Building a model of Dulcibella from Riddle of the Sands. Have questions!

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  • Peerie Maa
    Old Grey Inquisitive One
    • Oct 2008
    • 62422

    #31
    Re: Building a model of Dulcibella from Riddle of the Sands. Have questions!

    Originally posted by Wooden Boat Fittings
    Certainly either would be possible.



    Well, my "little dinghy" was actually 15' and a quarter-tonner; and while her steel centreboard didn't need any lifting tackle, had it been any heavier it would have. I agree that her rig certainly wouldn't work for your 7-ton lifeboat. Lifting tackle would have been essential if you wanted to fine-tune the draft under way. Are you suggesting the tackle would have been rigged vertically through the slot, like my hand-operated one, and as Frankie says Pioneer's was??

    In a cruiser the size of Dulcibella I think the top of the c/b would almost certainly have been L-shaped as originally supposed, the top part (the 'L') protruding from the case (or the case built up around it), and the tackle operated horizontally from the top of the 'L', using the mast as the anchor point for the tackle. The drawings of Otter and Eel both show that sort of arrangement, and a similar geometry was quite common in many shoal-water craft that size. But the slot in the lifeboat photo only looks just big enough to take the 'L', without allowing any fore-and-aft movement for it. That's why I was inclined to think the case was for a permanent dagger-board rather than an adjustable centre-board. But, for instance, was the c/b of an 1890s lifeboat made of steel or timber? If the former, and depending on the pivot position, then just possibly the 'L' could have been made narrow enough fore-and-aft to operate successfully within that foot-long slot. More information would be useful.


    But as far as the OP's initial question is concerned, the top of an L-shaped centreboard would not necessarily have to protrude through the deck, as those sketches show. It could be low enough to be accommodated under the fore-deck. A table could certainly be built over the after-part, and I would expect the table might abut a full-height bulkhead at the forward end, the bulkhead dividing the saloon from a fore-cabin where the c/b tackle could operate unseen. (This is conjecture on my part -- I don't remember enough about the story.) With the lifting tackle leading first forward to the mast, then to starboard, then aft, as shown for Eel (but below deck), there would still be room for a pipe cot in the fore-cabin to port, and for plenty of additional stowage.

    As to the length of the case in the main cabin, a centreboard's effectiveness is mainly a function of its depth, not its length, and it doesn't have to be particularly long. You will see from the sketch of Eel that there would be sufficient room for a companionway ladder to enter the cabin from the side (something else I'd forgotten about in Dulcibella), aft of the c/b case.

    Mike
    You are forgetting that Vixen/Dulcibela was converted from an RNLI lifeboat. It is extremely unlikely that the boat builder J Price would have ripped out the perfectly serviceable centre plate and case to build a new one of differing design. He had a living to make, so will have spent as little on materials and time as he could get away with.
    It really is quite difficult to build an ugly wooden boat.

    The power of the web: Anyone can post anything on the web
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    • Wooden Boat Fittings
      Senior Member
      • Oct 2001
      • 4369

      #32
      Re: Building a model of Dulcibella from Riddle of the Sands. Have questions!

      Nick, you in turn might be forgetting that I'm from about 10,000 miles away and don't know many of the technical details of RNLI lifeboats. Perhaps you do know them. If so, please enlighten us as to how their centreboards were in fact rigged a century ago. (I was hoping I'd put that question politely enough in my last post, but perhaps it was too polite for you to notice it. )

      But more to the point, how do we know that the fictional Dulcibella had been an RNLI lifeboat at all? The real Vixen may have been, and you may have assumed that she was what Childers based Dulcibella on (or you may even know that for a fact, in which case please enlighten us further). But most lifeboat conversions were from ship's lifeboats, and it seems from a quick perusal of the book on-line that which type of lifeboat Dulcibella had been simply wasn't specified.

