The Galilee Boat Circa 40-50 BC Scale 1:24 [COMPLETED BUILD]

[Bluebeard]

After I saw LyleK1 very beautiful and detailed Galilee building log, it was hard for me to decide if I should create another one or not, after all, he did a fantastic job building this very famous boat.
If you guys let me I will start with a brief story about how this boat came to be in the Yigal Alon Museum today.



In this last picture I notice a mosaic art in the background with what it looks like a Phoenician boat.
Since there is not too much information about the Galilee Boat, I based my research on whatever information I could find of the Phoenician, Greek and Roma vessels.
While there’s no evidence this was the same boat that Jesus and his disciples used, it dates back to the same time period, in the 1st century AD, and matches the type of boats built at the time.

 

[Bluebeard]

I have to mentioned where I got this kit from because is always good the real story behind the kit.
The place is "SE Miller Guitars". http://www.semillerguitars.com/sea-of-galilee-boats/.
Scott Miller owns the business and I asked him how he came to produce this now famous boat kit.

This was his exacts words:

I was a moderator at MSW when Captian Pugwash was running the site and had just moved on from building kits to scratch building. I did the Triton cross section build that was going on at the time and that got me interested in building models other than standard scale ships. This lead me to building boat models because they are fun to build and can be done in much less time than a three master ship. The also don't require a lot of rigging which was attractive to me as well.

One model that was fun to build and could easily be scratch built was Midwest's Peterborough canoe kit. I made quite a few of these as gifts and this introduced me to building on a strong back and using thin CA glue to weld planks together

I started looking at different boats that I could model and found that no one offered a Sea of Galilee boat model kit other than a paper one from a German company. I found an excellent book by Shelly Wachsmann about the discovery of the Kinneret boat and that book had a set of ships plans in it. I used those plans plus what I had learned from building Peterborough canoes to build the first 16" Sea of Galilee model.

I took that model along with my Triton Cross Section to the Midwest Model Ships competition and they both won Gold Awards. While at the event I noticed a photographer taking photos of the models and a few months later I was contacted by a collector from Germany who was wondering if I would sell him the model? That started up my work building commissioned models.

After I sold a few of those I figured, "why not release a kit?" These way model builders could make these and perhaps those could be used as a ministry opportunity. Some customers were commissioning me to build in sizes other than 16" which lead to the creation of the 27" model. I even once built a 48" model for use in a lecture hall. The shipping crate for that model was so large that it barely fit into our minivan. Two groups claiming to be motion picture studios also have contacted me to build full sized boats but there was no way for me to be able to make something 27' long! With the recent "Chosen" series I sometimes wonder if one of the groups was them?

Scott

 

[Bluebeard]

Without further adieu and humbling tipping my hat to LyleK1 here is my building log.
I will start with the kit content.
This is a strong back kit that does bring the base in two sections. As you can see in these pictures, Scott meticulously marked all of the parts making it easy to identify.
All of the instructions, step by step, comes in form of a CD which I printed all of the 54 pages, to have them handy.
When I opened the kit content and realised that Scott tapared all of the planks needed for the hull, this detail realy blow my mind.
After so much experimenting with the kit, he came with the perfect tapareding. So like I mentioned before, this is an easy kit to build if you follow his instructions.
.

 

[Bluebeard]

This is the strong back on its base. You have to read the instructions well because there is only one way to assemble it.
The last two pictures is an idea that I came up with after I had to pull the hull out because of my bad way to follow instructions.
I ended up asking Scott for more planks and he delivered for a few more dollars.
I simply added wax paper to the frame forms so the glue wound'n get stock to them, this way, if I wanted to use the strong back again for another model, it would be intact and it worked.

 

[Bluebeard]

These are a few of many pictures that helped me deside on how to build the model besides they all gave me a bit of inspiration.
The first one is a Rembrandt called of course, "Storm in the Sea of Galilee".
You can notice that the artist went out of reality because these kind of fishing boats didnt include a flag or at least no historian say otherwise.


