Olivebank

[Bob WilsonParticipant @bobwilson59101]

[Bob WilsonParticipant @bobwilson59101]

It took me just over a year to build this one, The famous Olivebank under British registry.at the beginning of her long life. I didn't work very hard on this one, and the actual number of working days was 61, and the total time (timed on a stopwatch) was 88.4 hours..

Display case: 10.7 hours

Hull: 35.9 hours

Masting & rigging: 41.8 hours

I did not disclose the name until it was completed, and although it attracted a tremndous amount of interest of Facebook, not a single person asked what its name was during the build!

That surpirsed me a lot. Probably my last complex build –

Bob

Edited By Bob Wilson on 06/07/2021 21:22:27

[Richard SimpsonModerator @richardsimpson88330]

Unbelievable rigging at that scale. Beautiful model.

[Bob WilsonParticipant @bobwilson59101]

Thanks,

Sailing ships are a lot easier to build than powered ships. Because the rigging is all fine copper wire glued on in short lengths, and there are no fiddly knots anywhere.

[Bob Abell 2Participant @bobabell2]

Nice model Robert, as always, .and not a hint of a jink in any of them, which would be a crime anyway

But wait……..I`ve only just noticed that the spars are in pairs?

I have seen similar in the past of course but never gave them a thought

Any comments on this please?

Bob

[Bob WilsonParticipant @bobwilson59101]

Thanks,

No mystery about the yards. As merchant ships were usually undermanned, large sails were rather too much for small crews to handle. They began by splitting the topsails into two halves, lower and upper. When the sails were furled, the upper topsail yard came down the mast, resting just above the lower tpsail yard. They later did the same thing with the t'gallants. The Olivebank had a total crew, including officers, of 28. Double topsails in merchant ships were the norm from the late 1860s onwards, and as ships got bigger, double t'gallants were very common. Naval ships kept to single topsails and t'gallants because they had crews of hundreds to deal with them.

Bob

[Bob WilsonParticipant @bobwilson59101]

Imagine sailing a monster like this with only 28 men. Also, the captain, chief mate, cook,steward, carpenter, donkeyman and sailmaker would not go aloft in normal circumstances. So effectively, there would only be 21 to actually deal with the sails if all hands were called. But there would only be about ten seamen in one watch, working four hours on, four hours off in normal sea condition – all hands on deck in bad weather.

Edited By Bob Wilson on 07/07/2021 09:03:17

[Richard SimpsonModerator @richardsimpson88330]

Interestingly we look back on such ships through rose coloured glasses and enjoy their beauty and grace as a picture while forgetting the horrendous conditions the crew endured to get the cargo to its destination.

The trouble is that, as time goes on, there are less and less of us who can appreciate that fact and the shift in opinions moves further towards the glamourous aspects of the life.

Yet this isn't a distant history thing, even back to the 1920s and 30s crews in UK waters on steam cargo ships had no rights and were responsible for feeding themselves. The youngest would be sent ashore to the nearest farm to collect some food for the crew to cook for themselves in the fo'c's'le quarters on their wood burning stove. Toilet facilities consisted of a plank with a hole in it above a pipe that went over the side. This was protected by a non return flap, which invariably leaked or jammed open, at which point the sea water could blow back up the pipe as the waves hit the bow.

Early boilers used sea water as feed so they had to be entered and the salt scraped out every few days by the crew along with the soot and muck from the firebox and flue. The boilers were not allowed to completely cool as they didn't have time. On top of all this if a crewmember left a ship his position would be filled by someone else and there was no guarantee that he would get his job back. Consequently many crew members simply lived permanently on the ship.

We cannot even begin to imagine living in such conditions nowadays.

[Bob Abell 2Participant @bobabell2]

Many thanks Robert for the explanation

It makes good sense

It must have been a hard life?

Bob

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