      So as far as I can see, and since we apparently have no infomation one way or the other, a conversion from a ship's lifeboat seems a better bet than from an RNLI lifeboat.


      For Frankie, I note that there was indeed a fore-cabin -- Childers refers to it as a forecastle, and says it's divided from the main cabin by a "low sliding door like that of a rabbit-hutch".
      Visit us to see how we help people complete classic boats authentically.

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      • Peerie Maa
        Old Grey Inquisitive One
        • Oct 2008
        • 62422

        #33
        Re: Building a model of Dulcibella from Riddle of the Sands. Have questions!

        Originally posted by Wooden Boat Fittings
        Nick, you in turn might be forgetting that I'm from about 10,000 miles away and don't know many of the technical details of RNLI lifeboats. Perhaps you do know them. If so, please enlighten us as to how their centreboards were in fact rigged a century ago. (I was hoping I'd put that question politely enough in my last post, but perhaps it was too polite for you to notice it. )

        But more to the point, how do we know that the fictional Dulcibella had been an RNLI lifeboat at all? The real Vixen may have been, and you may have assumed that she was what Childers based Dulcibella on (or you may even know that for a fact, in which case please enlighten us further). But most lifeboat conversions were from ship's lifeboats, and it seems from a quick perusal of the book on-line that which type of lifeboat Dulcibella had been simply wasn't specified.

        So as far as I can see, and since we apparently have no infomation one way or the other, a conversion from a ship's lifeboat seems a better bet than from an RNLI lifeboat.


        For Frankie, I note that there was indeed a fore-cabin -- Childers refers to it as a forecastle, and says it's divided from the main cabin by a "low sliding door like that of a rabbit-hutch".
        Read all of the posts, look at all of the pictures. There are quotes c&p'd that even name the RNLI lifeboat and who converted her. The pictures that I posted are of vintage RNLI lifeboats that have been restored to original. I have posted two pictures of Vixen/Dulcibella at the end of her life. I have tried to post as much original factual data as I could find.
        It really is quite difficult to build an ugly wooden boat.

        The power of the web: Anyone can post anything on the web
        The weakness of the web: Anyone can post anything on the web.

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        • Ben Fuller
          Senior Member
          • Jan 2000
          • 4467

          #34
          Re: Building a model of Dulcibella from Riddle of the Sands. Have questions!

          I wonder if any of the followers of this thread could stop in at Chatham where the RNLI has their historic lifeboat collection, get a couple of pictures. They have a couple of 1900 row/sail boats there. Remotely it would be possible for some one perhaps the OP to contact the RNLI archives http://rnli.org/aboutus/historyandhe...llections.aspx to see what they might have in the way of plans or what the system was at that time for plans. I know the NMM in Greenwich has plans for most of the 19th century Royal Naval ships boats; they may have the RNLI plans as well.
          Ben Fuller
          Ran Tan, Liten Kuhling, Tipsy, Tippy, Josef W., Merry Mouth, Imp, Macavity, Look Far, Flash and a quiver of other 'yaks.
          "Bound fast is boatless man."

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          • Wooden Boat Fittings
            Senior Member
            • Oct 2001
            • 4369

            #35
            Re: Building a model of Dulcibella from Riddle of the Sands. Have questions!

            Yes, read all the posts, looked at all the pictures. Nowhere did I see where Childers says his boat Vixen was used as the model for the fictional Dulcibella. This was exactly the sort of information which, if you'd had it, might have helped the discussion. Seems you don't.

            It also seems that we're at the end of this conversation, I guess. But perhaps Frankie might have learnt something from it anyway.
            Visit us to see how we help people complete classic boats authentically.

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            • Peerie Maa
              Old Grey Inquisitive One
              • Oct 2008
              • 62422

              #36
              Re: Building a model of Dulcibella from Riddle of the Sands. Have questions!

