipper, the gudgeon-plate has some shape to it, where-as Constellation's is a straight, flat, plate.


At the other end, a tiller is needed. The real boat had a wood tiller, and I considered using my top-mast splinters to make it, but that was too brittle, so I used some of the dunnage wood mentioned above. I didn't think just a wood tiller would be up to the job, so I made a metal tiller from the sheet copper I use for everything. A collar with a set-screw is brazed to it and the wood tiller is epoxied and screwed onto it. The back end of the tiller and the collar are hidden by a fake rudder head, and the set screw is offset so an Allen-wrench can get at it. I think I wound up with a tiller that's up to task, and looks like the real one.

 

[JerryTodd]

By May, a need for sticks was felt.
The model's mast were made using the Bird's Mouth method. A 'V' groove is cut on one edge of a stave, which is tapered to give the mast taper. The corner of one stave fits into the bird's mouth of the next making a tube. Plane off the corners to make it 8-sided, and then work to round where it needs to be, and so on. You get a strong, but very light spar. A plug is inserted to solidify the bottom and make a tenon. The head of the mast also got a plug to solidify the doubling and make a tenon for the cap.


Cross-trees and trestle-trees, caps, and the lower masts are made. Note the two holes in the foremast cap for the stay are sleeved with brass tubing to prevent the rigging from sawing it's way out of the cap.


The bowsprit was a solid piece of white pine, square inside the rail, 8-sided to the end of the knee, and round to the tip with a tenon on the end.


Top masts were also made of white pine. The mast hoops were some strip wood from an old kit, dipped in ammonia and wrapped around a 1" dowel.
By-the-way; in post #5 I alluded to some issue with the model's appearance. That was that her waterline was too low at the bow. The pic here of the model under the Damn Yankee Workshop sign it with the waterline corrected.


Then the sail cloth arrived...

 

[JerryTodd]

About the middle of May, 2012, I ordered 2 yards of a cloth called Suplex. It's a type of polyester nylon by Dupont, used in making light jackets mostly, and my go-to cloth for making model sails.

I made paper patterns for each sail which were pinned up on the wall in the shop. When the 2 yards of cloth arrived, I quickly cut the sails out, and made the Lord Baltimore emblem that was on the t'gallant. I carefully heat-sealed the edges with a soldering iron because I hadn't found a hot-knife blade yet. I eventually made one from a copper screw and a #11 x-acto blade, and used that to cut out her name pennant,


The sails got corner patches, reef bands, tabling, and hemmed. A soldering iron point was used to make eyes where needed, like the lacing eyes at the head, reef point eyes, etc. Then each sail got a bolt-rope. I used Nylon line for the bolt ropes, and 100% polyester thread to sew any and everything (never cotton).

I ran a bead of fabric glue along the edge of the sail where the rope was going, and sewed it in the particular way a bolt-rope is sewn on (it's not round-and-round), except I cheated and skipped 4 or 5 strands with each stitch. At various places where an eye was needed, like the tack, clew, reef cringles; I looped the rope around a round toothpick and whipped it where it crossed over. At eyes, cringles, loops, and just every 3 inches or so, I put in whippings to hold the bolt-rope in place in case the stitching broke at some point, it would keep the damage between whippings, and reinforce it against pulling free of the sail. Despite the large 1:20 scale sails, I still needed the go-go-gadget eye-glasses to see what I was doing.


At this point the job laid me off, the bills got out of hand, and I moved for what, so far, is the last move of many many moves over the years.

 

[Brewerpaul]

That is gorgeous! I'm a big fan of the POBII and sailed on a 2 night guest crew journey 2 years ago. I look forward to seeing more progress on this model. I'm in Frederick, and if possible I'd love to see her sail when she's completed.
My RC sailing experience is limited to a DF65 and a Tippecanoe T27 that I built years ago.

 

[cdnfurball]

Absolutely fantastic ! Looking forward to seeing more of your craftsmanship….

