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Some of my model ships

Bob Cleek said:
It would seem that Wyoming was measured like a monkey measures the length of his privates... from the end of his tail. She may be the "largest wooden hulled sailing ship ever built, but she is not the largest wooden hulled ship ever built. Wyoming was 450 feet long "overall," meaning "including sparing protrusions, i.e., boom and bowsprit overhangs, but her hull was actually 350 feet long "on deck," and 329 feet long between perpendiculars. She had a beam of 50.1 feet.

The record for the largest wooden hulls ever built is shared by the Central Pacific (later the Southern Pacific) Railroad's train ferries, Solano (1879) and her near sister, Contra Costa (1914), which carried entire railroad trains across the Carquinez Strait between Benicia and Port Costa in California daily for 51 years, from 1879 to 1930. Solano's hull was 425 feet long on deck with a beam of 116 feet, seventy-five feet longer that Wyoming and almost two and a half times as wide as Wyoming. Contra Costa, built later to the same plans as Solano, had a hull that was "stretched" 13 feet longer than her sister's to a total of 438 feet on deck or eighty-eight feet longer than Wyoming's hull.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solano_(ferry)#Operation

No matter how one might measure Wyoming's hull, these two steam powered ferries were the largest wooden hulled ships ever built.

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Contra Costa:
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I would imagine that the description of the Wyoming meant the largest wooden "sailing ship". The Solano was a ferry boat trading in enclosed waters and certainly not subject to the massive stresses and strains that the Wyoming had to contend with in the open sea!
 
AllanKP69 said:
I keep thinking about making an attempt at a model of the C4 African Comet or Pioneer Myth, both of which still bring back fond memories of my time aboard each of them. Time to look for drawings....... If anyone has places to look, I would be grateful.
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Obtaining builder's plans for these vessels should be relatively easy. If you can't obtain the specific plans in the Smithsonian's plans collection, then MARAD should have them or be able to give you a running head start on ordering builder's plans from the National Archives which should have copies pursuant to the National Historic Preservation Act.

(AI generated answer in italics)

The Maritime Administration (MARAD) has a rich collection of ship plans that date back to the 1930s and include plans for various types of vessels. This collection is part of the MARAD Vessel History Database, which provides detailed information about the vessels owned, operated, or subsidized by MARAD and its predecessor agencies. The database includes vessel characteristics, images of vessel status cards, and for select vessels, photographs, milestones, documents, and narrative histories. MARAD also documents NDRF vessels in compliance with Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act to ensure a record of their legacy remains after they are recycled.

https://www.bing.com/ck/a?!&&p=31fc...y93b3JrLWFuZC1pbmR1c3RyeS9zaGlwLXBsYW5z&ntb=1
See: Smithsonian Institution

For those interested in exploring the MARAD collection of ship plans, the National Museum of American History offers black-line reproductions of many of the plans for sale. The collection includes plans for historic American watercraft, American sailing and early steam warships, and various designs from the 1950s and 1960s.





See generally: https://www.maritime.dot.gov/outreach/history/maritime-administration-history-program


C4-S-58A (MA-103) AFRICAN COMET
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C4-S-1a (MA-9) PIONEER MYTH - EX PELICAN MARINER
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Drawing of C4-S-1a sistership in Waterman colors.
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See also online plans at: https://vamosarema.com/

Also search https://www.themodelshipwright.com/ for "mother lode" of free scratch-building plans online.
Also search https://www.maritime.dot.gov/sites/...dministration/856/americanracerhaerreport.pdf for HAER survey plans, as well.

HAER report on C4 series cargo vessel hull lines:

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