Dread Pirate Wesley

Ship's boats

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[pid][/pid] 134 A&B

Hello everyone,

I wanted to start a topic on making bruickbuilt ship's boats. Ship's boats might seem like a contradiction, but what Im refering to are the longboats, cutters, and pinaces that men-o-war carried for all the small duties required to serve a larger vessel. Ive been tinckering and kit bashing some models together to compliment my own man-o-war, but I thought it would be best to start a new topic devoted to these small craft. Of course you could just use Lego small boats, but this thread is for MOC boats.

After going through several versions I came up with this for the ship's longboat:

7253405564_2fcccba2a5.jpg

7253405510_e8926b6d57.jpg

7253405856_7c3cdb541c.jpg

It can seat 6, or 4 plus a sea chest, with 3 rowing stations and one at the tiller. The colors are only for the mock up, I had the most pieces in red and black. The final version will probably be white with a green stripe as this seems to be most common. Here is a version of a cutter, didnt quite have enough yellow but you get the idea:

7253405748_73610b861f.jpg

7253405610_a30d5b2c65.jpg

The cutter is in a "stowed" configuration, with lashings and oars as she would be on the deck of a ship. The cutter is quite a bit smaller than the longboat here's how they look on the boat rails of a ship-of-the-line:

7253405448_e3eb8b42ee.jpg

This seems to be an under discussed topic but let me know what you guys think. Let's see some of your ideas and creations!

:jollyroger: Dread Pirate Wesley

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I love the idea, I even like what you have so far, but would you hate me if I suggested they look a bit more like zodiacs then long boats?

ribo340a.jpg

it might be the colors, which you suggested you'd change o later models, but i think they are a bot shallow and come to a point at the keel rather abruptly. like a larger ship, long boats seemed to be more "horse shoe" shaped in the cross section.

Longboat_drawings.jpg

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Really nice! I'll try my desing based on yours, hopefully this weekend..

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I love the idea, I even like what you have so far, but would you hate me if I suggested they look a bit more like zodiacs then long boats?

I agree with you they do look more like rigid boats than long boats. They do have a keel though, so the cross section is not flat on the bottom, as you can tell they dont even sit flat on a table. They are not perfect by any means but that is why I started this thread, to get ideas and for people to post their versions. Try it out yourself and see what you can come up with!

:jollyroger: DPW

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just one pic, enjoy!

Looks great Legonardo! I especially like the technique on the bow, gives it a very realistic shape. It might be a bit large for minifig illusion scale but would fit nicely on a minifig scale ship. Good stuff :thumbup:

:jollyroger: DPW

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Great design, incredible how you built it so detailed.

I tried to make a design of my own but really couldn't find anything with which I was pleased. Perhaps you can however take some inspiration at Foremast's Jack design, which I find very nice too:

icarus_jolly_boat.jpg

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I was interrupted before finishing my last entry but posted it in my haste any way. I do have a design of my own to submit and find it interesting the Legonardo chimed in as mine is based on his as it appeared in “Close Encounters”. This is a Dhow (a kind of lateen rigged sea boat, originating in either the Persian Gulf or Indian Ocean and migrate to the Mediterranean later.) It’s not exactly a launch, though they are a sort of Arabic version, of what Europeans call a pinnace. Using smaller parts to shrink the scale a bit might work well. Keep in mind though that ships boats (long boats, pinnace, even gigs) tend to be larger than expected, seating as many as four across.

IMG_1048.jpg

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I'm afraid I don't have a great picture of it, but I had a go at a longboat here -

02.jpg

It's pretty similar, with the two top SNOT layers with curved bricks in them, with some sort of base on it (mine had a curvier bottom).

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Those are nice, I like the yellow one most (the shape).

I haven't made many ship boats yet, I only have these:

dsc05258.jpg

They are very small so they would fit on my ship (the prefab longboats were a bit too big) but obviously a bit minimalistic :pir_laugh2:

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I'm afraid I don't have a great picture of it, but I had a go at a longboat here -

It's pretty similar, with the two top SNOT layers with curved bricks in them, with some sort of base on it (mine had a curvier bottom).

Your longboat was a inspiration for mine, at least I think so, had to guess on a lot of it from that picture :pir-classic: I just made it shallower to fit the proportions of my ship-of-the-line. Making it any taller or bigger and it dominates the center of the ship. Love to see a better picture!

Those are nice, I like the yellow one most (the shape).