 

[Peter Gutterman]

Hey, Jerry! Nice to see this! Are you going to do a log on the "Constellation"? Another amazing sailing model and build!
I hope you are well, Pete

 

[JerryTodd]

Thank you for referring to my ham-fisted bumblings as "craftsmanship." Keep in mind what I'm showing here is "how I did it" not "how to do it."

Pete,
The little portraits in my signature link to build logs here on S.o.S., and the signal flags link to my web site, which usually has more details, history, pictures, notes, plans, etc.
The Constellation log was started here back in '18, and I'm just adding Pride's now, mainly because I think she has a chance of being completed in the next few months.

 

[Peter Gutterman]

Thank you for referring to my ham-fisted bumblings as "craftsmanship." Keep in mind what I'm showing here is "how I did it" not "how to do it."

Pete,
The little portraits in my signature link to build logs here on S.o.S., and the signal flags link to my web site, which usually has more details, history, pictures, notes, plans, etc.
The Constellation log was started here back in '18, and I'm just adding Pride's now, mainly because I think she has a chance of being completed in the next few months.

We all should be such "ham-fisted bumblers"
Thanks for getting me started at the USNA model shop. Your "bumbling" has been a great inspiration and motivation. (Just in case ya didn't know.)
Having seen your creations under sail (albeit in the glorified kiddie pool at the Chesapeake Maritime Museum) was pretty impressive.
For the general company of folk on SOS, your web site is well worth a visit.

Pete

 

[JerryTodd]

A few picture of spar making:

The yards get jackstays

Not the best blocks, but these aren't for the working controls; braces, sheets, etc, and don't move much. White pine's not the best wood for blocks, or moldings either, it's just too soft and the grain's so open they split easily. At some point I'll replace all these, maybe with maple, as I have a few strips of it left over from a project now.

 

[JerryTodd]

These are some of the images I used to detail this model. Some I took, some I found in Sailing With Pride, and many I found online - I'm always looking for more. I don't have much of down-below 'cause I ain't modeling down-below - sorry.

Now you can measure my work against the real thing. Don't forget to click 'em to see larger ones.

Thomas Gilmer, the designer of both Prides and who I got my copy of the plans from.


During construction and launch.


Part of an image from SwP I used to help with the fashion pieces and transom wings.

A series of shot's I took in September '81 when we were headed over to Chestertown Maryland. The tiller and cabin trunk, some pics in the rig, and a view of the deck from aloft pointing out the water casks on deck.


Some deck fittings and furniture


We had two Zodiak inflatables on board; the old orange/red one that was more a paint platform, and a newer one (in the pic) gotten earlier in the year, before I got on.


Pride at the dock in Canada in 1980, and in the Pacific in 1982

 

[JerryTodd]

In September of 2013, money matters came to a head, and I had to give up the house (and shop), and move.


The next spring the model went on public display for the first time at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum in St Michael's Maryland.


She got out again the next year for National Maritime Day at the NS Savannah in Baltimore. She even got in the pool, though I held onto her so she didn't get blown away.


I originally was going to use what I called a "clothesline" loop to control the sails, that is, a closed loop run by a winch servo, that would pull the sheets along. But I couldn't come up with an arrangement I liked, not to mention I was a bit fixated on something else.




Over on the RCGroups forum, we discussed the matter of sheeting overlapping sails a lot, and I eventually installed this set-up in Constellation. The premise is based on my sailing experience. When about to head into the wind to "come-about" you typically let-go the lee jib-sheet. Once through the wind, on the other tack, you sheet the jib in on the other side. This set-up uses two floating arms, pushed by an arm on a servo. In Constellation's case, the servo-arm controls the spanker sheet. (the winches control the squares'ls). The head'sls port and starboard sheet route to the port and starboard "semaphore arms." When the servo arm is centered, the arms are loose and all the sheets are let out. When the servo-arm moves to one side or the other, it pushes that semaphore arm, hauling in the sheet that's attached, and leaving the other sheet slack.


