LIGHTSHIP CORMORANT / LADY DIXON - Chapter 61

Well, with the aid of the Oxford English Dictionary,  a Glossary of Nautical Terms and, would you believe it, a medical dictionary, I have converted the 1880 document into landlubberese. I had hoped that there would be naval architects or something similar amongst my readers, but if there are, they kept a low profile! Not so one of my more nostalgic readers, who ignored the maritime history and went down the Kenneth Williams side-track, reminding me that the radio program was called ‘Round the Horn’ and featured such unlikely characters as J. Peasemould Gruntfuttock and Daphne Whitethigh. However he missed the important one - Rambling Sid Rumpo – who actually used the ‘clench’ in one of his ditties …

“When I was a clencher’s bogle man in famous Lincoln town,

I often clenched my bogling fork for less than half a crown.”

But thanks anyway Colin.

Back to business. Referring to the paragraph I quoted last time, ‘Scantlings’ I discovered did not refer to  particular pieces of a ship - in a boat plan it was the list of all the necessary construction materials, dimensions, hardware and fittings complete with specifications, quantities and sizes. No wonder this document is 19 pages long!  ‘Clenched’ means nailed and a ‘Scarf’ is an overlapping joint. I will not explain the whole document, but the medical dictionary solved ‘Intercostal’.   ‘Inter’ of course means ‘in between’ and ‘costal’ refers to ‘ribs’, which of course makes sense in a ship with a framework.  Perhaps the bashful nautical gurus could just assure me that I have got the right labels on the photo…..

Meanwhile I have set Simon the task of finding where the foremast was located. I suspect he is looking for a patch over the hole (which would be about 14 inches in diameter) put there during the 1943 re-modelling.

My search for a similar vessel has turned up one possible candidate. The Puffin was built in 1886/7 for the Commissioners of Irish Lights, but not by the same shipyard as Cormorant.  I would be surprised if CIL, having gone to the trouble of producing a comprehensive specification in 1880, did not use it for Puffin in 1886/7. Comparing the details of Puffin in the Board of Trade wreck report (Puffin sank in a hurricane in October 1896 off Daunt’s Rock) with the 1880 specification, there are numerous exact matches and a few very close matches, especially in the construction of the three masts. I would therefore classify them as sister ships.

Unfortunately I can find only one poor picture of Puffin, but that is better than no pictures at all for Cormorant. At least I now know what I am looking for! Can anyone out there help?

David

LIGHTSHIP CORMORANT / LADY DIXON - Chapter 60

I am back on the historical trail again, thanks initially to Harry Gibbons, who suggested that I contacted John Gore-Grimes, a Board member of the Commissioners of Irish Lights for many years. I am indebted now to John, who has come up with a copy of the original “Specification for Building a Light Vessel on the Composite or Combination Principle” dated April 1880 ‼ It is signed by one Joshua Cole, Com. R.N. Inspector of Irish Lights and Alex F Boxer, Assistant Inspector. It is 15 pages of detail about the construction of such vessels, plus two extra pages of details about the steel mast signed by W Douglass (sic). As Cormorant was built between 1876 and 1878, I am fairly confident that she was built to these specifications. Unfortunately although the text refers many times to drawings, none seem to have survived.

    Until I find a dictionary of maritime terms, much of what is stated is double Dutch to me, but many of my naval-type followers will have little trouble with paragraphs like this one :-

SCANTLINGS

Keel

To be of best East India teak, amidship, sided 12 inches, moulded 13 ½ inches, to be in three lengths, the foremost length and after length to be of Irish elm, connected together with scarphs, the scarphs to be 5 feet long and to be vertical, each to have a tabling 3 inches wide and 2 inches deep, to be laid together with flannel and a heavy coat of white lead, and fastened with six through copper bolts 1 inch diameter, driven and clenched on copper rings.

    At first sight I would have guessed the author to be the late Kenneth Williams!

   To be serious, the mast pages have settled one question that was puzzling me. Several sources of information on the Cormorant have stated that she had a steel mast and fixed lantern, while others spoke of a lantern weighing over two tons which was ‘wrapped’ around the mast and hoisted about 30ft above the deck. This document talks about three wrought iron girders 36ft 5 inches in length, which should be attached “…perfectly true and parallel to the centre of the mast, ..…one of them, to be used as a guide for the lantern, is to be planed on all sides;   the other two, which are to be used as a roller-path only, need not be planed.”  To me this means the lantern was hoisted, not fixed.

   Talking of masts, I had assumed that the Cormorant had only the two masts visible in the 1956 photographs on station in Belfast Lough – the main, stubby mast carrying the fixed lantern and the mizzen which was removed during its early days in Hoo. In my search for similar vessels pre-1943, I have discarded any with more than two masts. However, on Page 13 there are two wooden masts detailed – a foremast and a mizen (sic). They are both pitch pine, the foremast 54ft long and the mizen 50ft long. So I shall have to do my searches again and find vessels with three masts!

    So, with the aid of a glossary I have found on the Internet, I shall begin translating the document into landlubberese.  Watch this space.

