Bob,
RE your offer: "If you send me your address I will send you a picture of a
scottish bark ..." I'd really appreciate your idea re the design which
sounds very close to my own ideas from other sources. My address is:
Bill Buehler
PO Box 339
Crestone, CO 81131
USA
Re "screwing" the planks on I expect that they used trennels or "trunnels",
ie "tree-nails" which were cylindrical wooden pegs driven in with a tight
fit and coated with gum and then cut flush with the hull's surface. A wood
wedge was inserted crossed re the plank's grain. They were of a diameter of
one inch per 100 feet of hull. There is an argument about lashing the planks
on around the frame through holes in the planks but I believe that they were
more advanced than that. When they swell, trunnels would be much better than
metal nails or bolts.
My version of Henry's ship, which I intend to paint, is that it was a basic
knorr (a better and larger sea hull than the smaller "dragon" boat), three
masts with a single square course on each mast, ship-rigged. I believe that
it used a low, decked/railed focsle and decked/railed stern quarter-deck.
The foresle would use a bowline to a beitass (boom rigged out forud). One
fore-staysle with a short sprit. No lateen. I also think he used a centered
tiller/rudder instead of the usual "steerboard" (starbd) arrangement. In
other words I'm not going by convention and I'm open to new ideas practical
to long-haul Atlantic transits.
Thank you,
Bill Buehler
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