This was how I intended to control Pride's sails; three heads'ls, all overlapping, and the fores'l, which is loose-footed and overlaps the main. The main sheet would be controlled by the servo-arm itself, just as Constellation's is.

The idea was to have two "semaphore sheeting systems;" one for the head'sls, the other for the fores'l. Both were mounted on a block on top of the trunk for the fin, and the servos in a tray on either side of that. I tried to get it to function with so little space inside the hull, and too many corners to turn to get from the arms to the sails, through the deck. To cap it off, I couldn't figure out how to adjust or repair the system after the deck was on, despite setting up more hatches than I originally planned for.



While I contemplated how to deal with the sheeting, I worked on the steering because I thought that would be pretty simple by comparison. Pride had a tiller, not a wheel, and there was no space in the hull back there for any sort of linkage, so I planned to use tiller ropes. The real boat had some tackle from the waterways to the tiller to help with the helmsman with weather-helm, I would run my lines to appear like the tackle. The tiller ropes would run through working blocks in the waterways, into fairlead tubes hidden in the lazerette hatch coaming, and then to the rudder servo.


I tried using a winch drum on a regular servo to get the purchase I'd need, but there were issues with keeping to line on the drum. An arm would need to be the length of the tiller, but there wasn't the room to swing that in the main cabin space, so I put the servo forward, between the battery and the foremast bury, and routed the tiller ropes aft from there. That worked, but had more friction than I liked, so now there was another issue to scratch my head about.


It's the middle of 2016, and I wasn't convinced any of this would work.

 

[JerryTodd]

While trying to figure the controls out, I twiddled away at little things; I made a prop from some sheet brass and a collar; mounted an on/off switch in the cabin trunk, put some blocking in the mast partners to firm things up a bit; worked on an "engine room hatch" to access the motor; made some gratings, and took the guts out of my transmitted and put them in a cigar box to have a more "boat-appropriate" transmitter set-up.



In 2019 she went to the St Michaels again with Constellation and Macedonian (a 1:36 scale model of a 38 gun British frigate captured by the US in 1812).
At the end of the event, I put Pride in the pool to get a couple of photos of her in the water and she actually started sailing. She got maybe 10 feet when it picked up slightly and she went over on her side, filled, and sank. This was a bit creepy considering that was how the real boat was lost. I dried her out and she was on display the next day at the NS Savannah again.


Again there's along gap when not much was done. What did happen was I got a 3D printer. I got the Elegoo Mars resin printer specifically to make parts, fittings, and details for the models.


To 3D print something, you need a 3D model, made to be conducive to printing. I used a free 3D modeling software called Anim8or to make 3D models for a World War I flight sim decades ago, and that's what I used to make parts for my model ships. Pride, so far, got 6 pounder cannons, swivel guns, a new prop, water casks, deck boxes, winch drums and handles, and her signature "roll-bar" (boom crutch).


It's June 2022 and she was off to the Savannah dock in Baltimore again for National Maritime Day. My long time friend and shipmate Mark had gotten a long time project of his sailing at last, a beautiful 49" schooner named Cliodhna (pronounced clee-na) - it's an Irish thing. He went with the old "clothesline loop" sail control set-up I wrote of years ago, and it was working great in his boat, so I thought I'd take another look at it for Pride.


And that adventure we'll pick up in the next post...

 

[JerryTodd]

Resigned to going back to the "clothes-line loop," though encouraged by Mark's success with it in Cliodhna, I had some idea to set it up using two loops' one for the main sheet, and the other for all the rest; including running mainstays, braces, and maybe running backstays.
First though, the steering had to be redone, as it was in my way where is was. I also decided to lose the motor. That scale 1" 2-bladed prop had no chance of overcoming all that sail to drive the boat, even in a calm, and the motor was also going to be in the way.

