Gazela Primeiro

A working model in 1:36 scale.

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As of 3/23/2012: I've always wanted to do a model of Gazela as she looked when my friend Mark and I sailed on her in 1978 & 79, but I've never been able to find plans. I discovered a set of plans at Mystic Seaport, but they want $160 plus $12 shipping which is more than I can afford. Right around the time I first sailed on her, a booklet by Allison Saville, entitled The Galela Primeiro was published. I got a copy back then, but it's long disappeared. I found a new copy on line and it contains a scale profile of Gazela on a fold-out tabloid sized page (reproduced at the top of this page).. It's not perfect, but I can work with that. With photos I have of the boat out of water and from various angles, I can deduce a reasonable set of lines to produce a 1:36 scale hull to match the Constellation and Macedonian.

Developing that set of plans is where I am now...

At 1:36 scale the model should be:

• Length on deck: 50 inches (127cm)
• Length of hull: 51.3 inches (130.3cm)
• Beam: 8.8 inches (22.4cm)
• Beam over the rig (main yard): 18.67 inches (47.4cm)
• Length over the rig: 59.3 inches (150.6cm)
• Height overall (less ballast keel): 35.7 inches (90.7cm)
• Depth (less ballast keel): 5.3 inches (13.5cm)
• Sail area: c. 247.5 sq inches

2/20/2017: Mystic, it turns out, was unwilling to sell copies of the plans citing ownership of them by the Independance Seaport Museum. Contacting them, they initially couldn't find the plans, then couldn't copy them, then offered to photograpgh them, then sent me a sample of the unusably distorted photo, and the whole thing was dropped, and I was back where I was in 2012 - working from resized scans of veru small drawings. Since then, the job thing, leading to the house thing, the flood thing that disabled the plotter, and so on, lead to having less space to work in or with, so the whole plan was shelved until I could work out a way to lay out and draw full sized plans to work from.

Then, near the beginning of this month, I happened on a set of these plans up for sale on ebay! While they were significantly cheaper than Mystic was asking, my car's insurance and reregistration coming due at the same moment made it very unlikely I could get them. A bit of fiscal wiggling and the seller agreeing to a lesser offer changed everything and the plans are enroute.

3/2: The plans arrived after a seven day tour of Maryland, so much for "priority mail." Apparently they didn't know about acid-free paper back in 1971 as these are turning brown and just starting to get brittle. I took the second page with the lines and profile to Office Depot and had them scanned. I'll get the other three pages scanned later. Then their aging won't be such an issue.

I resized the scanned to 1:36 scale and began what will become working drawings from which her keel and forms will be cut. There's also some noteable differences between the boat and the plans such as the shape of her fore-foot, the shape of the rudder, and the whole opening for her propeller. She had a three-blade prop in 79, recent photos show she now has a 5-bladed prop.

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