              Originally posted by Wooden Boat Fittings
              Yes, read all the posts, looked at all the pictures. Nowhere did I see where Childers says his boat Vixen was used as the model for the fictional Dulcibella. This was exactly the sort of information which, if you'd had it, might have helped the discussion. Seems you don't.

              It also seems that we're at the end of this conversation, I guess. But perhaps Frankie might have learnt something from it anyway.
              Did you read this from the posted link?
              It’s now universally acknowledged that the model for the Dulcibella was a boat called the Vixen, which Childers acquired in or around 1897. He wrote an article about the Vixen for Yachting Monthly Magazine (my source for all this is the book The Riddle, by the magnificently-named Maldwin Drummond). In this article, he described the Vixen like this:
              To start with, no one could call Vixen beautiful. We grew to love her in the end, but never to admire her. At first I did not even love her for she was a pis aller, bought in a hurry in default of a better, and a week spent fitting her for cruising – a new era for her – had somehow not cemented our affections.
              Childers was refitting the Vixen for his own voyage to the East Frisians, which became the inspiration for The Riddle of the Sands and which we’ll cover in a future post. In his article, Childers describes Vixen as being thirty foot long with a draft of four foot, or six foot four inches with the centre-board down. She is listed in Hunt’s Universal Yacht List as being the property of R.E.Childers of 20 Carlyle Mansions, Cheyne Walk, London SW from 1898 to 1903.
              That is as close as any one can get, and seems to hang together.

              Furthermore, I would be surprised if Frankie disagrees.
              It really is quite difficult to build an ugly wooden boat.

              The power of the web: Anyone can post anything on the web
              The weakness of the web: Anyone can post anything on the web.

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              • jdmcintyre
                Member
                • Feb 2016
                • 55

                #37
                Re: Building a model of Dulcibella from Riddle of the Sands. Have questions!

                I hope the following helps

                The RNLI have an archive here: http://rnli.org/aboutus/historyandhe...llections.aspx I think if you email them they will have the plans for the boat that became Vixen and then Dulcibella

                The national maratime museum have Erskine Childers log books: http://collections.rmg.co.uk/archive...ts/521212.html which document his cruise to the Friesian islands.

                The Scottish Maratime museum at Anstruther have a lifeboat that may be similar to the Thomas Chapman? http://www.anstruther.org.uk/jmw.html it had two center boards. (There is a picture on their site.)

                And two more links. The first has a picture of Vixen sailing.

                W M Nixon takes a look back a 100 years to a boat-owning group whose shared interest in art kept a 60ft ketch


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                • JerseyCity Frankie
                  Junior Member
                  • Jan 2016
                  • 17

                  #38
                  Re: Building a model of Dulcibella from Riddle of the Sands. Have questions!

                  Thanks so much JD this is some great material! I am a fan of the podcast of your last link and have listened to all the episodes. I had emailed the RNLI but they were unable to help me at the time, but back then I didn't know which lifeboat to ask about and could only mention the story in the novel. I have since moved forward with my model and have carved the hull. I will put up pictures if it is allowed to digress so far from actual real world sailing? I know this is a forum for real vessels after all.
                  -Frank

                  Comment

                  • Peerie Maa
                    Old Grey Inquisitive One
                    • Oct 2008
                    • 62422

                    #39
                    Re: Building a model of Dulcibella from Riddle of the Sands. Have questions!

                    Originally posted by JerseyCity Frankie
                    Thanks so much JD this is some great material! I am a fan of the podcast of your last link and have listened to all the episodes. I had emailed the RNLI but they were unable to help me at the time, but back then I didn't know which lifeboat to ask about and could only mention the story in the novel. I have since moved forward with my model and have carved the hull. I will put up pictures if it is allowed to digress so far from actual real world sailing? I know this is a forum for real vessels after all.
                    -Frank
                    We love pictures, and you will not be the first to post photos of a model build. Go for it.
                    It really is quite difficult to build an ugly wooden boat.