David

LIGHTSHIP CORMORANT / LADY DIXON - Chapter 59

After some sensible advice from Steve, I am recommending to Simon that, for the stern area, we go for a 4x4 grid which provides support for all sides and ends of the plywood sheets. If there is movement / bounce / sag it risks damaging the waterproof roofing felt which will go on top of it all. For the sake of some extra 4x4 timber, we can avoid this.

    So first we coat the deck in bitumen. Then we build the grid (4x4 in red), making sure that the plywood panels will fit fore/aft snugly against the salon wall and then half-way across the first lateral joist and laterally half way across the middle fore/aft joist and so on. Lap joints where joists cross and half-laps when we need to extend a length. Both glued and screwed. Are you following this? 

We will get all the lengths and the joints cut beforehand and have the deck and step marked out. The plywood panels and the insulation panels will also be cut to shape before the actual building starts, including all the odd-shaped bits.

    With everything prepared and ready, we can choose a dry day which hopefully will fit in with the roofers so that the whole job can be finished and the stern deck watertight before any rain arrives. It would be nice to lay the grid onto the bitumen while it is still tacky, but that might be very messy! When the insulation panels go in, we have a can of insulating foam on hand to seal any small gaps.

   Next come the whole and nearly whole boards of plywood, which will be screwed down on all edges either to the 4x4, or to the gunwale step (dark grey). And we finish with the small bits at the stern and at the sides. Gutter sealant or something similar will be applied between the boards and also between the boards and the gunwale and the salon.

The finished, well half finished product will look something like this (Photoshop can only do so much!) .....

  

Send for the roofers.

 Then comes the bow area, following the same sort of procedure. Once the bow and stern are decked and watertight, any rain will run off down the ‘sidewalks’ and out of the drain holes. (I am sure there are proper nautical terms for both of those). Finally we do the sidewalks and  “t’ job’s a good un” as they say.

   That’s the plan anyway.  Any helpful suggestions would be welcome.

David

LIGHTSHIP CORMORANT / LADY DIXON - Chapter 58

Holidays over, it is time to get serious about the deck. I did some experiments (on the garage floor) with plywood and 4x4 timbers. To avoid excess movement/bounce/sag, the plywood covering has to be of reasonable thickness and well supported. Less of one means more of the other and somewhere in the equation will be the minimum cost point!  But let’s be practical.

    Our first plan was to use short lengths of scaffolding plank jammed between the deckhouse and the first part of the gunwale at intervals of 4ft (Photo). That is supposed to represent bitumen between the planks, not water! The insulation would fit between the planks and the whole lot covered with plywood from deckhouse to the main part of the gunwale. The plywood would be supported by and fixed to the planks and to the gunwale.  

     However, my experiments showed that on the deckhouse side, supported every 4ft, there would be definite sag unless the plywood was quite substantial (expensive). This would crush the insulation boards beneath and allow bounce. The other problem with the plank idea was that they would have to be doubled up to provide the 4 inch height needed to match the gunwale step. It would also degrade the insulation every 4ft for 9 inches, albeit slightly. (Photo)

    The second thought was to run a 4x4 along the side of the deckhouse and use that to support the plywood throughout its run along the sides (Photo). The unsupported distance would be across the width and be only about 20 inches. There would be little or no sag and no break in the insulation.

    The other practical point concerns the problem of rain interrupting the process. The ship (deck) is slightly banana-shaped so that water gathers amidships and drains through the holes you can see in the photos. If we have the side decks raised with timber and insulation and it rains, there will be large puddles at the bow and stern, which will have to be drained somehow before we can begin in those areas. So we will do them first. The stern is fairly straightforward and a simple grid of 4x4 will be fashioned to support the plywood. The bow is more complicated due to the companionway and the hawspipes (nostrils). Necessity is the mother of invention! (Photo)

    The numbers indicate how many 2.1m x 1.2m insulation panels are going to be needed (roughly!). There will be off-cuts aplenty to fill in the awkward bits.

David.

LIGHTSHIP CORMORANT / LADY DIXON - Chapter 57

Simon is taking a well-earned break in Greece – or was it Turkey? Anyway, he will be back at the end of this week and we can give some serious thought to getting on with things. If Simon can take a break from work for a week, I can certainly get down there to help, but I must find a way to avoid the M25 ‼  Our Indian summer is all very well, but it cannot last much longer. Those stoves must be installed (professionally, it is not a DIY job) and the deck insulated. The new multi-fuel stove is of course going in the living room to replace the much-repaired wreck that was there, and the Italian looking cooker has now been allocated its place in the kitchen – not for cooking, just heating.

Below deck the Godin stove will sit on a bespoke coal bunker .......

...... tucked into a corner at the bottom of the spiral stairs (Photo). The corner will look much better in due course! But then that applies to the whole of the below deck area.   

The living room stove and the Godin will eventually be connected up to radiators, as they both have back-boilers. The kitchen cooker may well also have a water heating capability.

I meant to mention after our last trip down there, a piece of history which is going to be recycled. In the centre of the deckhouse, over the main stairway, was a 'skylight’ with four glazed ports. It has now been replaced by a modern double-glazed unit with integral venetian blind, but the ports will be built into some of the internal doors. Meanwhile, the old unit lies on the roof next to its replacement, waiting dismantling.

David