The last two pictures have many more realistics details.

 

[Bluebeard]

After creating a jig I tryed to use a darker wood for the stern and keel but it didnt worked so it was back to the original mahogany parts that came with the kit.
Don't try this at home kids.

 

[Bluebeard]

Sorry I dont have how I started the planking so I am including the ones from the manual.

This is where I picked it up.
You can see a few unwanted waves in the last pictures but I just could'nt go back to fix them.

 

[Bluebeard]

Finished the planking.

Before pulling the hull from the strong back you have to make a separator to insert at the widest width of the hull to keep the sides spread apart until you add the partial frames.

 

[Bluebeard]

At this point I coat the entire outside of the hull with this CA glue according to the instructions.
He mentioned that the CA glue will get in all of the joints and will reinforce the entire hull and also will give it a uniform color.

 

[Bluebeard]

Now is time to add the 34 partial frames. I created a styreen strip to make the even separations.

 

[Bluebeard]

After all of my partial frames where added I proceded to also cover the inside with CA. When dryed it was time for the next step, The Stringers.

Here I added the davits by creating a one piece that went through the hull, not two small pieces, one on each side like the manual calls for.

 

[Bluebeard]

I place a scrap piece of planking between the partial frames to create the base for the decking.

Also the inside of the gunwales where added.

I placed a partial frame material between the partial frames and the run piece outside of this to cover ant space on the edges. It gives a nice finished look to the decking.

Tomorrow I will post more pictures.

 

[PT-2]

Finished the planking.View attachment 256291
View attachment 256292View attachment 256293
Before pulling the hull from the strong back you have to make a separator to insert at the widest width of the hull to keep the sides spread apart until you add the partial frames.
View attachment 256294View attachment 256295

The mold bulkheads and planking/strakes look very similar to those used in the strip canoe group thread. The very ancient hull shell was connected with mortise and tenons through the edges of every adjacent strake using oak as a stronger material than the softer strakes. The early introduction of false frames to provide added support for longitudinal members of deck beams support eventually became the structural members supporting the hull strakes. This model is possibly very similar to the more ancient Greek trade boat of about 900 BCE recovered on the north coast of Crete known as the Kyrenia Boat which I will be building in the near future after setting aside my original goal of an earlier Phoenician trade boat of about 1400 BCE which would have been more speculative in design from the limited recovered wrecks surviving hull members.

With some Googling you can find numerous underwater archaeological research papers with a group known as Academia. From my research there have not been many wrecks recovered from the Southern Levant and Israel but one paper covers those. I have only seen the title but not downloaded or read it.

You should have a very nice Galilee model when finished. Rich (PT-2)

 

[Bluebeard]

Very well explained.
I am contemplaiting to use the mast, sail and rigging system of the Kyrenia Boat to adapt it to the Galilee boat.

 

[PT-2]

Very well explained.
I am contemplaiting to use the mast, sail and rigging system of the Kyrenia Boat to adapt it to the Galilee boat.

That is as accurate an assumption as any other as there are no surviving parts of the sail and rigging other than the lead rings on what was the sail which were fed through for the sail "shaping" lines which vanished. The old inscriptions found on land based artifacts do not provide very much clarity other than that there were a multitude of lines associated the spars and sails.
You may want to obtain a copy of Wooden Ship Building and the Interpretation of Shipwrecks, J. Richard Steffy, which is an excellent recourse to use when researching these very old boats.
Rich (PT-2)

 

[Bluebeard]

Thanks for the advise, I will try to obtain that book, it sounds very informative.

 

[PT-2]

Thanks for the advise, I will try to obtain that book, it sounds very informative.

You may see some book-read summaries in the New on the Bookshelf thread. That was were it came to my attention. Rich

 

[Bluebeard]

I have a lot to learn from the forum, it’s full of gems.

 

[Kurt Konrath]

Great looking project and very similar to the canoe group build method.

 

[PT-2]

I have a lot to learn from the forum, it’s full of gems.

I frequently stumble across some of those by just surfing What's New. Rich