                    The power of the web: Anyone can post anything on the web
                    The weakness of the web: Anyone can post anything on the web.

                    Comment

                    • jdmcintyre
                      Member
                      • Feb 2016
                      • 55

                      #40
                      Re: Building a model of Dulcibella from Riddle of the Sands. Have questions!

                      I'd like to see some pictures and I'm sure I'm not the only one. The wooden boat magazine has run many articles on model making so you will be following an honorable tradition.

                      Comment

                      • Chip-skiff
                        Wolves Without Borders
                        • Jan 2008
                        • 22764

                        #41
                        Re: Building a model of Dulcibella from Riddle of the Sands. Have questions!

                        Here is the photo from the article linked above: http://afloat.ie/item/28318-dublin-b...stic-endeavour



                        Erskine Childers' Vixen (on which "Dulcibella of The Riddle" was based) in one of his last seasons of ownership in 1899. At first glance, she looks like a typical old-style cruising cutter of her era. But somewhere in there is a classic canoe-sterned RNLI lifeboat hull to which an afterdeck on a counter stern have been fitted as an add-on.

                        Comment

                        • JerseyCity Frankie
                          Junior Member
                          • Jan 2016
                          • 17

                          #42
                          Re: Building a model of Dulcibella from Riddle of the Sands. Have questions!

                          It has been entertaining trying to match the vessel in the novel with the associated real world vessels. In the novel the Dulcibella starts out as a gaff cutter and in a flashback we learn she gets a mizzen and becomes a yawl. So I wonder did the Vixen also undergo conversion to a yawl later too? There are some other things that do not line up with the above photo: Dulcibella is described as having three reef bands, and also a martingale. I puzzle over the martingale since I don't see the headrig as being that large or complex.

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                          • JerseyCity Frankie
                            Junior Member
                            • Jan 2016
                            • 17

                            #43
                            Re: Building a model of Dulcibella from Riddle of the Sands. Have questions!

                            I put some shots of my 1:48 scale Dulcibella model on flikr, not sure if the image will appear in my post, I do not understand the process of maybe my browser and computer are too old, but here are the URLs:



                            https://flic.kr/p/CYdSob

                            https://flic.kr/p/DTptTd
                            https://flic.kr/p/Dnfcfp

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                            • Peerie Maa
                              Old Grey Inquisitive One
                              • Oct 2008
                              • 62422

                              #44
                              Re: Building a model of Dulcibella from Riddle of the Sands. Have questions!






                              Dulcibella is fictional, hence the change in rig and talk of martingales.
                              However if you want to make her look more like Vixen, you need to take away more fullness under the counter. The counter added to the boat was very shallow. Those new topside planks were planted on top of the original hull plank, so there was a doubling of thickness to the hull plank there, and they did not fair out at the stem.
                              It really is quite difficult to build an ugly wooden boat.

                              The power of the web: Anyone can post anything on the web
                              The weakness of the web: Anyone can post anything on the web.

                              Comment

                              • JerseyCity Frankie
                                Junior Member
                                • Jan 2016
                                • 17

                                #45
                                Re: Building a model of Dulcibella from Riddle of the Sands. Have questions!

                                I dissagree about the fullness under the counter. This portion of the deck has to support the jigger mast too and while probably not too much of a load on the structure, it would have to be more than a cantilevered deck brought further aft. Also some deadwood would have to go into the (originally) double ended stern to accommodate the rudder assembly and this would need to be faired into the new shape of the stern. But speaking of the hull, I have some paint on the model now and I have to wonder what they had available for bottom paint back in the late 1800's? I can't imagine the hull coppered. "White stuff"? I put on a coat of some red oxide looking brown but I am not very confident in its veracity. Here are some recent shots of the model: http://imgur.com/s4Rimbp

                                I wish I could learn the trick of putting up images so they are visible in the post and not exist only as links......
                                Last edited by JerseyCity Frankie; 02-23-2016, 06:11 PM.

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