Here are some images of Artesania Latina's 1/25 scale Providence Whaleboat.
From Wikipedia"
A whaleboat is a type of open boat
that is relatively narrow and pointed at both ends, enabling it to move
either forwards or backwards equally well. It was originally developed
for whaling, and later became popular for work along beaches, since it
does not need to be turned around for beaching or refloating. The term
"whaleboat" may be used informally of larger whalers, or of a boat used for whale watching.
Today whaleboats are used as safety vessels aboard marine vessels. The United States Coast Guard
has been using them since 1791. Their simple open structure allows for
easy access and personnel loading in the event of an emergency. These
whaleboats are now considered very important, and highly regimented
safety vessels. Boats must include a hatchet, lifeboat compass, lifeboat
sea anchor, emergency signal mirror, emergency drinking water, lifeboat
first aid kit, jack knife with can opener, lifeboat bilge pump,and
emergency provisions. On modern warships, a relatively light and
seaworthy boat for transport of ship's crew may be referred to as a whaleboat or whaler.
It may also refer to a type of vessel designed as a lifeboat or
"monomoy" used for recreational and competitive rowing in the San
Francisco Bay Area and coastal Massachusetts.
Whaleboats were also extensively used in warfare. Colonel Benjamin Church is credited with first pioneering their use for amphibious combat operations against Abenaki and Mi'kmaq tribes in what is today Maine and Acadia . His troops, New England colonial forces and Native allies from southern New England, used them as early as 1696 (during King William's War).
Others in the Northeastern borderlands followed suit and they were
utilized throughout the imperial conflicts of the early 18th century,
and extensively used by both British and colonial troops during the French and Indian war.
Units that made extensive use of whaleboats were the 7th Massachusetts
Infantry Regiment at the siege of Louisburg in 1745, often referred to
as "the whaleboat regiment," and Gorham's Rangers,
formed in 1744, initially a company of Indians mainly from Cape Cod,
many of whom were employed as whalers, and which later evolved into a
British Army ranger company in the 1750s and 1760s. John Bradstreet's Bateaux and Transport service,
a corps of armed boatmen tasked with moving supplies on inland
waterways during the French and Indian War also used whaleboats
extensively. In 1772, American colonials used whaleboats to attack and destroy HMS Gaspée in Narragansett Bay. During the American Revolutionary War, there were many whaleboat raids, including one with 230 men led by Return J. Meigs, Sr. to sack Sag Harbor on Long Island
in 1777. On December 7, 1782, two fleets of whaleboats fought a bloody
battle on Long Island Sound known as the Boats Fight. During the
desperate hand-to-hand conflict, every man involved was either killed or
injured.
The whaleboat's design takes after those the Vikings used during the 11th century, around the time Beowulf was written and Leif Erickson
came to America briefly, before the Vikings really made their mark on
English culture. As a whaling vessel, it fulfilled its purposes for what
it went through and its “superior handling characteristics soon made it
a popular general-purpose ship’s boat”.
The whaleboat generally is outfitted with a dismountable sail post for
sailing across seas, but in close proximity, they can use oars for rapid
rowing to nearby areas with a large rowing crew. The basics of the
whaleboat consists of a rudder, main sail, and occasionally a jib.
Without the rudder, the boat would have no steering capabilities, and
without the sails, the vessel would have no propulsion, assuming there
were no oars or a sizable rowing crew to compensate for the lack of
propulsion. After 1850 most were fitted with a centreboard
that would keep the boat from swaying too far to one side or another,
located in the center of the boat. The main sail would catch the wind,
which would in turn push the sail, pushing the boat in the process, and
the rudder, depending on the direction the person manning it pointed it
at, would push the stern
of the boat in a certain direction, steering the whaleboat essentially.
The rudder consists of basically two parts: the part that sticks in the
water in order to give thrust, and the part the coxswain,
or the person steering, holds onto in order to push or pull the first
part. The jib sail is a significantly smaller sail that serves to help
steer and propel the boat forward as well. By catching the wind at a
specific angle, the sail can either double as a second main sail
catching the wind, or help by adding “better close-hauled sailing and of
setting extra sail with comparatively little labor demand”
Whaleboats became prevalent in ancient Inuit
and Yupik culture when trade and other forms of nutrition were sparse.
Whaleboats gave them a means of travelling to distant places in order to
obtain resources. Natives had to gather sustenance, generally large
fish such as whales, when at all possible, from the sea. Whaleboats were
not always taken out to sea to hunt whales, but they could also be used
to transport dead whales that they had scavenged from the shallow
waters. Whaleboats used in whaling had a stout post mounted on the aft
deck, around which the steersman would cinch the rope once the whale had
been harpooned, and by which the whale would drag the boat until it was
killed. Large baleen
and bow heads whales became their main export to Europe and the
Americas, which in turn would help in revitalizing the trade in their
region, an area that ranged from the Bering-Chukchi Sea to eastern
Arctic.
Norwegians began to dominate whaling when they turned it into a
full-blown industry in 1904. They were more skilled and had better
techniques than other civilizations around this same time period. The
Norwegians had very efficient gunners, men who fired the weapons, the
technology of the Sven Foyn gun and the grenade harpoon, and they utilized the powered whale catcher.
Although all these factors were effective and sped trade, the demand of
oil was its own issue. Whales were mainly used for their fat that was
melted to oilmaybe talk about this process. The Norwegians had a systemtalk about the system
in place and partnered with the British to profit. The simple whale
boat received a number of modifications throughout this periodexpand on the modifications.
What was once a simple single hull, open boat became a body of new
technologies to make whaling more efficient. Changes like the use of
radar and radio instead of a lookout and new handling tools.
A whaler or whaling ship is a specialized ship, designed for whaling, the catching and/or processing of whales. The former includes the whale catcher – a steam or diesel-driven vessel with a harpoon gun mounted at its bow. The latter includes such vessels as the sail or steam-driven whaleship of the 16th to early 20th century and the floating factory or factory ship
of the modern era. There have also been vessels which combined the two
activities, such as the bottlenose whalers of the late 19th and early
20th century, and catcher/factory ships of the modern era.
Whaleships had two or more whaleboats,
open rowing boats used in the capture of whales. Whaleboats brought the
captured whales to the whaleships to be flensed or cut up. Here the blubber was rendered into oil using two or three try-pots set in a brick furnace called the tryworks.
At first, whale catchers either brought the whales they killed to a
whaling station or factory ship anchored in a sheltered bay or inlet.
Later, with the development of the slipway at the ship's stern, whale catchers were able to transfer their catch to factory ships operating in the open sea.
2 comments:
I am an older gentleman with severe arthritis in my hands. I am looking to purchase a finished new Bedford or other historic whaleboat models no longer than fifteen inches. I realize this may be much less than possible. Thanks
Robert Walsh
Hi Robert - The only Bedford Boats that I know of are over and have built are over 24 inches long. Unfortunately I know no smaller ones available. They may be out there, but I haven't seen them.
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