Master Hand

In the 1950s marine historian Edgar J March wrote a number of definitive books about local UK sailing vessels, including “Sailing Drifters” and “Sailing Trawlers”. My second-hand copies were acquired when I was a teenager, and these books became very well -thumbed. March described in detail the fishing industry, activities and boats in all the local coastal regions.

Included in the books were many detailed drawings of all the boats described; sail plans, hull lines and deck plans. Many of the drawings were compiled by March after measurement and surveys of the original boats. For those interested in fishing vessels these books are a model-makers heaven. 

Back in 1976 I built a model of the Yarmouth lugger “Gypsy Queen”, clinker built. I used limewood for the planking, and ballasted the hull as I intended her to sail on the local pond. She was one of my earliest scale mode-building efforts, and looking at her now she is quite crude. But – she did sail on the pond, after which she became a display model.

When covid arrived, I was looking for a project to occupy my breakfast-bar shipyard, and dug out my copy of ” Sailing Trawlers”. Locally, in Lowestoft, we have the sailing trawler “Excelsior” preserved for posterity in superb condition, and frequently voyaging afar. A very similar smack was surveyed in detail by March, and features prominently in “Sailing Trawlers”.

All the bulkheads were carefully bevelled and triple- checked for alignment before final fitting with glue. I took the opportunity to install my internal fixing arrangements for eventually securing the hull to its stand. This has been described before in this magazine, but briefly, holes are carefully drilled upwards into the keel, intercepting small horizontal slots cut into the keel plate. Two nuts are made from steel, about 10mm square; these are firmly secured in place so that long steel screws threaded 6BA can be inserted from beneath. Brass keel pillars are turned up on the lathe, bored axially, and slotted to fit the keel. This allows a positive mounting onto a baseboard. During construction an odd piece of 2″ x 1″ wood is used as a base. This can be clamped into the vice as needed. All this must be done before the planking, as the interior of the hull becomes inaccessible once the planking is complete.

Planking proceeded. I used two layers of 1mm limewood. All was very straightforward. This type of boat doesn’t have any straight lines in her hull. The ply bulkheads had thin “ears” projecting above deck level to help the location of the bulwarks.

The upper edges of the bulkheads had to be carefully worked to produce the correct deck camber and sheer; any inaccuracies here would be very visible. The stern was a considerable piece of shipwright work with numerous knees and carlins producing the curved counter/transom. The deck was “laid” with a substrate of 0.5mm plasticard, then planked over with lime strips.

The hull planking was continued upwards above the deck line to form the bulwarks. This was an awkward task, as for over half of their length the bulwarks were “floating”, with a gap (around 3″ in the real vessel) between the lower edge of the bulwarks and the deck. This is effectively a continuous “freeing port”, allowing heavy water on deck to clear rapidly in bad weather. Without these freeing ports, a heavy sea breaking aboard could put enough weight of water on deck to capsize the boat.

Planking the bulwarks in the model was guided by the “ears” sticking up from the bulkheads, but these were only temporary. Once the bulwark construction – two layers of planking – was complete the bulkhead ears were removed.