Muscongus Bay Lobster Smack - Kitbashed from Model Shipways

[JacquesCousteau]

I'm midway through this build, but I thought it might be worthwhile to start a build log for it here. The complete story is on MSW.

Several months ago, I started building a heavily kitbashed version of the Model Shipways Muscongus Bay Lobster Smack. I had initially tried to buy the kit as my third build, after having started with the Model Shipways Dory and a scratch-built Trajinera canal barge, as it seemed like a useful learning experience. However, I had difficulties shipping to Mexico, and so I ended up not receiving it until I was back in the US. By the time I could start it, I had already come to feel fairly confident in my modeling (at least with simple vessels) after having already done several kits and scratch-builds. Nonetheless, I wanted to build this kit. As a modeler, I'm mostly interested in vernacular workboats. Moreover, the kit had a reputation for being relatively accurate, so it seemed like a good basis for some kitbashing to make a more accurate and unique model. Finally, the scratchbuilds I was working on, while rewarding, were in pretty slow stages, so I wanted something faster-paced.

To summarize, my main modifications to the kit are the following:
- Rescale from 1:24 to 1:32 (in order to match my other builds)
- Employ lapstrake rather than carvel planking
- Build out the cockpit with more accurate framing, benches, etc.
- Plank the deck
- Go with an unstayed mast

My research for this project is described in more detail on the other forum, but to be brief, I'm kitbashing in accordance with several sources. The most important source is the writings and plan drawings of Howard I Chapelle, especially in American Small Sailing Craft (1951) but also in The National Watercraft Collection (1960). Both include discussions and images of the Muscongus Bay centerboarders. Also vital was Willits D. Ansel's "The Boat as Record," pp. 19-26 in Lipke, Spectre, and Fuller's Boats: A Manual for Their Documentation (1993), which discusses the construction of the sloop Ranger and its modification from a fishing boat to a yacht. Roger F. Duncan's Coastal Maine (1992) and Lincoln Paine's Down East (2000) provided useful context on the history of Maine's fisheries. There is further useful information in Volume 5 of François-Edmond Pâris's Souvenirs de Marine, and in Volume 3 of G. Brown Goode's The Fisheries and Fishery Industries of the United States (1884-1887). For visual sources, I've especially employed the Penobscot Marine Museum's digitized photo collections. Finally, I have also drawn on many existing build logs for this model, some of which discuss the type's history/design/construction in detail and which have provided inspiration for kitbashing.

To summarize the history of this vessel type: in the years after the US Civil War, boatbuilders along the shores of Muscongus Bay in Maine began adding centerboards, sloop rigs, and partial decks and cuddies to rowboats, creating a vessel well-suited to inshore fishing in the summer months. These early Muscongus Bay sloops were often fairly small (16-25 feet long) with lapstrake planking, although carvel planking came into use as well by the 1880s. In the 1880s, the type began to undergo substantial changes. The expansion of railway lines made Boston's markets accessible to Maine fishermen, fueling demand for a more seaworthy vessel for all-year fishing, while changing fashions in the offshore fishery away from clipper schooners toward deeper and safer hulls impacted inshore fishery designs as well. This led to the emergence of the Friendship Sloop, a larger (30-40 ft) vessel with a deeper keeled hull, doing away with the centerboard and trading shallow-water abilities for greater seaworthiness and capacity. The Friendship Sloop became a popular yacht design, leading to a great deal being written about it.

Below: A Friendship Sloop, at center, and a smaller vessel identified as a Muscongus Bay Sloop, at bottom.

Source: Duncan, Coastal Maine, p. 430.

The late 1800s and early 1900s, then, saw a great variety of small sloops in Muscongus Bay. As the lapstrake centerboard sloop developed into the carvel Friendship Sloop, builders experimented with a variety of styles and design concepts. The Muscongus Bay Sloop is a moving target, sharing some general characteristics but with plenty of different possibilities. Chapelle's plan of a Muscongus Bay Sloop, for instance, which amalgamates several models and hulks, shows a vessel that is essentially a miniature Friendship Sloop with a centerboard (below).

Source: Chapelle, American Small Sailing Craft, p. 267.

Although he said it was lapstrake planked, some vessels like this (including the hulk he examined) were carvel planked. Other Muscongus Bay centerboarders could look quite different. The Ranger, for instance, was about the same size and carvel planked, but had more drag, included a stayed mast, and lacked the clipper bow (below).

Source: Ansel, "The Boat as Record," p. 26.

Photos show other designs, as well. The small vessel below has lapstrake planking, a small cuddy, and a vertical stem.

Source

And finally, the vessel below from the 1870s is of a type Chapelle briefly mentions, having a schooner rig on a lapstrake hull that appears to be quite similar to that of the sloops.

