Whale boat construction time

[J. Dillon]

Any body care to guess the time it took our forefathers to build the type of whale boat depicted in the image? This is a carvel planked boat, say circa 1900.
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid10/paab9e99b1bbee5f1bf5fbb4cb5343608/fe0806b4.jpg
Model built 1946 by J Dillon

JD

[Donn]

Somebody posted, yesterday, IIRC, that it takes the Lunenberg Dory Shop, 3 days to go from a pile of lumber, to paint ready.

[Dave Fleming]

From what little I recall from reading a book on Whaleboats put out bye some museum back east, Peabody perhaps? Not too long, it was almost a production item and many a whale catcher carried several boats in semi-kit form to replace boats damaged in the hunting. If a ships carpenter could put a kit together on the deck of a crowded whale boat then the manufacturing of them back in port had to be pretty streamlined bye the late 1800's early 1900's.
Author: Ansell(?)
I believe that method of building was also followed bye the builders( same?) of the dories and mackerel boats used in those fisheries,
Grand Banks and such.
Patterns and jigs for fast production.

[skuthorp]

You can certainly see the influence of whale boats on the Macgreggor, she is even more sweet to row than paddle. I shudder to think what the mortality among boat crews was. No Health and Safety Rep on 19th cent. whalers!

[Mac_Muz]

While restoring my Alfa/Swampscott dory, I had occasion to to go to many dorry shops in New England, and Novia Scotia.

In each shop I saw patterens for more or less each part. These were apx 1900 patterns circa, so with a pile of boards, and a small crew, this type of boat would take only days to build.

Each man would have a function to full fill.

What probably took the longest was making that first pattern.

What I think would have been a likely senario aboard a whaling ship would be all the parts were roughed out and cut to shape, and stored as small as possible, so less tooling would be required, and construction would be more kit like in fashion. Mac

[bainbridgeisland]

These boats were not whaleboats but do give some production times. They might provide a starting spot to estimate times. One problem is: what do you mean by "fore fathers"? Many different levels of production and mechanization existed. This was true even within a specific historical period.

I used to work with a fellow who had been building 15'-6" lapstrake boats on a production basis. He said it took 3 to 3-1/2 days for each boat, unfinished. He was working by himself. These were lapstrake, glued lap plywood boats with steam bent frames at rather wide spacing.

I once built a 26' Monomoy surf boat in about 900 hours. The hull itself took about 300 hours. The boat had lots of interior joiner work and custom fittings. This was a custom boat, carvel planked yellow cedar over steam bent white oak frames. I consider this not a very good time to build such a boat. I am sure at least 200 hours could be knocked off if building a number of them. Some workers were experienced craftsman, some were apprentices. This slowed the job down.

[Dave Fleming]

BBI, at WF Stones in Alameda, CA., we built 2 Monomoy boats for the CA Maritime Academy.
I have no idea how long it took, 3 of us, me( greenpea apprentice), Billy Linderman( very advanced apprentice), Jack Erehorn( damn fine journeyman) and a some time yard worker.
Fasteners were copper rivits and it seemed like Billy and I were doing that forever :rolleyes: .
I don't think we spend more than 6 months in total on them and, that was bye no means each and every day. We worked on them after moulds were on the blocks, (Jack and Mr Stone did the lofting) and ribbands in place, a couple of days on steaming frames, then came back and did some planking and I recall the Jack worked on much of the interior with just the yard helper. Billy and I were out in the yard doing other things.

With a rule of thumb work year in the US at about 2000 man hours, I don't think you did so bad at all.

[ 10-14-2002, 01:01 PM: Message edited by: Dave Fleming ]

[Don Olney]

Mystic Seaport publishes a neat book by Willits D. Ansel, "The Whaleboat - A Study of Design, Construction and Use From 1850-1970." This book contains just about everything you might ever want to know about whaleboats.

The book has an entire chapter (Chapter VII, "Whaleboat Production") dedicated to whaleboat construction. On building time it has this to say:

"The speed of building in many of the small shops was impressive, though there are some contradictions in the statements about the exact time it took to build a whaleboat. Hall (Henry Hall) wrote that it took a single man twenty to twenty-five days. James Beetle said that prior to 1835 it required twenty day's labor because planks had to be prepared by hand; with machinery, "we can build a boat with 120 hours of labor." Charles Beetle, his son, wrote that his shop could turn out one boat a day, and in a rush, seven in six days. In a newspaper article, Charles Beetle is quoted as saying four men could build a whaleboat in twenty-eight hours. This figure is about the same as that cited in Rudder of March, 1900, which says four men could build one in three days.

Llewellyn Howland describes building a boat non-stop. Charles Beetle, with four men and a young Howland, whose responsibility was to keep up the steam in the donkey engine and bring drinking water, worked on the boat one day, on through the night, and the following day and night. The boat was finished and delivered the morning of the third day after forty-eight hours of labor, with time off only for meals.

The men were assigned specialized tasks and worked as a well-drilled team. One got out planks and four did most of the actual construction. If several boats were being built, one man did all the caulking, puttying, and painting. With patterns, standardized parts, a division of labor, special forms and jigs, the building was very efficient. As Howland wrote, "The 'knocking up' of a whaleboat at Beetle's when I worked there was planned and executed with exactness and rapidity of an assembly job today."

Chapter IX (Painting, Repairs, And Maintenance of Whaleboats) contains a thorough presentation of repairs.

If you are interested in whaleboats, this book is excellent. Lots of black and white photos, drawings, and a half a dozen or so fold out lines plans. I also recommend it to anyone building a large open boat such as Oughtred's Ness or Caledonia Yawls. Although construction materials and methods and rigging are different (and use!), these boats share similar lines.

[ 10-14-2002, 01:14 PM: Message edited by: Don Olney ]

[nedL]

Beautiful job Jack. So how many 'small ships' have you built? I know this is at least the second we've seen. How many more are "lurking"? smile.gif

[ 10-15-2002, 08:15 AM: Message edited by: nedL ]

[J. Dillon]

Don O ,

Thanks for posting that info about the Whale boat. :D I have the same book and was going at some point post the info that you so laborously did for me. :cool:

Ned,

I have several more and I'll post images at appropiate times. I'm trying to get Norm to start models of his fleet.

Perhaps we can flush out other model builders. :cool: I know "Cleek" builds em by his own admission but I cannot ever recal him posting an image of any thing. Just like a lawyer I suppose "all words" ;) It seems from a previous posting about " Marine artists" right here in the Forum, yielded none. :rolleyes: Can they all be "shy" about their work ?? redface.gif

JD

[Donn]

"Can they all be "shy" about their work ??"

Sure can...I carve wood...and it all looks like Grandma Moses. Or Whittler's mother. I'd never take a pic of one of my works, much less post it. My whittling fools fish, but it would never fool the forum. :D

[Jack Heinlen]

Bravo J. Dillon! As nedl said, that looks like nice work.

W. Ansel has a recent book out regarding kids and boatbuilding. WB carries it. I suspect it's pretty nice work too.

Jack

[ 10-15-2002, 07:37 PM: Message edited by: Jack Heinlen ]