I made a frame to mount the rudder servo on, and that was installed in the hull, just aft of the motor bulkhead putting the servo at the forward end of the cabin trunk. The tiller lines will run to working blocks port & starboard of the servo, and then back to the tiller, much how it's rigged in Constellation.
(I also painted the "inner sleeve of the cabin trunk black.)


The sail control loops would be run by two winches; one mounted forward, behind the foremast, where the rudder servo had been; and the other aft on the forward side of the old motor bulkhead. Both lines would run from the winch, around two 3D printed idler pulleys, and back onto the winch. After a bit of testing, I installed a pair of blocks on springs on top of the fin trunk to keep on both loops in tension. I also seized on a dress-hook loop on each line for attaching the stuff to.



Here's the model with the sub-deck in place, but the access hatches open. I think everything is accessible with this set-up. Now to install all the through-deck fairleads.


The actual Pride of Baltimore was a wet boat. She had little free-board to speak of, and I have no doubt the model will be the same. Odds are water will get into the boat, so I decided an automatic bilge pump would be prudent. This little impeller pump with be mounted below the rudder servo, at the lowest point in the bilge, and will use the circuit shown to operate.


Now we've arrived at the fall of 2023. I ordered 50 pounds of reclaimed lead shot (dug up at shooting ranges) in anticipation of making a lead bulb on the fin. All summer I intended to slap together a trough to float the model in and determine how much the bulb needed to weigh, but I never did it, and eventually threw it in the bathtub, in which it barely fit. Loading her up with weight till she sat at the waterline I wanted her at; turned out to be 25 pounds. I had guessed it would be between 20 and 25 pounds, so there was no shock there.


I'm not set up for melting lead, or sand casting, and really not inclined to deal with that. I figured to cast the bulb in epoxy, but that still would require a form of some sort. Constellation's ballast is a PVC pipe filled with 42 pounds of lead shot, and that "container method" appealed to me most, but PVC pipe wasn't the best container for a model like Pride. Here came 3D modeling to the rescue again!
Lead weighs .41 of a pound per cubic inch, meaning I need a volume of about 61 cubic inches to get 25 pounds. I made a 3D model ball with it's "surfaces" facing inward to be the inner wall of my bulb, and using an Ellipsoid Calculator and playing with the numbers, I settled on a=50mm, b=105mm, and c=45mm, giving me 60.62 cubic inches, or 24.9 pounds. The weight of the fin, the resin shell, the epoxy fill, etc should put this at, or really close to 25 pounds.
Pushing and pulling on my 3D model gave me an ellipsoid of those dimensions, but an ostrich egg that size wouldn't fit in my printer. I cut it into 4 quarters, and put a slot and some supports for the aluminum plate fin to slid into. I could arrange two quarters to print together, then bond them together to make one half the egg.


Once printed and the two halves formed, I sifted the lead shot of it's dirt and dust, and poured it into each half. Then I poured epoxy into each half. It's gotten cold, and my shop doesn't have heat or AC, so I had to bring the epoxy into the house to warm it up, then bring the halves of the bulb in, once poured, to be sure it set-up properly. What's not shown is some sanding done to knock off the high spots so the two halves will sit flat against each other; and a hold drilled in the fin, and then in each half for a metal pin that will keep the bulb from inadvertently becoming a depth-charge.


Once the egg is bonded together on the fin, I'll probably cover it with some glass cloth and epoxy, just to be sure. Installing the thru-deck fairleads, and the portion of sub-deck at the tiller so I can mount some working blocks for the steering are the next items that will allow me to do some test sailing, probably like her name-sake, with just the four lower sails set.

This pretty much brings this log up to date. I probably skipped, or glossed over something; so don't hesitate to ask if you have a question about how I did something I not covered in this log so far.

 

[JerryTodd]

Made a somewhat generic inflatable for Pride based on a photo of one that was new when I joined the boat



During my time aboard though, we used the old orange inflatable more often than the new gray one, so I'll probably paint this one faded orange and scruffy it up a bit since the old one was often used as a paint-float.