The
hawse pipe holes are now drilled through the hull and I have made doublers both inboard and outboard. These are temporarily placed in position ready to be painted later on.
The hawse pipes on the Syren lead downwards at an undefined angle from inboard to outboard and at the same time lead for’d. I say undefined because the angle depends on the height of the deck internally and the space between the cheeks outboard, each Syren build will vary slightly. The manual says to drill outboard first then do inboard. I went with a highly technical approach called “hit or miss”
.
I started off in a similar way to Heinrich’s recent WB hawse holes with gradually increased drill bit sizes. I started with a very fine drill bit and estimated the necessary angle needed. Obviously the important thing here is not to end up drilling into those deck planks as the drill point exits internally. There is some leeway because that initial tiny exit hole provides an indication of where you need to adjust for the final hole size. I estimate I drilled at about 30 degrees upwards. I then drilled alternately from inboard and outboard.
I measured repeatedly to try and get everything lined up and also used card templates. Each time I increased the drill bit size I left the previous one in the adjoining hole to give me a visual guide to help maintain angles and distances.
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I wanted the holes to be as far for’d as possible, close to the stem. In practice this is so the cable restrains the ship better in the eye of the wind, much as it does in modern practice. For the cable if I go for 1/2” circumference for every foot of beam at 27 feet I get 13.5” circumference. Converted to diameter that’s a little over 4”. So I am probably going to use a max. rope size of 0.062” diameter (1.57mm). I might paint the internal hole a grey lead colour for additional realism or use a lead pencil.
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I’m glad that part of the build is mostly done. My photos just show the
temporary stage I am at, there’s cleaning up, adjusting and painting to do.
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My thanks as always for following along and spending your valuable time reading my posts.