Subject:
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Re: The Canoe Myth of .pirates
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.pirates
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Date:
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Thu, 21 Aug 2003 02:16:18 GMT
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Viewed:
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2318 times
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In lugnet.pirates, Richie Dulin wrote:
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The Accepted Canoe Warning .pirates.
The casual reader of .pirates has probably seen warnings about canoe
building:
- From Bruce Schlickbernd on the Armada Flagship: “You can add another center section, but beyond that it starts to look like a canoe.”
- From Richard Parsons on big hulls: “At 16 studs, going beyond 4 midsections makes the ship seem too narrow (more like a canoe than a ship).”
- From Matt Morgan on the benefits of cutting hull parts (which was strangely never backed up with pics...): “I have made a few ships with 6 mid-sections they always looked like a canoe”
- From Steve Bliss on the building of a two decker: “It looks too much like a big canoe currently.”
- And from me in .loc.au about extending the Armada Flagship: “Beware building a canoe!”
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Words of wisdom, and you even wisely quote the artist first, who surely has a
good eye for these kind of things. :-)
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Surely, the USS Constellation is not canoelike? Well...
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When I was at the Lego store in Anaheim just a couple of weeks ago, I looked at
the Constellation in passing and I thought it looked a bit canoe-ish (really!).
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Vessel
| | Length
| | Beam
| | Length:Beam
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| | LEGO USS Constellation
(Excl bow dec)
| | 56 studs
50 studs
| | 10 studs
| | 5.6:1
5:1
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| | Real USS Constellation
| | 164 feet
| | 41 feet
| | 4:1
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| | Real USS Constitution
| | 175 feet
| | 43.5 feet
| | 4.02:1
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You are quoting the waterline length. The overall length is 204 feet for the
Constitution - and by this, they mean “head (bow) to taffrail”. Anyway, that
would make a ratio of about 4.7 to 1 as opposed to the 5.6 (the bow would
include anything but the bowsprit) for the Lego Constellation. Visually, this
is what you will key on. Going over a ratio of 5 to 1 is going to increasingly
make the ship look like a canoe...or more properly like it is a later era
clipper or schooner that has (or should have) more than three masts (4, 5, 6, 7,
I believe there was a 9, maybe more).
The Mary Rose, a much earlier ship, didn’t even rate out to 4 to 1 (looking and
calculating...about 3.8:1), and about 3.25:1 at the waterline). This pretty
much confirms what our tells us: the earlier ships were tubbier.
<snipping excess ship data)
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HMLS Intractable
(excl bow dec)
| | 55 studs
50 studs
| | 16 studs
| | 3.43:1
3.13:1
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Looking at the ratio’s above, if you accept the LEGO Constellation is not too
canoelike, and use a 5:1 length to beam ratio, you could safely go to 6 (and
maybe even 7) sections using standard wide hull pieces.
Note that these numbers make no allowance for overhangs fore or
aft. Nevertheless, these are scary numbers compared to what is normally used.
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I suspect you are trying to prove a bumblebee can’t fly.
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Maybe the canoe myth arose when ship builders where laying out the hull
sections, and constructing the middle layers of the hull. Maybe it arose
because traditional LEGO Black Seas Barracuda designs were used (with no
deck) and the ‘see through to the keel’ effect reminded people of canoes.
I know I got nervous when I laid out the six centres for the Misérable and
saw how long it looked ... and seriously considered revising the design to
five.
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I always judged by looking at someone’s finished ship.
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A dimension I haven’t explored here is the vertical, either the hull or the
rigging. Looking at the Misérable now, it looks a bit too tall in the hull
for it’s length, and maybe now I now the ratios, I’ll be brave and take the
next Misérable out to eight centre sections. ;-)
I do remain convinced though that the biggest obstacle to ship building is
the rigging. Masts aren’t too much of a problem, but keeping them stable is.
The existing long ratlines aren’t tall enough for the Misérable, so they’re
not going to be tall enough for anything bigger. I think the solution may be
either joining ratlines or coming up with strong enough tops which can be
used on mast pieces in lieu of the 6x6 with clips top plate.
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You literally need to use the same rigging as a real ship to some degree and
stabilize the masts not just to the sides: fore and aft “stays” help (string, or
the one-round-plates connected by string).
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I think the key to building bigger vessels is to experiment a bit instead of
following the accepted wisdom. A bare six section hull may look a bit
canoelike, but once the hull is properly completed (and a deck added!) it’s
likely to look properly ship shape!
So, let’s see some bigger ships!
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You do the work, I’ll tote along the canoe paddles! :-)
-->Bruce<--
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: The Canoe Myth of .pirates
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| (...) -snip- (...) Of course! (...) I've had a browse of www.constellation.org, and while I wouldn't describe the real constellation as canoeish, she does seem long, narrow, and fairly straight sided. (...) You've lost me there... how would using a (...) (21 years ago, 21-Aug-03, to lugnet.pirates, FTX)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | The Canoe Myth of .pirates
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| Warning: The below may well include a little more analysis than is really needed... The Canoe Myth of .pirates ===...=== Background I've just completed an enjoyable few hours building my 10021 USS Constellation. For a 1978 set, the original set (...) (21 years ago, 20-Aug-03, to lugnet.pirates, FTX)
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