Thread: Pond yachts are my new thing

Here's another pond yacht finished. This one is loosely based on the famous schooner Bluenose, so it's Bluenose converted into a pond yacht rather then a scale model.

Bluenose was one of the Grand Banks fishing/racing schooners. These boats made a fascinating story. The Grand Banks schooners were designed for cod fishing out of the Eastern seaports. The boats that got the catch to markets quickest got the best payoff so over time the fishing boats were designed to be faster and faster till they were virtually racing yachts. Eventually, in the off season, that what they became - famous, much loved racing yachts competing in a kind of parallel Americas cup.

It's the working life of the men on board that I find really interesting though. The scooners carried 8 or so dories (read flat bottomed dinghies) stacked inside each other on deck. Once it reached the Banks, hundreds of miles offshore, the schooner sailed along dropping off each dory with 2 men aboard and 6 or so massive long lines. The dories filled up with fish then made their way back to the schooner. Imagine being hundreds of miles out into the ocean, in a little dory, and watching your mother ship sail off into the distance. Needless to say deaths in the job were very common. It's a story well worth googling.

Again, it's a homemade Braine Gear on the rear deck, intended to keep an unattended pond yacht on track whether running or reaching.

I think this will be my last, time to move on to something else.

Cheers
Arron

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