Source

While Chapelle's plan has provided the basis for a lot of understandings of Muscongus Bay Sloops (including of most models), the type was really quite diverse. There was no single vessel type, but a constellation, with individual vessels' build styles probably depending on builder preference, intended use, and possibly local variations.

All of which is to say, there's a lot of room to modify the kit into something a bit different. Of course, not all modifications are equally possible. For example, while it would have been interesting to give my model a plumb bow, as some actual vessels had, doing so would require reshaping the spine and bulkheads so much that it would be easier to build from scratch, so I kept the beakhead (which is certainly a plausible option as well).

This post is already pretty long, so I'll get into the build itself in the next post.

 

[JacquesCousteau]

As I mentioned above, I rescaled the model to 1:32 from the kit's 1:24. The smaller model is easier to display and matches most of my other builds. To rescale, I scanned all the part sheets, then transferred them into Lightburn, made necessary corrections, then cut them out on basswood sheets. I used the public library makerspace while visiting family in the US. I had to make some adjustments to wood thickness to take scale into account.




A while after that, I got started with the model. As can be seen, the spine structure matches up pretty well with the Chapelle plans. The main difference is that, while the centerboard case on the Chapelle plans protrudes into the cockpit a bit, the kit design pushes the foreward cockpit bulkhead back a little, simplifying construction. The basic framework came together pretty well, although the notches needed some tweaking.






Below, the 1970s reconstruction of Chapelle's design. You can see the protruding centerboard case.

Source

The first modification I made was to the cockpit. Following the example of the Ranger, I dropped the cockpit floor slightly, and also raised the benches a bit (which are very low in the kit design). I planked the cockpit bulkhead, as can be seen below, and made provisions to remove the sides of the cockpit bulkheads after planking in order to add proper-looking framing.


I also planked the floor (going with weathered boards). For the benches, rather than placing them on top of blocks as in the kit, I decided to build them from separate planks with framing holding them in place. I only partially made the benches for now and didn't attach them, as I didn't want them in the way during planking.


My cockpit design was inspired by this photo (although it's a somewhat larger Friendship Sloop).

Source

As the cockpit bulkheads needed to be removeable, I couldn't glue the deck in place before planking. Instead, I added supports between bulkheads. I also painted the fish well areas black, as I planned on leaving one fish well partially opened. For the garboard, I used the kit-designed spiled plank, but I trimmed the top edge to get a somewhat different shape.


The biggest difference between my build and the kit is the hull planking. The kit provides spiled planks, which is a great way to help beginners understand planking concepts. However, following the examples given in many of the sources mentioned previously, I wanted to use lapstrake planking. This meant that I ultimately wasn't able to use the kit planks--in hindsight, I should have saved the wood and not laser-cut them. I took a lot of care while lining out the hull, especially as the overhanging stern is a challenging shape to plank.


To plank, I marked out the overlap on the lower plank, sanded the lands with a small sander (the width of a plank, with sandpaper only on one side), then marked out the shape with tape to cut the wood to size. I then soaked and clamped in place to get the right curve and twist.








I was really pleased with how the lapstrake planking came out. It had its own challenges, especially around the stern, but it wasn't much harder than carvel planking. If anything, it may have been slightly easier because the planks overlap, meaning that I didn't have to do a really precise butt joint between them.




I also added a small bilge pump to the cockpit, drawing on some simple examples. I made it from a toothpick, card, and a bit of wire, painted to resemble galvanized metal. It's just temporarily fitted, as it's pretty fragile, so I'll be leaving it off for a while.


With planking finished, I was able to remove the cockpit bulkhead tabs and add more accurate-looking frames made from scrap. Once that was complete, I could finish the benches.




The kit deck didn't quite fit properly, due to the modifications I had made, leaving a gap in the center. As I planned on planking it, I was fine with this. I also opened up one of the fish well hatches--the other will be closed, so no need to model more than the hatch on it.


The coamings were a real challenge. I ended up cutting off the forward portion of the coaming and replacing it with a strip with the grain running vertically, making it much easier to curve.


I then began adding deck planks. To avoid getting paint on the coaming, I'm painting each plank individually before gluing (then lightly sanding/scraping the joint afterward and touching up the paint job). I'm not really sure how accurate my deck plank layout is. It's a very challenging shape to plank due to the large coaming in the middle. The only clear photo I could find was of a yacht from the 1970s which used a lot of narrow curved strips for the deck, but that struck me as excessively complex for a simple fishing boat from 100 years prior. So, I started with king planks and covering boards. From there, I'm laying out the planks with an eye to avoiding really thin slivers, which would be very difficult to nail down, and minimizing the number of seams to caulk. This has resulted in nearly every plank being irregularly-shaped, which would certainly drive up the price, but the actual decked area is pretty small, so this might be acceptable. As can be seen, I also framed the open fish well hatch.




So, that's the current state of the model. This has been a very informative and fun build so far, and I'm looking forward to continuing.