Plans for small clinker boats / service boats

P

PatG221

Joined
Jan 10, 2025
Messages
7
Points
3

Hi All,

Sorry in advance for this terribly newbie question. I have been modelling for quite a few years, from (sophisticated!) dollshouses and 1/12 furniture down to HO scale structures, with a notable love of wood!
I recently saw Olha Batchvarov’s video of a Le Cerf ship clinker boat
and have fallen in love with this build - and clinker boats, and "service boats".
Could anyone here point me towards plans and/or reference material for this type of boats?
Huge thanks in advance!

Pat
 
Generally plans, such as Greenwich drafts, do not specify the style of planking. Is is known that some RN revenue cutters were clinker and some carvel. The plans, however don't have the detail, only details of the lines or frames. So you either plank your scale hull carvel, or you plank it clinker.
Scale builders often add an additional 'part plank'. A 'drop in' or a 'stealer', which are substitutes for shaping a timber to fit (spiling) If you plank clinker you are forced to spile, you can't add a stealer/drop in. You therefore need wider planks in your stock of timber to allow for proper shaping.
Measure keel to wale midships. How many planks of a width chosen to your scale will it take to plank carvel from keel to wale. Add (1mm?-I don't know how big your hull is!) width to the planks to allow for overlap. Lets say 20 planks.
Measure keel to wale along the length of the hull and work out the plank width variation. Your width measurements can be plotted along the plank giving you a line to shape to.
The stern is different. Below the curve of the transom they will be wider. These widths will have to be calculated separately for planks on the transom curve, and planks at the deadwood (the part with the sterpost with rudder attached) The planks have to be chamfered where they overlap.WP_20200302_001.jpgWP_20200302_002.jpgWP_20200302_003.jpgWP_20200302_004.jpgWP_20200408_003.jpg
 
Last edited:
I did this hull at the same time Olha was planking Le Coureur. She began with a similar process to mine. However she then scrapped the method of overlap, stripped the planks off and cut steps into the bulkheads. This requires a high degree of accuracy to line up the notched steps accurately. I think she shows this process on her videos?
 
Your first step should be to define your project. What is your objective? Is it to build a small ship’s boat, to demonstrate lap strake (clinker) planking? If you want to build a ship’s boat must it be clinker planked? Most ship’s boats were not clinker planked as this type of construction made them difficult to repair aboard ship.

Small boats are not necessarily easy to model as they needed to be lightweight to facilitate handling aboard ship. This means that planking is thin and framing is very small. I have three ship’s boats that I have modeled. All are scratch built to a common scale of 1:32.

Roger
 
Hi Bob, huge thanks for your answers! Very interesting, and definitely food for thought. Notched steps must indeed be very precise! Thanks for these leads and ideas!
 
Hi Roger, thank you for your reply. Yes indeed, the general idea is to build small ships boats, preferably clinker planked - which I find particularly aesthetically pleasing. As I am not at all a ship expert, I was wondering where I could find plans, documentation and maybe build logs for this type of build. Thanks!
 
PatG221 said:
the general idea is to build small ships boats, preferably clinker planked
Click to expand...
At least for the English Navy every ship had multiple ship's boats, as many as 7 on a first rate. Depending on the era and the rate, they would have included barges, longboats, launches, shallops cutters, pinnaces, and/or yawls/jolly boats. I believe the only ones that were clinker built were the cutters as well as the earliest yawls which were first built at Deal in Kent. If you just want a stand alone model of a clinker built boat, there are low resolution plans of cutters at the RMG Collections website which you can download, then scale as you need as well as some high resolution plans from RMG on the Wiki Commons site also free to download. One example follows form 1786. For me the most difficult part of the planking is adding the gain or alternatively the rebates of the planks as they approach the bow. By the time the strakes reach the rabbet at the stem there is no overlap so each strake seats in the rabbet.
1737163679491.jpeg

Rebate method
1737163859390.png

Gain method which will look like the rebate method from inboard and outboard on the model.
1737163949882.jpeg

A book that might be of interest---- 1737164043655.png

I have found contemporary contracts yawls, pinnaces, and longboats but so far no cutters. Depending on the type and size boat you choose, one of these might be interesting for you.

