BOATS
As mentioned earlier, HMCSS Victoria was outfitted with five boats; two cutter lifeboats, a whaler, a gig and a dinghy. The cutter lifeboats were 28 feet and 30 feet long, the whaler 24 feet, the gig 25 feet and the dinghy 12 feet. All boats were designed by the ship designer Oliver Lang.
No plans or sketeches wer found of these boats with the only imagery being that shown of the boats on their davits in the two lithographs.
Based on the following exerpt from 'Journal of the Royal Society of the Arts, and of the Institutes in Union, Volume 4, 1866 - Boats and Seagoing Ships, page 242', ship's of Victoria's size were required to carry 5 boats; specifically:
The “Steam Navigation Act” of 1851 contained very stringent regulations on the subject of boats. A distinction was, for the first time, made between the number of boats to be carried by sailing ships and steamers of like tonnage. A steam ship of 500 tons register was, by the Act, required to carry the same number and description of boats as a sailing ship of 800 tons. The number of baots required to be carried by the largest ship now became five instead of four.
Also, under the same act:
And no such vessel carrying more than ten passengers shall proceed to sea unless, in addition to the boats hereinbefore required, it also be provided with a life boat furnished with all requisites for use, or unless one of its boats hereinbefore required be rendered buoyant after the manner of life boats; ...
To meet all of these requirements several potential designs for the various boats were found in the RMG (NMM) Collections and adapted to conform with the very limited imagery. The boats were made by various club members, and to save some effort, it was decided to make the majority of these boats with their covers on. The covered boats were carved as plugs and painted. The open cutter has 'fatter' sides which represents the canvas covered corks applied to her internally as bouancy.
One lifeboat was left open as the 'sea-boat', and also the dinghy to show its detail. I have yet to add a vermillion coloured (painted) rubbing strake, ship's badges in the bows, and ropes on the sides of the lifeboats for men to cling to. The boats will not be put on the model until the rigging has been completed.
A sample of some of these boats is shown below.
cheers
Pat
By
Banyan ·
