6/1/2012: Steering

There's no room in the stern to hide any linkage between the rudder and the servo, and I don't want visible push-rods and crank-arms if I can avoid it. The real boat was steered with a tiller, but there were almost always relieving tackles attached to give the helmsman some control over the leverage the tiller had on him. I'm going to disguise my steering controls as these relieving tackles.

The steering lines will attach to the tiller in a way to look like the tackles they represent. They'll run to a block on the quarter knee, forward along the waterway to another block, and then into a tube in the lazerette hatch coaming that will take it below deck to the rudder servo.

The tubing was bent around disks and dowels, with a cord inside, slowly and carefully until it was a sort of twisted 'S' shape. They protrude from the lazerette hatch coaming for now, but will be cut flush later. Under the sub-deck a block of cedar anchors the tubes against the pushing and pulling they'll get.

6/2: Sails

Started cutting the sails from the cloth...

6/3: All cut out. Boy, that hot-knife made it so much easier. All the seams were ruled with a .01 permanent marker, and the Lord Baltimore emblem, which I call the "Eye of Sauron" was made using colored markers on a scrap piece of Supplex.

6/4: I trimmed the tubing for the steering fairleads above and below, and cleaned up the mounting block.

My fabric glue hardened since I used it last, so I ran out and got some more. This stuff is another brand that's clear, permanent, washable, and dry-cleanable.
I also got some red-oak stain for the spars which should have been redder than I was getting with the golden-oak stain. The mast look much more like the real boat's now.

6/5: All three head sails have been hemmed and had the fore-tops'l had reef bands added. This sail had a removable portion at the bottom called a bonnet. I'll make it look like a bonnet, but it won't be removable. I hung the head sails on the model and everything looked right.

I hemmed the topgallant and applied it's "Eye of Sauron."

6/6: Last night the fore tops'l was put together. Today I hung them up on the model to see how they looked. Then the 5 sails got holes burned into them. Holes for reef points, attachments, etc. All these sails need now are their bolt-ropes. Again I had my nose and magnifying glass in the book to see where these things were on each sail. When I was on the boat in 81 - the fore tops'l had no reef points! The holes were there, but the lines weren't. Yet we had reefing tackle rigged. Several photos from 83 showed there were no reef points on the fore-stays'l either, but they were there in 81. Interestingly, the tops'l and fore-stays'l both had reef-points again when the boat sailed for Europe. Photos from 82 & 83 showed the fore-stays'l bonnet was no longer laced on as it should be but was tied or clipped on with quick-links it looks like. I haven't found a picture where I can tell for sure how it was attach in 81.

6/7: Today I got the main tops'l done and the mains'l started.

6/8: Finished the mains'l and started on the fores'l. Hung everything on the model to take some pictures.

6/9: Finished the fores'l - all the sails now need bolt-ropes sewn on. I rough cut all the remaining spars; boom, gaffs, yards, and the jack-yard.

6/11: Spars

Those spars were all tapered and made 8-sided then round. The boom and gaffs got jaws. I chose to make the jaws one-piece from aircraft plywood and slotting the spars to glue them in. I figue that will be stronger. The table was installed on the main mast, also from aircraft plywood. There's some details to be added yet, holes for sheets, cleats, etc - I'll pick up on that tomorrow.

6/12: Made some "iron work" today; the stuns'l and ring-tail boom "irons." The clew of the mains'l attaches to a ring that slides on the boom. It's adjusted by an out-haul the goes through a sheave in the end of the boom. Where the line comes out under the boom, there's a wedge of wood to hold it away from the boom.

6/14: Made a pair of chop-sticks, I mean stuns'l booms and installed jackstays on the coarse and tops'l yards. The coarse yard has a rub strip on it's aft side, that was installed, then I glued the stuns'l boom irons onto the yard and painted everything. All the spars except the boom got polyed, oiled, or painted as the real spars were. The boom has more things to attach to it before I oil it.

6/18: Sewed the bolt-rope onto the t'gallant sail and attached it to it's yard. The real one had a stiff rope parrell that snaps back to the yard when it was set - I have to figure out how I'll represent that here.

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