Regarding the rest of the build, the topic here at SoS on making a ship's boat from scratch might also be helpful. https://shipsofscale.com/sosforums/threads/building-a-ships-boat.14490/
Allan
 
Last edited:
Allan, thank you so much for this, exactly what I was looking for! And your topic is fantastic. And… wow, do I now have work to do!!! Thank you again!
Cheers,
 
PatG221 said:
thank you so much for this, exactly what I was looking for! And your topic is fantastic. And… wow, do I now have work to do!!! Thank you again!
Cheers,
Click to expand...
My pleasure to be of any assistance that I can. I look forward to your build logs. Let us know which boat you choose and if you wish I can send you all the scantlings and/or contracts if I have them. You can find a number of boat scantlings in W. E. Mays book The Boats of Men of War as well as in Scantlings of Royal Navy Ships, and Elements and Practice of Naval Architecture Folio 57 and 58, These include everything from the dimensions of the frames and keel to the ears at the bow for various types and sizes of boats.
Allan
 
There are good plan sets at Arcre
https://ancre.fr/en/13-monograph.

Also
British maritime museum, Royal museum Greenwich

Explore the Collection Online | Royal Museums Greenwich

Explore seafaring history, timekeeping and astronomy, fine art and the world's largest maritime library and archive collection. Start your search today.
www.rmg.co.uk www.rmg.co.uk

I also purchased a number of planset which were originally drafted by Harold A. Underhill of Glasgow. Cant recall where I got them from but do a google search and you should find them. I bought 3 sets which of plans and ech contained the layout of 2 to 3 ships boats .
Here is a link I found but not the one I originally used.
https://www.skipper.co.uk/catalogue/item/ships-boats-30-feet-cutter-and-28-feet-pinnace as well as an example of what you get.

1737226883275.png
 
Your welcome Pat.

To give you an idea, this is a model I constructed using the monograph for the Arcre longboat. Strickly speaking the plans called for it to be constructed using the carvel method. But like you I prefer the look of clinker built. And hey, its your model you can do it in the style you prefer although it may horify some purists.:eek:

The ships longboat 1680-1780

Merry Christmas and a happy new year to all. I spent the best part of the year working on the Ships longboat based on the book/plans circa 1680-1708 from ANCRE, by JC Leminer. I highly recommend them, a bit pricy but worth the dosh in my view. . Found it quite challenging and did a few mods. I...
shipsofscale.com
 
Great post Rick. It is nice to see the pinnace as single banked with tholes on alternating thwarts. This is missed a lot of times.
Allan
 
Roger Pellett said:
Note to Administrator: This is posted in the wrong thread! It should be posted in Peter Gutemann’s Mamoil Flying Cloud build. I would appreciate you moving it.
Roger

Peter,

I hesitate to post this as you have already spent much time, effort, and probably $$ as you say, obsessing about Flying Cloud’s boats.

Ships’ boats were specialized craft, each carried to serve a different purpose. While the different boat types are well defined for warships, much less information is available for merchant vessels. Ed Tosti had a very detailed build log on Model Ship World concerning construction of a model of Young America. I remember that he addressed the subject of boat types carried. I surest that you look it up. Crothers provides information about boat outfits but unfortunately not for Flying Cloud. Four or five boats; a launch, two or three cutters, and a gig appears to be typical.

The launch was the “heavy hauler” of the boat outfit. It would have been a full lined burdensome craft. Challenge’s launch had dimensions of 27ft x 9ft x 3ft-6in. and was carvel built. If you look at Jerry Todd’s build of the USS Constellation here on SOS you will see a launch of the same vintage.

The cutter was a seaworthy boat and one or two would have been hung in davits as “lifeboats.” Challenge carried two, 27ft x 7ft x 2Ft-9”, and another 25ft x 5ft-5” x 2Ft-4.”All carvel built.

The Captain’s gig would have been used to ferry the Captain ashore to conduct the ship’s business, particularly in China where the Clippers often anchored rather than tied up to a dock. The gig would, therefore, been intended for protected waters. A favorite boat for rowing within the harbor was the Whitehall boat. Mystic Seaport, John Gardner’s, and Howard Chapelle’s small craft books all have much information about Whitehall boats. Challenge’s gig was clinker built with dimensions of 30ft x 5ft-3” x 3ft-3”.

