Boat Building and Marine Engineering
Index
Introduction
In the early 17th century East Anglia’s rivers were, along with the Thames, the main centres of the English shipbuilding industry but it is the period between the early 19th century and the early 20th century, which is seen as a golden age for local shipbuilding.
Shipyards during this period boasted very little in the way of machinery and the tools that hung in the boat builders sheds were all hand tools. In a typical boatyard a rotating ‘capstan’, worked either by manpower or horsepower, was used for hauling vessels out for repair. Many workshops would have also included a mould-loft where the lines of the vessel’s timbers would be drawn out and the moulds used as patterns when sawing out the ship’s timbers. The warships constructed at Yarmouth during the Napoleonic era were, in fact, built from draughts supplied by their Lordships of the Admiralty.
There is no doubt that some of the more experienced boat builders were capable of setting out their designs on paper and working straight from these draughts but wooden half-models have survived from the 19th century which show that ships were designed and working models usually constructed before work on the full size boat began.
There were many specialist craftsmen in the bigger yards, who would fit out the vessels built by the shipwrights. Rope-making, sail-making, anchor-smithing, caulking, block-making and mast-making, were all specialist trades ancillary to the shipbuilding industry. Shipwrights undertook seven-year apprenticeship during which time they were granted no holidays. These craftsmen knew continuity of employment, worked long, hard hours and were proud of their trade.
Boat Building and Marine Engineering
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Half Models in the Nottage Institute.
There are more than a hundred builders' half models in the Nottage collection representing many years of work in the shipyards of the Colne. Half models were not made as ornaments although they were often polished and mounted for presentation to a ship's owner, or used to decorate the builder's office, when they had fulfilled their purpose.
They were made to show the customer the form which the finished hull would take and could be altered if that customer thought something not quite as he wanted it. The model then became a three dimensional plan from which measurements could be taken and shapes analysed and enlarged to make the full sized patterns for the components of the ship. On the models for steel ships the marks showing the sizes and shapes of the steel plates can be seen very clearly.
The oldest half model in the collection dates from before 1850 and may even be for a ship built in the eighteenth century.
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