Posted by John Nichols on March 05, 2003 at 17:14:06 from 165.91.199.202 user Mcneacail.
In Reply to: Captain Flint posted by Mike Field on March 05, 2003 at -1:03:22:
Dear Mike,
I am sorry I forgot to say thank you for your help with drawing the Swallow. AR was very meticulous with his drawings and seems to have been quite consistent between the sketches in different books. Being an Engineer I am not sure I am as meticulous as he was in maintaining that level of consistency. I would tend to change things to make them "better" so to speak.
You made some comments about the width of the original transom in my sketches. In checking your comments against AR's sketches I reread the 4 AR books I have at the moment, and Ed Kiser kindly sent me two nice pictures from Swallowdale of the damaged and then repaired boat.
AR drew a picture of CP lying on the cargo in the Swallow in Peter Duck as the John and Cap'n Flint sail around Crab Island . The ability to cross check a dimension to provide a reality check was to much to pass up. If I assume that as AR said first that Swallow was 14 feet long then CF is about 5 foot 10 inches, and I would not expect him to be five foot five that would be implied if Swallow was 13 feet long. So it just makes me think in his mind she was 14 feet and CP was 5'10".
I have purchased a copy of Photoshop Elements and that has an excellent grid and ruler system built in so I can measure the drawings for the Swallow.
I am looking at the moment at trying to set the angle on gaff. I know it was about 20 feet to the peak, but the angle is tricky. I had also miscalculated the area of sail in the my first pass, thanks for alerting me to the error.
But there is a quandary, if I put to shallow an angle on the sail, as it appears in some sketches, the area goes up and the center of effort moves back. At the moment the design I have has a CE about a foot behind the centerboard placement on the Amazon. I am loath to make it worse as it will affect the steering. Although with a deep keel Swallow would have had a center of resistance closer to the transom than the Amazon. So I am showing an alternative configuration with a Center board and without. But my boat is for two small girl sailors and so I have no qualms putting a board in and not having the lead. I want her to float not sink in an emergency even allowing for the floatation stuff.
I have also been looking at the classic boat building books from that era, Chapelle and Gardner, to get a look a pictures and plans. The interesting element is trying to look at what AR had sketched and what that looks like up against photos of similar boats and their plans from the turn of the century. You thought I had the stem a bit fine, and possibly I do, but it is a hard call. My stem certianly matches a lot of the small work sail-fishing boats of the era.
The Swallow shown in the Earls Court Boat Show from the filming has a couple of features that do not match AR's drawings.
I have to learn how to put the sketches on a web site.
Now I have to go teach Texans about timber.
John Nichols