Revenue Cutter Morris

[polydoc]

I am scratch building the Revenue Cutter Morris from the plans in the Chapelle book, "The History of the American Sailing Navy". He provides many revenue cutter plans, but I chose the Morris because this is the most complete set of drawings. Given all of the detail for the hull and furniture, it is odd that no dimensions are provided for the masts and yards and there is no rigging plan. However, mast and yard dimensions are provided for the sister ship Taney which I will use down the road.

The scale is 1/80 to produce a 12" hull, my standard size these days to not take up too much room. The model is built plank on bulkhead with bass first planking and cherry second planking with cherry used for most of the work except for the deck which is birch plywood. Cannon barrels were purchased from Model Monkey but I built the carriages for them. Colored paper was used to simulate the canvas covers on the hammock rails. My construction methods have already been described in a number of previous logs so I am just posting some pictures of the completed hull and deck. Next up is masting and rigging.


The

 

[polydoc]

I am scratch building the Revenue Cutter Morris from the plans in the Chapelle book, "The History of the American Sailing Navy". He provides many revenue cutter plans, but I chose the Morris because this is the most complete set of drawings. Given all of the detail for the hull and furniture, it is odd that no dimensions are provided for the masts and yards and there is no rigging plan. However, mast and yard dimensions are provided for the sister ship Taney which I will use down the road.

The scale is 1/80 to produce a 12" hull, my standard size these days to not take up too much room. The model is built plank on bulkhead with bass first planking and cherry second planking with cherry used for most of the work except for the deck which is birch plywood. Cannon barrels were purchased from Model Monkey but I built the carriages for them. Colored paper was used to simulate the canvas covers on the hammock rails. My construction methods have already been described in a number of previous logs so I am just posting some pictures of the completed hull and deck. Next up is masting and rigging.
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The

The Morris has now set sail and a couple of photos below show her mounted on the base. I could find no rigging plans for the Morris class of revenue cutters, so came up with a representative rigging scheme based on information for other schooners of the period (1830's). Lines were sized from contemporary rigging tables.
The Morris sailed as part of the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service and here is a very brief history for those who may be unaware of these vessels:

Tariffs are in the news again, but itis an old issue for the U.S. In the early days of the Republic,customs duties on imports were the major source of income for the federal government absent other taxes. Consequently, smuggling was rife, and in response the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service was created by Congress in 1790 to inspect suspect ships and compare the cargo to the manifests. As merchant ships got bigger and faster, so did the revenue cutters and every 10 years or so new designs were built. The Morris class, named for the first vessel in a group that eventually numbered 13 vessels, was the 1830 design. Morris was named for Robert Morris of Pennsylvania, one of the nation's founders.
By the 1900's tariffs had become less significant as a revenue source, and the U.S. Revenue Service declined in importance., It was combined with the U.S. Lifesaving Service in 1915 to form what is today the U.S. Coast Guard. A second Morris was launched by the Coast Guard in 1927 and retired in1971.