I haven't made many ship boats yet, I only have these:

They are very small so they would fit on my ship (the prefab longboats were a bit too big) but obviously a bit minimalistic :pir_laugh2:

Those would work well on a smaller ship for sure. Plus they look like they could be stacked on top of each other which would be useful for a larger ship with 4 or more boats.

:jollyroger: DPW

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Here's my boat for the HMS Athena. It's larger than the pre-fab boat that I have, and it has a slot at the bow for a mast.

imag0367.jpg

imag0368.jpg

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That's a nice boat Horatio, I like the blue and white color scheme too. Thanks everyone else for posting examples in here too, lots of good inspiration.

I spent some time updating my first designs. Finally have enough pieces to get the colors I want. I wasn't too pleased with the bow design at first, I like this second attempt better. Here's what I came up with for the longboat (yellow) and the cutter (red):

7482163756_57d36ff468_z.jpg

7482163888_158188b45d_z.jpg

And the cutter with oars stowed, as she will appear on the boat booms:

7482164376_57b2905eca_z.jpg

Here's a cross section to show what it looks like with one side removed:

7482163670_4c08f7c3df_z.jpg

Let me know what you think!

:jollyroger: DPW

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It definitely is an improvement from your last version and I don't think it is possible to build something much better than this at this scale, great work default_thumbup.gif

The only thing I actually would change is the keel, quoting Kurigan's plans:

Longboat_drawings.jpg

They don't get much of a keel, do they? I mean, there is a keel, obviously, but is so thin in comparison that I don't think its really worth making it. Yours is actually pretty near to the scale — in the plans the keel height is 1/10 of the total height while in yours is precisely 1/7, 1 plate out of 7. The whole point is that if there is a keel it should extend from stern to stern which is clearly impossible in this case.

The keel is totally irrelevant but I think it adds to extra height unnecessarily. This being said I absolutely love your design and I never thought that a boat this good could be made pirate_blush.gif Fantastic!

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These all look very nice! I might have to try some out for my ships. Great idea for a thread. :pir_laugh2:

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Nice boat's everyone,but may i ask what is going on in this picture in the corner of captain Blackmoor's boat? :pir-blush:

longboat002.jpg

Edited by Alasdair Ryan

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Do I see an illegal building technique? :bonaparte::pir-grin:

Those small boats are great, everyone! I might borrow some of those ideas sometime. I especially liked Horatio's boat as it seems very sleek.

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The boat has been on the shelves for some time, and it's still not completed. It needs a lot of finetuning. :pir-tongue:

You guys were referring to the technique right? It's quite sloppy and I'm not going to keep it that way. :pir-wink:

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I've made this one a while ago. It still needs improvement but I'm getting there. :pir-classic:

It seems a little big to me, but then again I am used to only frigate long boats.

Captain Green Hair and Errorist made an excellent one ages ago:

e.jpg

It had put mine to shame at the time, which didn't use any SNOT technique:

th_HPIM1262.jpg

Inspired by Captain Green Hair's and Errorist's I built this one:

mostlydone2.jpg

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It's true my longboat is quite large, but it's meant for a minifig scale third rate. It was required to hold about 80 men.

Le Duquesne is one of my inspiration sources, as you can see it holds quite a large longboat as well:

le_duquesne.jpg

But again, my example is my first attempt at a longboat. :pir_laugh2:

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It definitely is an improvement from your last version and I don't think it is possible to build something much better than this at this scale, great work default_thumbup.gif

They don't get much of a keel, do they? I mean, there is a keel, obviously, but is so thin in comparison that I don't think its really worth making it. Yours is actually pretty near to the scale — in the plans the keel height is 1/10 of the total height while in yours is precisely 1/7, 1 plate out of 7. The whole point is that if there is a keel it should extend from stern to stern which is clearly impossible in this case.

The keel is totally irrelevant but I think it adds to extra height unnecessarily. This being said I absolutely love your design and I never thought that a boat this good could be made pirate_blush.gif Fantastic!

Thanks Frank. I agree there is not much of a keel on these boats, that would kind of make them useless in the shallows anyways. The 1 x 10 plate on the bottom of the longboat can be removed, but it is necessary to attach it to the boat booms on my sixty-four. I will try extending it further or simply removing it and see how that looks.

That is a huge longboat Blackmoor! I've actually never seen one quite so large, wonder if it had a special purpose to fit so many men. How many minifigs do you think yours would hold? You should try it just for comparison :pir_laugh2:

:jollyroger: DPW

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