All five of these boats had transoms. None were double ended whaleboat type craft.

Roger
Click to expand...
Thanks. I have Ed Tosti's' Young America books. Now I'll do the obvious and look up what he has. I also have the Crothers book, but I don't recall much in the way of illustrations. But anyhoo, back to the bookshelf!
By the way I got captured by the diversion of exploring and making possible candidates for Flying Cloud's Boats. So, I will have had the rewarding experience and challenge of building these nice little POF models at 1:96 scale. :p
 
During the Nineteenth Century the US Navy’s standard practice was to design boats for each class of ships and sometimes unique boats for one ship. Ships’ boats take a beating and, therefore, border on being expendable so the problem with this practice was obvious. How to replace a damaged boat away from the yard that built the ship. With the advent of the steel navy in the late 1800’s it was decided to change the policy. The new practice involved designing a series of standardized boats in incremental lengths. The designers of the warships that carried the boats could then select them from these standardized designs and the various naval yards could stock replacements. Building the boats, all wooden, was concentrated at a few yards; Norfolk on the East Coast, and Puget Sound on the West.

In 1900 the Navy published the plans for these boats in a book titled: The Standardized Boats of the United States Navy. The author was the Naval Constructor Phillip Hitchborn. It is a massive book containing enough drawings and other information to actually build each of the boats (full size). There is a lifetime of boat models in the book. Fortunately the book was reprinted by a specialty publisher in the early 2000’s. The bad news is that it has always been expensive. It was originally priced at $200. Used copies are now priced at $400. It’s the ultimate book for ships’ boats modelers.

Roger
 
Last edited:
PatG221 said:
Could anyone here point me towards plans and/or reference material for this type of boats?
Click to expand...
Brother Pat:
The good news about modeling small craft is that you can draw from two categories of publications: books about building full size craft and books about building models. Since models of small boats can be built in relatively large scales, the construction usually mirrors the construction of the prototype. One skill that is invaluable (for models and prototypes) is lofting plans from a table of offsets. It not hard at all. Listed below are some useful books. There are many plans and tables of offsets in these publications.

Books About Building Full Size Wooden Boats
  • Boatbuilding; A Complete Handbook of Wooden Boat Construction (Howard Chapelle)
  • Building Classic Small Craft (John Gardner)
  • American Small Sailing Craft (Howard Chapelle)
  • Simplified Boatbuilding: The V-Bottom Boat (Harry Sucher)
  • Simplified Boatbuilding: The Flat-Bottom Boat (Harry Sucher)
Books About Building Models
  • Model Boat Building: The Lobster Boat (Steve Rogers and Patricia Stay-Rogers)
  • Model Boat Building: The Spritsail Skiff (Steve Rogers and Patricia Stay-Rogers)
  • The Little Boats: Inshore Fishing Craft of Atlantic Canada (Ray MacKean and Robert Percival)
  • The Dory Model Book (Harold "Dynamite" Payson)
  • Scottish Fishing Vessels of the Nineteenth Century: A Guide to Building Scale Model Boats (Hamish Barber)
There are also model kits of small craft available from Midwest Products including skiffs, dories, a pea pod, a Whitehall, and a Sea Bright skiff. These can be a good way to get started.

I have not attempted a lapstrake model but I have built some other types using plans for full size craft. Below are pics of a flattie skiff built with traditional construction (cross-planked bottom) and a RC model of a St. Pierre dory and tender built with plywood. All are 1:12 scale.
Fair winds!

flattie 2.jpgstpierre 1.JPG
 
Thank you Andy! Very interesting, and a nice collection of references there! And good looking models too! Thanks for that.
Cheers!
(Sister!) Pat
 
PatG221 said:
Thank you Andy! Very interesting, and a nice collection of references there! And good looking models too! Thanks for that.
Cheers!
(Sister!) Pat
Click to expand...
Cap'n Pat:
I am embarrassed for my faux pas. Please forgive my unwarranted assumption.
Fair winds!
Andy
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top